4 Tips For Writing A Successful College Admission Essay

4 Tips For Writing A Successful College Admission Essay If you're applying to an Ivy League school, or in fact, any school at all that is selective, then you need to pick up this book. Not only is Bauld knowledgeableâ€"I learnt far more than I thought conceivable from a volume this thinâ€", but he is also a tremendous writer. He illustrates the nature of admissions offices by simple dialogue, and exposes the mindset with which admissions officers often make life-changing decisions. Bauld is a former admissions officer who really knows what he's talking about. You should be reaching critical mass around this time of having an essay draft for just about any prompt that a school will give you. You’ll just have to adjust word counts or the focus of the learning point a little bit. Get feedback on your two Common App personal statement essays, decide one which one to use, and make final edits. If you’re really hesitant to work on essays because official updated prompts for your schools haven’t come out yet, then working on the UC essays can be a safe alternative. Download Success Stories, a collection of four successful annotated student essays, from the Story2 web site. It’s an odd, vibrant place with odd, vibrant people. Another great thing about this book are the examples. There are student personal statement examples and vivid examples from famous writers. Make sure to get things into them ahead of time and be respectful of their time. If you didn’t get your drafts to them in due time to give feedback, don’t get upset if they tell you that they won’t sacrifice their vacation to help you. Like I mentioned before, continue to look for opportunities to reuse drafts for other schools. Originality is celebrated there â€" not in the half-hearted “good for you” way, but in the full-throated “GOOD FOR YOU! One of the first of my fellow students to befriend me wore corset tops and tutus and carried a parasol with which she punctuated her every utterance. Her best friend was a boy with purple hair who once wore a shirt with built in LED lights for Christmas. They were the most popular people in school, in direct contrast to all that was socially acceptable in New Haven. Do online research, visit campuses if possible, check out schools on CampusReel, attend college fairs, talk to alumni, etc. This is about you figuring out where it is you can academically flourish. Road2College is dedicated to providing families with trustworthy information about college admissions and paying for college. I actually enjoyed reading this book because he is truly a great writer himself. This book is easy to read and is great whether you're going straight from high school or transferring from another college. I like to think I have really good ideas, but suck a lot at getting them expressed concretely onto paper. Yet, this book helped me ground all the swirling thoughts in my head into one short page, 1000 words. It may have been published in 1978, but it's still 100% relevant in today's college environment. It's funny, filled with examples, and quite a joy to read. Even now, I'm getting it as a gift for some rising high school seniors as they embark on their undergrad app journey. Our peers recognized them as being unique, but instead of ostracizing them or pitying them, the students in Berkeley celebrated them. If you’re getting any help from counselors or teachers for editing your essays, keep in mind that many of them will stop checking their emails once Christmas break starts. The UCs rarely change the prompts and even if they did change them, the changes would probably be announced by now. Just like it says, some students are still not satisfied by what they’ve come up with, but think they’re really close to finding the right topic. Remember, your main essay is the only essay that you put THIS much work into because of how important it is. Although you don’t have to make final decisions for your college list yet, you want to have a number of schools that you’re stoked to apply to and will stay on your college list. The earlier you can accomplish this, the earlier you can start on the rest of the application work.