College Essay Advisors

College Essay Advisors If you’re applying to a large state institution, and your numbers are strong relative to their average student body, then you’ll get in on the strength of your four years of hard work. The bottom line is that they may be getting 25,000 applications, and they simply don’t have time to sift through essays and recommendations. There are so many terrific free resources online â€" just google “brainstorming college essay” and you’ll be pleased with what comes up. Also, look at the Common Application essay promptsâ€" one of them will speak to you, but you need to really read them. However, if you’re applying to an Ivy League school or a smaller liberal arts college, then they’re really looking at the whole package and the essay can be very important. At some of these schools, there are very few students who don’t have near-perfect test scores and GPAs, so how do you stand out? They’re looking at your essay, recommendations and activities to understand the whole picture of you. It all depends on where you’re applying, your grades and your test scores. Keep an eye peeled for course listings, recent news events, maps and descriptions of important campus buildings, student run organizations, and other key terms. Then take those terms and plug them right into Google, Youtube and Linkedin! After reading links on the things that interest you, you’ll understand it almost as well as someone at the school! Statistical websites like College Factual are tremendously helpful here as well, as are blogs from current and former students, Vlogs, Instagram feeds â€" anything and everything is fair game. Given volume, staff sizes, and compressed timelines between application deadlines and decision release, that seems at worst a blatant lie, and at best an incredibly inefficient process. DEEP WEB RESEARCH. This should be the heart of your essay, as well as the meat and potatoes. Reading the school’s website is not a bad start, as it will give you a basic overview of what’s on offer. I’m going to give you the rundown of what colleges are looking for when they read your application, and then I’m going to explain how the college essay fits into that equation. But the same is true for college essays, as Orwell doubtlessly would have realized if he were reanimated and handed him a sheaf of Common Applications. The sad truth is that most college application essays are not very good. When I say they are “not very good”, I mean they are either boring, impenetrable, melodramatic, or all of the above. College admissions officers comb through hundreds of essays a year, so you have just a few minutes to catch their attention. Open with an anecdote (If it’s funny, even better.) that will hook them in the beginning and keep them reading until the end. Or go for their heart â€" trying to move an admission officer with emotion isn’t a bad idea, either. Some schools will tell you that two separate readers evaluate every essay in its entirety. They’re an important representation of a student’s academic preparation, and in some cases, a pivotal piece of the admission decision. For students choosing a test optional route to admission, the essay can be the tipping point that determines admissibility. At Willamette and other universities, “essays in many cases have become even more valuable than test scores,” Corner said. Don’t turn in your essay without someone else reading through it, Corner advises. Cite a wide range of sources in your essay to show the depth of your research. Here are a few pieces of advice to consider as you write, revise, and submit your college essays. While a strong essay may elevate a candidate in a crowded field, she says it doesn’t make or break an application. “The essay really needs to be the student’s work. I encourage students to ask people close to them to read the essay and ask ‘would you know this essay is about me? But make sure it’s still your voice,” Richardson says. While St. Johns College may ask for more in-depth answers, other schools value brevity, challenging students to write concisely. Grammar or punctuation errors are the most unnecessary â€" and unfortunately common â€" mistakes that appear on The Common App. Every year, a student will address the essay to a specific school and not realize the application is sent to every school the student applied to, she said. Kids are quick to eliminate a prompt, but I always ask them to go back and rethink. Ask smaller questions around the prompt to get at exactly what you want to write about. Inzer also encourages students not to stress too much over the essay and put unnecessary weight on it as part of their college application.