College Admissions Guide

College Admissions Guide Schools like Stanford require answers to 6 short answer questions , an extracurricular essay , and 3 short essay questions . Although they are all quite short, that’s 10 questions to answer in a thoughtful, efficient manner. If you’re serious about getting into a school like Stanford, those essays will also have to be quite excellent. For less competitive schools, there might not even be any supplemental essays to write. Students have no clue what to write that will wow admissions staff and faculty members from hundreds of other essays they will read. Think of the college application process as a video game, and the dreaded college essay is the dragon that needs to be slayed. Eerily similar to the college application process, there were many qualified donor applicants. In particular, the Common App personal statement essay is something that the UC schools don’t see, so try to reuse it for one of these essays. The main challenge here will be to reduce the word count . This is a great tool for demonstrating interest and learning details about your intended programs that you can’t find on the website. In addition, conversations with faculty at your early schools can give great tidbits that you can use for a “Why Us? Most students are in the middle of AP exams throughout this month, so they usually don’t have time to do much more than this. Every college applicant will have varying essay workloads, depending on their college list. Students with high aspirations for top colleges should be prepared to write A LOT of essays. Ethan Sawyer is a nationally recognized college essay expert and sought-after speaker. Each year he helps thousands of students and counselors through his online courses, workshops, articles, products, and books, and works privately with a small number of students. Remember, in the grand scheme of the college admissions process, the application essay is a unique opportunity â€" and an opportunity to be unique. People often ask me about the value of the application essay. ” I assure you, at my university and in admissions offices across the country, we do. Your goal in a college application is to stand out. Use your uniqueness to your advantage, not as a hindrance. We hope these essays inspire you as you write your own personal statement. Just remember to be original and creative as you share your story. Remember, your disability is part of who you are but not all of who you are. Do not fall into the trap of describing your disability in great detail. Do not write a textbook explanation of your disability. Disclosing your disability may be important, but explaining every aspect of it and how it affects your life might be more than what the college admissions expect from you. You could describe a situation from your unique point of view , mention it in passing, or tell a specific story about a situation in which your disability affected the outcome. UC application deadlines are at the end of November, so they should be your next priority if you haven’t worked on them already. There are eight prompts to choose from, and you pick four. It doesn’t matter too much which prompts you choose, so try to choose prompts that you can reuse other essays to answer. While the Common App only requires one essay, we do suggest that you draft at least two different essays with different topics so that you have some options later on. Unused essays can easily be used for other essay prompts down the line. Often the best college essays develop out of a moment or idea that at first seems small, but then grows, develops, and takes on a life of its own. A thoughtfully crafted essay and a clean, clear application can make a tremendous difference in the college admissions process. There's no formula, no trick, no strategy, says Harry Bauld, a former Ivy League admissions officer. But with acceptance rates at all-time lows, just being yourself in an essay means understanding your readers and the unique form in which you are writing. The overall workload here is really dependent on your college list, so if your list isn’t as ambitious, some of the timelines above might not apply to you. The main point here is that getting a head start and planning your essay workload is essential to limiting how stressful the college application process needs to be. It’s important to get a good chunk of regular decision essays done in November, otherwise December is going to be a mess. Students applying to a number of top 20 reach schools for regular decision will have the majority of their essay work ahead of them and not a lot of time to ensure they’re writing their best possible essays.