Undergraduate Admissions Uncensored
Attention rising high school seniors! In the sixth of a series of beachfront advice posts to celebrate summer, learn the beautifully simple way to gain inspiration for the college application essays you should be completing this summer.
Write an essay worthy of getting you into your dream college! Expert college application essay editing is just a click away!
Fans of Janine Robinson and her enormously popular Essay Hell blog will love the latest in her series of practical primers on college essay writing, Essay Hell’s 50 Most Commonly Asked Questions—a crash course on how to write a totally awesome college admissions essay.
In this short—it takes under an hour to read—ebook guide, Robinson has compiled 50 of the questions she’s encountered most frequently in workshops and working individually with students and others on college essay writing. Readers can easily learn the basics of everything from form to content in thumbnail responses provided in the narrative and then expand their knowledge by clicking on links to related posts on the Essay Hell blog. Standing alone, the guide is an easy and direct introduction to college essays. But the combination with more specific and detailed advice in the blog gives a powerful overview of what admissions readers look for and appreciate in essays submitted with college applications.
The guide is broken into five chapters featuring questions on how to find essay topics, the best way to structure essays and how to strike the right tone for the right topics. Sample questions include
Who reads these essays?
What are admissions experts looking for?
Do I need an impressive topic?
Can I write about mental illness, sex, religion, politics, etc.”
Does a college application essay need a title?
How much of a role can parents play in brainstorming and writing the essay?
Robinson’s pioneering approach to college essays is one now shared by many essay coaches. She teaches students how to “tap their real-life stories to illustrate their unique qualities and characteristics, and distinguish themselves from other applicants.” And she is quick to point out that the style and content of these kinds of essays is not for English teachers or grades—they are less formal in nature.
As a bonus, the guide includes a link to six sample essays in the introduction from Robinson’s collection of college application essays, called Heavenly Essays. It also includes a free book offer for readers.
Between now and February 17, Essay Hell’s 50 Most Commonly Asked Questions will be available on Amazon for download free of charge. After that, a free digital copy may be obtained by emailing Janine Robinson at [email protected]. The second offer ends March 1.
With feedback provided by 108 member colleges and more than 5,000 other “constituents,” the Common Application has announced essay prompts for 2017-2018. And the big news is that the Common App brought back ‘topic of your choice’ from a three-year hiatus during which both the Universal College Application and the new Coalition application allowed students the flexibility to write on topics of their own choosing.
This is no small concession, as the Common App invested significant energy defending their decision to do away with the ‘topic of your choice.’ According to the blog post announcing the new prompts, the Common App was “gratified to learn that 91% of members and 90% of constituents agree or strongly agree that the current prompts are effective.” And five of the seven prompts are either unchanged or edited versions of the 2016-17 questions.
Of the two new prompts, one asks students to “share examples of their intellectual curiosity.” The other allows students to be more creative by using an essay they’ve already written or one that responds to a different prompt or one that they design—in other words, for this prompt you may write what you want but keep it to within 650 words.
Beginning with the 2016-17 application cycle, Common App members had the choice of whether or not to require a personal statement as part of the application for admission. And out of nearly 700 members, 195, or about a third, elected to drop the standardized writing requirement as not particularly useful in the college admissions process. Others secretly confess that they either scan or totally skip the personal statement in their evaluations.
But still, the cottage industry that has sprung up around these essays continues to grow and flourish.
All that aside, here are the seven questions from which applicants using the Common App will be asked to choose to form the basis of a personal statement (new language appears in italics):
The announcement of essay prompts inevitably signals the start of a new year. College-bound juniors along with those who advise them can look forward to the challenge of coming up with personal statements that add dimension to other information provided in the body of the application.
And they have months to think it over before the Common App comes on line.
Note that the Coalition application announced 2017-18 prompts a couple of weeks ago.
Colleges use many different tools for evaluating an applicant’s writing skills.
And considering the number of remedial writing and communications classes offered at even the most prestigious institutions, the need for making an accurate assessment of college-readiness in this key area is becoming increasingly important.
To assess writing ability, colleges may carefully review grades in writing-intensive English, history, and social science classes. Or they may require one or more essays as part of an application for admission.
Some colleges factor in SAT or ACT writing scores during their evaluations. Less frequently, they might even download and review an essay written for a standardized test.
And a handful of colleges invite or require the submission of a “graded” paper in lieu of an essay or as part of additional requirements for test-optional/test-flexible admissions.
At last count, over 50 Common Application member colleges, including Agnes Scott, Amherst, Brandeis, and Sarah Lawrence have made provision for uploading or otherwise receiving graded papers. In fact, the Coalition Application has built-in capacity for both storing and adding these kinds of documents to applications.
And it’s not such a bad idea.
Graded papers not only provide insight into a student’s basic writing ability, but they also speak volumes about a high school’s grading system.
For example, an “A” on a paper filled with grammar, spelling or syntax errors obviously diminishes the value of the grade and suggests the possibility of grade inflation at work within a specific class or at the high school in general. And it may say something about the applicant’s ability to recognize fundamental mistakes in their own work.
On the other hand, a “C” on a beautifully written essay could be indication of a particularly difficult or demanding class or school.
“There were times when I would be reading the essay being awed by the poor level of writing, while the teacher still gave an A to the student,” said former dean of admissions and financial aid Tom Parker, in an interview with the Amherst Student. “[A graded paper] was a great opportunity to have a deeper look into the varying levels of writing education in high schools.”
Unfortunately, it’s not always easy to discover if a college is inviting a graded paper or how it should be submitted. And there are usually no guidelines as to what should accompany the paper, if anything. But it might be helpful to include a cover sheet with basic identifying information such as the student’s name and birthdate; the name of the course for which the paper was written noting honors, AP or IB; the specific assignment or essay prompt; and possibly the final grade for the class.
Once the decision has been made about what to send, students sometimes need to figure out how to send it, as colleges vary enormously on how they prefer to receive graded papers—upload, U.S. mail, fax, or email.
Although the Common App offers easy-to-use tools for uploading graded papers, a number of colleges have mysteriously chosen to make the process more complicated. For these members, the Common App may only provide an easily missed link on the “My Colleges” page under “First-Year Test Policy.” If you follow the link, you may be given instructions for submitting the paper. Or not.
To make things even more challenging, a note might appear under the “Instructions & Help Center” column to the right of the college-specific preferred testing question usually after you mark your intention to go test-optional.
And sometimes, the Common Application provides no information relative to paper submissions. In this case, you’re on your own to find instructions on a school’s website or wait until the college sends you an email outlining the process.
This might be where the Coalition Application’s Student Locker comes in handy. As part of its package of application tools, the Coalition Application makes the Locker available as an easy-to-use repository for graded papers and other documents related to a student’s high school career. Using the Coalition platform, a student can very easily attach papers to applications requesting them.
So how does an applicant find out if a college requires or invites the submission of a graded paper or will accept a paper in lieu of test scores?
This is where it’s to a student’s benefit to research and compare different application formats accepted by individual colleges. The best place to start is the school website, where allowable applications will be listed. And don’t be surprised to find multiple applications used by a single college, including the Common App, the Universal College Application (UCA), the Coalition Application, the Cappex Application, a school-based online application and/or a paper version of the same.
Although it may take a little time, it’s often worth the effort to investigate the requirements of each application because they may differ significantly. And you should pick the application that is easiest to use and best represents your credentials.
For example, many Common Application member colleges list on their websites other application forms, which allow students to substitute graded papers for essays—even when the Common Application doesn’t. This year, the University of Chicago allowed a graded paper to be substituted for an essay only for those students using the Coalition Application.
To give you an idea of how complicated these questions can be, here are some Common App member colleges that provide for paper (graded or otherwise) submissions:
Other colleges offering the graded paper option include Catawba College, Hellenic College, Point Park University, the University of Baltimore, and the University of Oregon (alternate admission process).
And here’s a tip for underclassmen: begin saving or setting aside good examples of graded papers. You never know when they might come in handy.
Students applying to highly selective colleges and universities often wonder what their regular decision college lists should look like – especially after learning of an early decision or early action rejection or deferral. On this episode of College Counseling Tonight, we address the concerns of students who want to get into the best colleges regular but who don’t quite know what those colleges are. As you will learn from listening, the answer will depend on the students actions as much as his or her ability.
College-specific supplemental short answers and essays are either very important or extremely important to your chances of admission. In tonight’s College Counseling Tonight podcast, learn more about the relative importance of college application supplements depending on whether you are completing them for Early Decision, Early Action, or Regular Decision consideration.
Starting in 2016, both the SAT and ACT are available with or without an essay section. These has led many students to question if its worth taking these tests with their options essays if they don’t have to do so. In this video, we have the definitive answer.