by j9robinson | Apr 1, 2014
If you have already written your college application essays, and either know where you are headed this fall or are still waiting, why not enter them into some contests? Why the heck not? Some offer some decent cashola prizes.
Here’s the best one I found that looks like it’s worth the time it takes to send them in!
Extra Credit: Scholarships for Exceptional Student Writing. This contest will awards $5,000 to the three top winners! You can use essays you already submitted to colleges. The judge panel is amazing, including famous writers, such as Jeff Kinney (wrote Diary of a Wimpy Kid!), Wally Lamb (She’s Come Undone), Kelly Corrigan, Mary Roach (Stiff, about cadavers) and Anna Quindlen (famous New York Times columnist). It would be an honor just to have these brilliant writers read your work!
Good luck!
by j9robinson | Mar 15, 2014
One of my favorite student-run blogs on college admissions, The Prospect, featured this interview with me last week. I thought the writer, Oriana Halverson, did a terrific job, and flushed out some helpful information:
Essay Hell’s Janine Robinson:
Janine Robinson, Founder of Essay Hell.
By Oriana Halvorsen, Spring 2014 Community Outreach Intern for The Prospect
Name: Janine Robinson
Website: Essay Hell (She also has two e-books on sale on her website to check out, with a third on the way this spring!)
Social Media Links: Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr.
To start off with a more career-oriented question, how did you get into the business of helping students write their college essays?
When my daughter was a junior in high school in 2008, I helped her brainstorm topics for her college essays—both for the University of California and The Common App. When I saw that these essays were best when written in a narrative (story-telling) style, I realized that my background as a journalist, writer/editor and English teacher almost perfectly prepared me to help her. So I started helping other students in my hometown of Laguna Beach, California. And it kind of took off from there. I also started my blog, Essay Hell, and published essay-writing guide books. (more…)
by j9robinson | Mar 10, 2014
Big changes in the new SAT test announced recently caused quite a stir, especially that they were dropping the essay component. I was most excited, however, that they also were going to stop emphasizing “obscure” vocabulary words.
Not only do I think it’s ridiculous to force students to memorize lists of long words no one uses, but I think it’s a huge waste of precious class and homework time.
After years of working with students on their college application essays, I have seen how the emphasis in English classes on these obscure words oozed into students’ writing–and made it pedantic (look it up. haha.) and dull. Most think they sounded smarter when they use words like “deleterious” and “cacophony” in their essays. (more…)
by j9robinson | Feb 8, 2014
I recently received an email from a student named Daniel Ryu, who is a sophomore at Harvard University. Daniel said he was stressed out his senior year of high school during the application process and had found my blog helpful. He offered to share what worked for him. No matter where you are aiming to get in, I would listen closely to what Daniel has to say. Obviously, it worked!
Here’s Daniel’s guest post:
4 Tips for the College Essay
So you’re a high school senior or maybe even a junior; the thought of applying to college has been on your mind for some time. It seems that every moment of your high school career has been building up to this point. Your GPA is mostly set and you are already involved in all the clubs and extracurriculars that you will ever join, at least in high school. There is now one thing that stands in your way. The college essay. (more…)
by j9robinson | Jan 22, 2014
A couple weeks ago, I shared on LinkedIn a New York Times column about “annoying, overused and abused” words from 2013, and asked a group of college admissions experts for the most common offenders they found in college application essays.
The idea is that when you are editing a draft of your essay that you can try to spot words that don’t work, whether they were over-used, inaccurate, unnecessary, redundant or even not a word. And improve your essay.
When you first sit down to pound out your first draft, however, don’t even worry about what words you use. Just get it all out. This list is mainly for the process of self-editing, when you re-read your work and make changes to improve the clarity, flow and meaning. (more…)
by j9robinson | Jan 16, 2014
Unlike incoming freshman, transfer students typically are older, usually have a couple years of college and are expected to navigate this process largely on their own.
But that doesn’t make it any easier—especially writing the college application transfer essays.
In high school, most students are automatically matched up with counselors or their parents hire private college admissions counselors to help them through the process. For transfer students, it’s often up to you to seek help.
According to the National Association of College Admission Counseling, about one-third of college students will change schools—from both community colleges into four year schools, or from one four-year school to a different one.
That’s a lot of students out there trying to figure it all out. So at least you aren’t alone! (more…)
by j9robinson | Jan 14, 2014
Many students have trouble finding their “voice” while writing college application essays.
One of the biggest problems I see is that students want to sound smart and impressive, and they often lose their natural story-telling voice by forcing in big words and long, formal sentences.
Most students understand the narrative voice when they read it, but have a hard time capturing their own.
I always advise students to “write like they talk,” but this can be hard to do.
Here’s a technique I use to help them capture their natural language to use in their essays.
This is hard to do alone, but if you can rope someone else into helping you—a friend, teacher, college counselor, tutor, parent, etc.—it can be so helpful. (more…)
by j9robinson | Dec 24, 2013
It’s almost Christmas Eve, just hours away in California. And we are coming upon another deadline–The Common Application–in January. If you are applying to colleges via the Common App, and you have yet to write your college application essays, I imagine you are starting to feel the heat of essay hell.
No use kicking yourself for waiting so long. I’m sure you have some good excuses. What does worry me, however, are students who might start to consider taking a “short cut.” Such as hiring one of those ubiquitous “Write Your Essay For You” online businesses that sell essays, or even worse, copying someone else’s. No matter how panicked you might feel at this point, it’s simply not worth it. For several reasons: (more…)
by j9robinson | Dec 17, 2013
The winter flurry of letters is landing in mail boxes around the globe this time of year. I just heard from three ecstatic students who learned last week they were accepted into their dream schools–one was Harvard, another Wellesley, and a third Middlebury. I felt excited and proud for them. But I will feel equally excited for my students who will soon learn they will be attending schools in our University of California system, whether it’s Berkeley, UCI or Santa Cruz, or other state universities such as UW, Boulder and U. of O, and especially those getting into the small liberal arts colleges no one has ever heard of, but are true gems.
And I also can’t help think about those who are getting those awful cryptic rejections in the mail at the same time. They can really sting.
But if you are still waiting to learn where you will be attending college (or are still working on your college application and essays), just know that you will land in the place that is right for you. It may not be that dream school, or the one you couldn’t wait to tell your friends about getting into. But chances are you will attend a school that you will end up absolutely loving. It’s all about finding the right match–kind of like shoes, if they don’t fit right, they will hurt your feet. (more…)
by j9robinson | Dec 16, 2013
Stumped by the University of Colorado Supp? Me, too!
I’ve had quite a few students this “season” who were flummoxed by the supplement for the University of Colorado. It kind of threw me a bit as well. But behind all that blah, blah, blah, I believe it was just another way of asking: Why Our College? or more specifically, Why YOU At Our College?
This is a common theme of many of the supplemental college application essays. And even though most students are pretty fried after writing their core essays, they shouldn’t overlook these supps and just give back a bunch of blah, blah, blah. It can be challenging, but it’s worth the time to find some tangible, specific and personal details to give your answer meaning and interest. I’ve bolded some key words in the official prompt to get you thinking of ways to respond: (more…)
