Undergraduate Admissions Uncensored
What do nearly all successful college application essays have in common? Hint: it’s not their topic, structure, tone, or grammatical tense. It’s something about the essay’s first draft. Watch the video below to learn more.
If you want to get into even the most selective colleges and universities, make sure to prioritize the drafting process for your college application essays. If you want more help through the drafting process, learn more about working with me here.
It’s summertime, which means that many rising high school seniors are pondering the best way to spend a couple of months away from schoolwork.
For some answers, we turn to college admissions expert and college application coach Craig Meister – on location on the beach – for five important oceanside advice videos for rising high school seniors to ensure that they make the best personal choices for how to make the most of summer break.
1. Best Summer College Application Completion Advice
2. Summer Job vs. Summer Internship
3. Pre College Programs vs. Local Options
4. Is Summer SAT or ACT Prep a Smart Use of Time?
5. Don’t Forget to…
Craig is a college admissions coach and founder of CollegeMeister. He previously held university admissions and high school college and career counseling positions in Baltimore, West Palm Beach, and Rio de Janeiro.
The ups and downs of the quarantine gave college admissions officers and school counselors a taste of application life to come, as the birth rate for high school graduates continues to slide, and the need to develop new approaches to recruit students increases. As the profession continues to try and improve college access, and knowing that small differences can make a big difference, here are some considerations for both sides of the desk to ponder this summer over a well-deserved glass of lemonade:
Colleges—move your deadline dates. November 1 (early applications), January 1 (regular applications), and May 1 (many deposits) are all big dates in the college application world—and they all fell on a Sunday or a holiday this year. I don’t understand this, since the admissions offices weren’t open, and the vast majority of high school seniors had no access to counselors or other application helpers the day of and before the deadlines.
This needs to change. Yes, students need to be responsible, and should learn to plan ahead—but perhaps that lesson is better applied to deadlines for things they’ve done before (like papers), not with things they are doing for the first time (like applying to college). The first Tuesday in November, the second Tuesday in January, and the first Tuesday in May would solve this problem nicely, increasing the quality and quantity of applications to boot. Georgia Tech made the move, and they get kaboodles of applications. It’s an easy, but important, change.
High Schools—stop working holidays. Moving the January 1 deadline to a date when high schools are in session is also overdue for school counselors, who have taken a serious shellacking this year with all the student mental health issues arising from COVID. School counselors have always been overworked, but never able to use the December holidays to recover, since they were expected to help their students make January 1 college deadlines.
It’s time to take a stand. Assuming the colleges move their deadlines, counselors need to learn to let go. Send a note to all senior families early in November, letting them know your vacation is—well, a vacation. If you really can’t let go of your students for that long—or if the colleges unwisely cling to January 1– set two days of vacation for online office hours, and take a breath all the other days. You have mastered online office hours this year. Let them be your friend.
Colleges—keep innovating. One (and perhaps the only) upside of the quarantine was the ability of college admissions offices to adapt major chunks of their traditional approach to recruitment. Test optional, drive-thru tours, and online high school visits suggested it might be OK for everyone to get their hopes up, that some real college admissions reform was in the air.
Yes. Well.
In a post-vaccine world, we see more signs of returning to “normal” than creating new normal. Reinventing the entire admissions process is no easy feat, to be sure, but how hard might it be for admissions offices to spend half a day this summer doing “What ifs” to one part of the application process? Do that for five years, and you have a new admissions paradigm, and a more accessible one—the thing you say you keep wanting.
High schools— mental health and college access aren’t either/or. I will legitimately blow my top if I read one more post from a high school counselor insisting that the increase in COVID-related mental health needs makes it impossible to do any effective college counseling.
School counseling as a profession has long been showing a mental health bias at the expense of quality college counseling, and this year just seems to have widened the gap. Counselor training programs plant the seeds of this bias— training programs devote about 7 classes to mental health training, and none to college counseling—and all of this must stop, if only because the dichotomy is a false one.
Discouraged, depressed high school students light up like a hilltop church on Christmas Eve when I tell them college gives them a fresh start to life and learning, proof enough that college counseling affects mental health. That, plus the American School Counselor Association says college counseling is part of the job. Counselors truly are overworked, so they can’t do everything they want in any part of counseling. That said, college can still be part of a key to a better self. More counselors need to see that, and act on it.
Everyone—stop beating up on the Ivies. The Ivies and their equally tough-to-get-into institutions largely decided to go test optional this year. For some reason, this gave a lot of students with B averages the hope that they too could pahk the cah in the yahd, now that they didn’t have to reveal their test scores.
So—more students applied to the Ivies this year than last year. The Ivies didn’t admit more students this year than last year. That means their admit rate had to go down, and more students were denied.
That isn’t news—it’s math. And if you want to blame the Ivies for encouraging students to apply who didn’t really stand a chance of getting in, you’re going to need to make a thousand more jackets for that club. If you think the Ivies take too few Pell-eligible students, say that. If you think they admit too many legacies, stay that. But don’t beat them up for proving the laws of basic ratios. Any other college in their shoes would have to do the same thing. (Besides, it’s the national media who has left our society with the impression that there are only 25 colleges in America.)
Everyone—about Kiddos. It’s no secret that college is largely a time of youth, especially with the expansion of adolescence into the early twenties and beyond. But college is also a time to help young people embrace the opportunities of adulthood, skills and attitudes that sometimes require setting the desires of self to one side.
This goal would be more easily achieved if we saw students—and if they saw themselves– as capable of embracing a larger sense of self by referring to them as students, not Kiddos. They don’t need to grow up in a hurry or, with the right kind of help, succumb to the media images of college choice as a high stakes pressure cooker. But they also need something more than just a pat on the head and a verbal affirmation that’s the equivalent of a lollipop. Let’s try calling them students.
Every year students ask me the same question:
“How long should my Common Application essay be?”
I am never shy about providing them with the response that best summarizes how they need to approach both the Common Application essay and the Common Application in general:
“Go Big or Go Home!”
Despite what the official directions on the Common App indicate, students writing a 250-word essay – the lowest end of the range that is officially acceptable to complete this essay – have a far lower chance of convincing college admissions officers of their admissions-worthiness than students who believe in the maxim, ‘bigger is better.” The official upper limit in acceptable length on the Common App essay is 650 words.
A well-thought out and well-developed essay of any true substance is not only not possible in 250 words, it’s barely possible in 450 words. This is why none of our clients have ever submitted a Common App essay consisting of fewer than 450 words. With that said, the true sweet spot in Common Application essay writing, for this current year’s prompts and prompts going back over a decade, is 500 to 650 words. This was even the case a few years ago when the Common App limited students to a mere 500 words. That experiment lasted for such a short time because colleges were getting such transparently superficial essays that they were a waste of time and effort for students and completely lacking any valuable insight helpful to college admissions officers.
Think of a 500- to 650-word essay as a smooth and enjoyable flight from D.C. to Disney World. In 500 to 650 words students have the space they need to achieve proper cruising altitude: writing a strong introductory paragraph that both grabs readers’ attention and clearly states the essay’s thesis. Next, just as one wants to have an enjoyable in-flight experience with the fasten seatbelt sight off and flight attendants passing out drinks and snacks, so to does a 500- to 650-word essay allow readers to relax a bit. In 500 to 650 words students are able to produce non-rushed, non-turbulent, highly valuable descriptive and specific body paragraphs that go a long way toward proving the essay’s thesis. Finally, landing a plane takes great skill, as does writing a conclusion to a college application essay. It’s not a simple rehash of the lift off (thesis); it should be complementary to it. Students who have 500 to 650 words to work with are able to smoothly touch down in a way that puts the cherry on top of the entire flying/essay reading experience. At the end of the day, admissions officers read your essays because they want to fly the friendly skies with you into your world. 500 to 600 words allows you to give them a proper flying experience and gives you the words necessary to differentiate your world from the world of other applicants.
In order to produce a great final draft essay, your rough drafts should be even longer than 650 words. It’s very common for our clients to create first, second, and third draft essays of nearly 1,000 words. Only through consistent and high quality editing can any essay be ready for submission to colleges and universities, and starting with too few words on initial drafts is a recipe for a puny little final draft essay.
So, the big take-away ideas on the Common App Essay are these:
Before I share more extremely important Common App essay advice, let’s zero in on what students are going to be writing about on this year’s Common App. None of the essay prompts are easy, and all require a great deal of time, thought, and drafting before members of the Class of 2022 can confidently hit submit on their applications.
The 2021-2022 Common Application essay prompts are as follows:
Choose the option below that best helps you write an essay of no more than 650 words.
1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
4. Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?
5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?
7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.
Honestly, I miss the old questions that existed through the 2016-2017 iteration of the Common App. The current questions indicate that the people behind the Common App are less and less interested in reading essays from normal teenagers and more and more interested in pushing teens to appear exceptional, idiosyncratic, or downright eccentric for the purpose of entertaining application readers and putting on a show of some sort of diversity. I would be surprised if many of the admissions officers could portray themselves accurately with these prompts. But we take the world we are given; this is what students in the Class of 2022 who will apply to Common App colleges and universities have to work this admissions cycle.
Remember that it’s always better to start brainstorming sooner rather than later, and if your essay is still not where you want it after working on it for a while, make sure to check out why your essay may be really bad or downright awful. You should aim to wrap up your Common App essay no later than early August, which will give you plenty of time to draft and perfect your essays for Common Application supplements.
Remember, if you want or need help with any part of your essay brainstorming and drafting, I’m here to help you.
Good luck!
It matters.
If your attempt at writing a strong Common Application essay is failing, you very well could be making this major mistake in the drafting process. Fix it and you will give yourself a fighting chance to write an essay that is actually decent.
But, guess what? This is only the #2 reason your Common App essay stinks! Learn about the the #1 reason your essay is bad here.
Write an essay worthy of getting you into your dream college! Expert college application essay review and editing are just a click away!
If your attempt at writing a strong Common Application essay is failing, chances are that you are making this one major mistake in the drafting process. Fix it and you will give yourself a fighting chance to write an essay that is actually decent.
Write an essay worthy of getting you into your dream college! Expert college application essay review and editing are just a click away! Meanwhile, learn about another reason your college application essay is so bad.
Applying to your top-choice dream college can be an experience rich with both excitement and anxiety. For competitive colleges and universities, particularly Ivy League schools, students are faced with rigid academic standards and fierce competition to get accepted.
Beyond the basics like coursework and test scores, demonstrating your interest early in the application process can leave you miles ahead of the competition. If you’re interested in exploring different ways to get into your dream college, here we’ll cover several additional things you can do to maximize your chances of admission.
While many students feel they need a relevant summer job or internship to stand out, there are many different summer extracurricular activities available that have a very low barrier to entry.
Even when times may be shaky or uncertain, projects like volunteering, building your own website, or even starting your own business are within reach for most students. Admissions officers like to see tangible displays of students who are proactive, creative, scrappy, or the display of qualities like leadership and compassion. Invest in your own brainstorming session to cultivate ways you can leverage summer to level-up your college application.
While it may seem obvious to most, the best way to get into your dream school is to improve your academic profile. Most schools have minimum GPA requirements that applicants need to attain for an application to even be considered. Yet, for more competitive schools, having a GPA at the minimum level of requirement is oftentimes not enough.
Consistently performing well on exams and homework assignments is a must. This takes diligent studying and being at peak performance on test day. But in some cases, having a good relationship with teachers can also work to your advantage. Actively displaying your drive to succeed and communicating your need for a target grade can sometimes lead to additional opportunities, like extra credit, that may have otherwise been unavailable.
In addition to strong academic performance, schools are inclined to admit students with a strong track record outside the classroom. If you’re displaying a strong sense of work ethic in matters related to your desired area of study, you’ll likely stand out from other applicants.
Some of the obvious ways to display work ethic are part-time jobs, internships, or volunteer programs. But if these options are limited, there’s nothing stopping you from creating your own form of work. This shows you are capable of having initiative and adjusting your priorities all while providing valuable real-world experience. Combined with achieving good grades and extracurricular involvement, you’ll likely make more of an impression on admissions officers.
Colleges and universities ultimately want to improve their yield, which is the percentage of admitted students who enroll after being admitted. One way admissions officers at many colleges do this is by assessing students’ “demonstrated interest.” These are indications of students showing interest in the school, such as visiting the campus, taking a tour, or scheduling an interview. Generally, these indicators increase the likelihood that a student will enroll if admitted. So if you’re proactively showing demonstrated interest in your dream college, you could very well improve the relevance of your application to those making the call on whether or not to admit you.
Personal statements and essays are powerful ways to level-up your application. Ideally, you want to strike that perfect balance between being professional and personalized to help you stand out. Using your unique voice is important, but in a way that is authentic and well-articulated.
Even students with strong academic and extracurricular records can struggle with personal statements and essay prompts. There’s no shame in getting help with brainstorming, proofreading, and editing drafts. Teachers, parents, and admission counselors are all good resources. Other tools like CollegeMeister also provide valuable assistance in helping students energize application essays.
Your application essays should have a rhythm all their own.
Most competitive colleges and universities in the United States will require you or allow you to submit letters of recommendation, generally from teachers, counselors, and sometimes even employers. This helps give admission officers an alternative perspective about you and what you can bring to their institution.
When looking at this from a long-game perspective, the best advice here is to make a positive impression on those around you throughout your academic career. You want to show your teachers and employers that you’re genuinely respectful, compassionate, and have a strong work ethic.
In addition to educators, some of the best letters of recommendation come from coaches and counselors who have experience working with you – whether as part of a team, club, extracurricular program, or student organization. Oftentimes, these types of recommendation letters will offer greater insight into what kind of person you are and why your dream school should admit you.
There’s no magic formula for getting into your dream college of choice. But with the right approach and a solid understanding of what makes for a strong application, applying to your college of choice can be an empowering process – especially when the big envelope arrives in the mail.
Far too many students don’t have anything worthwhile to say in their conclusions to application essays about why they want to attend a particular college or university. If you are completely out of ideas, it’s always a good idea to express appreciation at the end of your college-specific essays.
How do you tackle the main essay on the Common Application to give yourself the best shot of writing an essay that is acceptance worthy at even the most selective colleges and universities?
While your essay should be unique, your approach to writing a great essay should actually be both formulaic and geared towards differentiating your story and perspective on life from those of other applicants.
Students (and their parents) who are serious about figuring out which Common App essay prompt to pursue should take the time to watch the entire video below. In it, I walk you through each prompt that will appear on the “common” portion of the 2020-2021 Common App and give each a grade for the average and not so average Common App applicant. After you watch the video make sure to learn why you still may be having a hard time drafting anything other than bad or downright horrible responses. Enjoy!
So much of what you read, watch, or hear in the media is there to make you feel like it’s impossible to get into Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale without cheating your way in or using some unsavory connection to worm your way in.
Yet, a successful – and ethical – formula for getting into Ivy League colleges does exist and is pretty straightforward.
Below, I share the simple four-step formula for getting into Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, or Yale, which has helped 100% of my students who have followed it get into one or more Ivy.
Step 1: Take Rigorous High School Courses and Get As in Them
Notice how it didn’t say “be smart” or “pursue your academic passions.” Such entreaties sound lovely, but they’re beside the point. The foundation of your campaign to get into an Ivy League college depends on you willingness and ability to consistently take the most rigorous courses at your high school and then earn A grades in all such courses as well as whatever other courses you are also taking. If your school reports A grades via a range (such as A-, A, A+ or 90-100), work your hardest to get the highest As possible (A+ or 97+). If your school grades on a different scale than those mentioned so far, simply aim for the top of it.
Every high school is different, but in many cases, taking the most rigorous courses at your high school is synonymous with one of the below three scenarios (or some combination or permutation thereof):
A. Running the table with as many Advanced Placement courses as you can take each academic year and taking all of your other academic courses at the highest levels on offer
B. Taking the most challenging courses offered to students in your high school during your first two years in high school, then becoming a full-fledged International Baccalaureate® (IB) Diploma Programme (DP) student at the start of your junior year, and finally completing the full IBDP with both predictions and final cumulative scores aligned in the 40-45 range
C. Taking as many Honors, High Honors, Gifted, and/or Dual Enrollment courses as possible throughout your four years in high school
In no grade in high school should you take fewer than five academic courses (though I prefer six if you can swing it), and if you are being strategic about things, no matter the exact curriculum on offer at your school or official names of courses available at your school, at minimum, your four-year academic course load in high school should include the following:
Freshman Year:
Most Rigorous English Course Available to 9th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous Math Available to 9th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous History Available to 9th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous Science Available to 9th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous Foreign Language Available to 9th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Sophomore Year:
Most Rigorous English Course Available to 10th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous Math Available to 10th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous History Available to 10th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous Science Available to 10th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous Foreign Language Available to 10th Grade Students (Same Language as Last Year) – 1 Credit
Junior Year:
Most Rigorous English Course Available to 11th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous Math Available to 11th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous History Available to 11th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous Science Available to 11th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous Foreign Language Available to 11th Grade Students (Same Language as Last Year) – 1 Credit
*Or, if an IBDP student:
-Three HLs in areas you are most passionate about and that are likely to align with your potential college major(s)
-Three SLs in areas you are also deeply passionate about
-Of your six IB courses, only one (max) should be arts-related unless you plan to major in one or more art in college
-If your school offers Mathematics: analysis and approaches HL, you should take it and get an A (or Predicted 5+ minimum) in it
Senior Year:
Most Rigorous English Course Available to 12th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous Math Available to 12th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous History Available to 12th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous Science Available to 12th Grade Students – 1 Credit
Most Rigorous Foreign Language Available to 12th Grade Students (Same Language as Last Year) or Double Up on English, Math, History, or Science, but only with an Advanced/AP/IB/Honors+ Course – 1 Credit
Or, if an IBDP student, continuation of * detailed above.
Notice how I didn’t mention elective/arts courses. They are nice to take too, especially if you need to or want to pursue your passions through them and have the horsepower to do so, but to be completely honest, Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale are focused on your academic courses, not PE, Health, Arts (except for AP or IB), Personal Finance, etc. courses.
Remember, the above academic course progression is only a minimum goal; you can always do more, and that would be great – just keep earning As if you take on more rigor/courses than the progression outlined above.
Step 2: Score Very Well on the SAT and/or ACT
To be blunt – aim for 1450 on the SAT or 33 on the ACT minimum. To pump up your standardized test profile also aim to take and submit scores of 750 or higher on at least two SAT Subject Tests. For most people this requires a great deal of studying and a history of actually being a serious student in school. Do students get into Ivy League colleges with lower scores than those stated above? Yes. You should assume that you are not going to be one of them.
– Time Out –
Before we move on to Step 3 and Step 4, I should note that many students around the world are able to beautifully accomplish the aforementioned Step 1 and Step 2; yet, the majority of such students will not get into Ivy League colleges even if they try. This is for the same reason that most professional baseball players have no problem hitting a double but very few will ever hit an inside-the-park home run: they are unable or unwilling to go past second base. Below you will learn how to go beyond second base and return to home plate without being called out.
FUN FACT: the majority of students, parents, talking-heads/influencers complaining about how hard it is to get into an Ivy League college are doing so because they don’t want to or don’t know how to put in the effort necessary to complete Step 3 and Step 4 below.
Step 3: Strategically Differentiate Your Life
Everyone wants to win the lotto these days (hit the jackpot without the effort). But, again, if we are being real, very few billionaires just fell into their money. They or their predecessors developed a plan and executed on it in order to make it big.
The same idea applies to getting into Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, or Yale. You need to sit down like a young adult, think critically, develop a plan, and execute on it if you are going to give yourself the best shot of getting into an Ivy League college.
What should the plan look like? It should not look like any other student’s plan, that’s for sure. That’s why sitting down like a young adult and attempting to think critically all alone is often not enough for many teens with Ivy League dreams. Most teenagers with big goals really do need to sit down with at least one older and wiser strategic thinker in order to game plan out a strategy that can be tactically and earnestly implemented.
Sadly, many students only turn to a mom, dad, sibling, friend, or teacher who means well but doesn’t know much about what Ivy League colleges are really attracted to in students. Other students go to their high school’s college counselor hoping he or she will be the “older and wiser strategic thinker” that they are so desperately looking for in order to give themselves the best shot of Ivy League college admission. Pretty soon most students figure out (if they do at all) that even if their college counselor is well-meaning and knowledgable (the student would actually be very lucky to find these characteristics in his or her college counselor), very few high school-based college counselors have the time, interest, and/or ability to provide the personalized and highly strategic college admissions coaching students with Ivy League goals need.
For example, so many students go to their high school counselors looking for advice on how to get into Ivy League colleges and their counselors summarily advise them to consider other colleges all together because, “fit matters more than rank, Johnny” or, if the students are lucky, maybe the counselors will advise the students to become extracurricular leaders! Woopdidoo!
Both scenarios make my blood pressure rise, though at least in the latter case the counselors are respecting students’ questions and goals. Yet, as attractive as student leaders are to Ivy League colleges, there is a very important characteristic that trumps leadership in the eyes of Ivy League college admissions officers:
The earlier in high school you can sit down with someone who actually knows what he or she is talking about and has the time and interest to get to know you and your goals well the more likely you will be able to strategically differentiate your life choices over the course of your high school career while also aligning your life choices to your unique value system. This in turn will allow you to stand out for all the right reasons to Ivy League admissions committees and ultimately reach your full college admissions potential.
Step 4: Communicate Like a Teenager from a Bygone Era
There has been a complete implosion of English instruction in K-12 education. As I have alluded to before: most students capable of getting straight As in high school English classes can’t write well or speak well. This is because most students capable of getting straight As in high school English classes have never learned how to think critically, which is a prerequisite for eloquent writing and speaking. Many students get As in English – even AP-level English – without actually being able to think, write, or speak that well.
Layer on top of that travesty the advent of smart phones and other forms of electronic communication, which have corrupted teenage minds and writing skills over the past twenty years, and you have a nightmare scenario for the future of humanity.
Yet, in this living nightmare there is an opportunity for those high school students who have actually – miraculously – been taught how to think, write, and speak clearly – like mere peasants, high school dropouts, and ragamuffins could in 1938. I mean this seriously. I was looking through an English test that my grandmother had to take in eighth grade in a Baltimore public school, and it was far harder than any English test I EVER took in high school or college. As a point of reference: in the last twenty years I’ve earned an MA in Education Administration and a BA in History (the latter from Penn no less…). Maybe I would have been better off being born in 1922 and simply graduating high school in 1940 (as long as I survived the war)? I digress.
If you are in high school and open to actually learning how to think clearly and write and speak articulately, the world is your oyster. Frankly, the Ivy League would be luck to have you – and their admissions officers know it. Thus, if you pull off high level thinking and communicating in your application to an Ivy League college, you are going to set yourself apart from the average Ivy League applicant.
Many students (and their parents) realize that they need help in the communication portion of their college applications. That’s why every year in late spring I start getting calls from rising high school seniors and their parents begging me to help edit college applications – specifically extracurricular resumes and college application essays.
Frankly, I find providing developmental editing, substantive editing, copy editing, proofreading, and constructive critiquing for rising seniors generally tedious and often painful because it’s pretty time-consuming and emotionally draining for me to fix over a several-week period what took twelve years to do to you, namely, destroy your ability to communicate effectively. That’s why I much prefer meeting with students early in high school in order to start the important process of teaching them how to think deeply and write and speak well. This is also a reason why I developed the How to Build and Extraordinary Extracurricular Resume short course; creating a good resume is pretty much a science, but it’s a repetitive one.
To meet your full potential on college application essays, only personalized coaching can get you there – especially if you have not benefited from the rare instances of proper English instruction that still remain in this anti-intellectual age. As such, I do still take on a limited number of clients each year for laser, comprehensive, and intensive college admissions coaching services (resumes, essays, interview prep, etc.) even though such work becomes harder each year because of the daily devolution of institutionalized K-12 education. I am also aiming to offer more online short courses for students on the go. For my current full menu of instantly available short courses please click here.
Long story short, the earlier you become a master communicator the more likely you will actually be able to share both your own voice and a voice worth listening to on your college applications and in college admissions interviews.
Conclusion
It’s really that simple. If you can tackle the four steps above with grace and gusto (and dare I suggest, gravitas), you are extremely likely to get into Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, or Yale. Yet, even more important than getting into any Ivy League college, if you can accomplish all of the above, you will have learned a lot and grown a lot as a person and remained ethical in so doing.
Princeton University