What Do Admissions Officers Really Really Want?
College Application Essays
Hot Writing Tips from The Other Side!
If you haven’t noticed, I have a lot of opinions about what makes a great college application essay.
But who am I?
I’ve never been an admissions officer, so how do I know what they like and want?
I thought it was time to ask a real live, breathing admissions officer who reads thousands of these essays–and uses them to decide who’s in or who’s out.
To find a great source, I went back to when I started tutoring students on these essays, and my very first client–my daughter.
When Cassidy was an incoming high school senior during the summer of 2008, I helped with her essays.
We had read the guide on finding terrific small liberal arts schools that are off the radar, called 40 Colleges That Change Lives, and she ended up going to one from that book, called Hendrix College in Arkansas.
Cassidy just graduated this spring, and her small college was every bit as wonderful both academically and socially as the book described (Five years in a row Hendrix has been on the “Most Up and Coming Schools” list for U.S. News & World Report).
I decided to ask their admissions officers how they select students using these essays. (more…)
