There are plenty of words and phrases we encourage students applying to elite schools to avoid in their college essays. Thinking of including an inspiring quote from someone else? Think again. Elite college admissions officers don’t want to hear what other people think — not even famous people — they …
Thinking about writing one of your college essays set in the world of sports? Maybe you worked really hard to swim a best time in your most important event, the 100-yard breaststroke, and, while you never broke 1:01, you learned valuable life lessons along the way? Or maybe you got …
Lots of folks love to dish out advice on college essays, particularly the Personal Statement. Yet more often than not, the advice runs counter to everything we know to be true about the highly selective college admissions process. Case in point? Jay Mathews, a longtime columnist for The Washington Post, …
They say that money doesn’t buy happiness. Well, it apparently also doesn’t buy wise decision-making when it comes to choosing a topic for the Personal Statement in college admissions. A piece in yesterday’s New York Times by Arvin Ashok entitled “The Persistent Grip of Social Class on College Admissions” focuses …
Thinking about writing about something embarrassing in your college essays? Maybe about a time you accidentally wet your pants or let out a fart in public? In a recent piece for The Chronicle of Higher Education by Matt Feeney entitled “The Abiding Scandal of College Admissions,” he shares the story …
Today, we thought we’d share with our readers some verbiage that college applicants so often include in their college essays — or elsewhere in their applications — that significantly hurts their chances of admission to highly selective universities. In our experience, these students don’t realize these words will essentially ding …
Every paragraph, every sentence, every word matters in college admissions essays. So often, students flippantly include words or phrases that can have a catastrophic impact on their cases for admission. And, so often, these students don’t even realize that they’ve just placed all of their great high school work in …
A core objective of our college admissions blog is to correct misconceptions about the highly selective college admissions process, misconceptions perpetuated by students, parents, high school counselors, private college counselors (yes, there are plenty of private college counselors who give some pretty bad advice!), admissions officers, journalists, and, heck, even …
Name dropping in college essays is a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea. It seems obvious on the surface why dropping names in the Personal Statement and supplemental essays is ill-advised. Nobody likes a name dropper. That photo of mom smiling at a function with former President George W. …
Many students and parents are under the mistaken impression that sharing sob stories in college admissions essays will pull on the heartstrings of admissions officers at highly selective college and inspire them to want to offer the student admission. Maybe it’s a story about enduring a childhood illness, like leukemia. …
