About.com has a great quiz that will help you focus on the right college major for you. It’s useful for choosing a career as well! I’m a big fan of on line quizzes and this one pegged me exactly. Give it a try and see if the results ring true for you! College Major Personality Quiz
Archive for the ‘College Admissions’ Category
What Does the End of Summer Mean to You?
I’m taking a non-traditional approach to my blog this week because I’m feeling reflective. Tomorrow I head out of town for a final vacation on the East Coast (New Hampshire). I’m going to Dance New England’s summer dance camp, a place I have spent from four to eleven days every year (except one) for the past twelve years.
It has become automatic for me that the end of summer means I’m heading to dance camp. In fact, I almost didn’t go to camp this year because I had so much work to do, engagements on my calendar, etc. But this ritual of camp is so ingrained that a week ago I cancelled all my appointments and bought a plane ticket. The end of summer just isn’t the same without dance camp.
The end of summer also means fall colors coming, and crispness in the air. Apples flooding the farmers market where berries used to be. Thoughts of snow shovels encroaching.
Most important, however (yes even more important than dance camp), the end of summer means admissions season is approaching, and life is about to get even busier for The Essay Expert. For the past nine months I have been a resume writer and business owner, as well as a career advisor at the University of Wisconsin Law School. In a few short weeks, “College Admissions Essay Advisor” will move to the top of the list along with “Law School Admissions Consultant” for Kaplan.
I look forward to this upcoming time of year. College and law school applicants all have unique stories to tell, and I love learning and exploring them. I love working with students, helping them gain insights into their lives that they might not have had otherwise. I love watching people’s stories reveal themselves onto the page in a way that captures the interest of admissions officers because no one else could have told those stories in that particular way.
And of course I love helping clients get into the colleges and law schools of their choice.
I associate apples and fall crispness, even Thanksgiving, with the process of shepherding students into their next phase of life. It’s a rewarding venture and the results will flower with the spring. In the meantime, I’m heading to dance camp. I’ll have more bloggery for you when I get back.
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I’m curious… what does the approach of the end of summer mean to you? Are you a job seeker getting ready to buckle down in your search? Are you the parent of a high school senior getting ready to increase your encouragement for your child to write an essay draft? Are you a teacher writing letters of recommendation? Please share in the comments below.
Top 10 Ways to Get Into a Top College – Things Colleges Watch Out For
The 2010 survey of independent college consultants was released in June 2010 and highlights the “Top Ten Strengths and Experiences Colleges Look for in High School Students.” The list changes every time it’s compiled, an event that occurs every few years. Your grades, test scores, and the rigor of your high school curriculum still top the list. But there are some changes from prior years.
Guess what? The importance of the essay has moved up in the list – from #7 to #6 — since the last survey! Part of the reason for this is that many colleges have begun to make the SAT and ACT optional with “test optional” policies. The essay continues to be more important to private liberal arts colleges than it is at large state universities, so if you are targeting Ivy League and other top private schools, put some focused attention on the essay part of your application.
It’s hard to write a good essay without good material. Not surprisingly, factors #4 and #7-10, are all essay-related as well. “Passionate involvement in a few activities, demonstrating leadership and initiative,” which ranks #4, gives you great essay material. “Special talents or experiences” comes in at #7 and is also fodder for an outstanding essay, as is “demonstrated leadership in activities” (#8), a factor that showed up for the first time on the list this year.
It is crystal clear from this list that schools are not looking for well-rounded students – they are looking for leaders. It is much more important to get deeply involved in a few activities than to do a little of everything. And you’ll have a lot more to write about in your essay if you take on leadership positions that require you to manage people, organize big projects and events, and grow as a person.
Note that succeeding in these areas requires some planning ahead. If you are not a harp player already by the time you are entering your senior year of high school, it is unlikely that you will become one. If you haven’t been deeply involved in a student organization, it might be difficult to take on leadership suddenly. It’s more important than ever to find your passion early and follow it.
Finally, “demonstrated enthusiasm to attend” ranked #10 in the survey. Take this factor under advisement as you write your essay. You would do well to write something about why you want to attend a particular school, especially if it’s your first or second choice. Just make sure to send the correct essay to each school, mentioning the school you’re applying to and not another school! Mixing this one up is a great way to get yourself into the “no” pile (and it happens all the time).
Thankfully, you have a lot of guidance about how to get into the “yes” pile. Determine where you will most stand out as an interesting candidate with leadership abilities, and write a great essay about it.
For help on your essay from The Essay Expert, contact us at info@TheEssayExpert.com or by phone at 608-467-0067 OR 717-390-6696.
Mid-Summer Tips for Rising College Seniors… What are You Doing to Prepare for College Applications?
Are you are heading toward your senior year of high school? If so, do you want to be totally stressed out as admissions deadlines approach, or would you rather get some work done ahead of time to make things easier three months from now?
Your senior year will be busy. You will probably be visiting college campuses, formulating your list of schools and taking the SAT subject tests, in addition to balancing your regular plate of schoolwork and activities. So it’s important to do anything you can do for your applications now.
If you want to avoid last minute panic, follow these suggestions and get a jump start on your college applications:
1. If you are having essay-worthy experiences this summer, don’t trust that your memory will recall all the details of those experiences. **Write them down!!** Trust me, it will make the essay writing process SO much easier than it would be with just your memory to rely on.
2. If you’re not engaged in some interesting activities and adventures this summer, do some self reflection and find something to jump into. It doesn’t have to be glamorous – you could get a job in a bakery or video store and make an essay out of it. A great essay is more about who you are and how you experience your life than about the actual things you do.
3. If you haven’t already, ask your teachers NOW for letters of recommendation. They will appreciate having the extra time to think and write. See my article, http://theessayexpert.com/blog/2010/05/29/before-you-graduate-start-now-on-your-letters-of-recommendation-lors/
4. Write an essay draft. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just get something down on paper. It will get your ideas flowing and take off some of the pressure you might otherwise experience in the fall.
5. Talk to your parents and friends about your ideas. And if you do write a draft of your essay, share it with others. They might have insights into your experiences and growth that you don’t have. After all, you only have one brain and it can only recognize so much about itself!
6. On August 1, download the Common Application Form and fill out all the generic information you can (name, address, etc.) Get those details out of the way so they don’t clutter your brain and you can focus on writing your essays.
Follow these six suggestions and you will have much more peace and brain space so you can focus on your other senior year activities — and you’ll have more FUN too!!
Mommy, Daddy, Tell Me a Story! – Spinning a Good Yarn with Your College Application, Resume, Cover Letter and Professional Bio
When we were kids, we all loved stories. Well guess what? That hasn’t changed! I recently read an article on why storytelling is an effective training method and it sparked me to write this blog.
The fact is, we all love a good story. Admissions committees love good stories. Hiring managers love good stories. Customers and clients love good stories. Always remember: the person you’re writing for is a human being! How do you get another human being to read your document? Spin a good yarn!
If you’re applying to college, tell a story with a beginning, middle and end. I had a client who wrote about teaching his sister to ride a bike. His first draft was all rosy about how great the experience was, and it did not have a compelling beginning, middle and end. He felt lost in the writing, and the essay was boring.
What ultimately made the story great was that he started at the beginning, when he was annoyed at his sister for being small and clumsy, then moved through the process of a breakthrough in becoming a teacher, and a better teacher — and finally to where he released the seat and the sister took off on her own on the bike. Victory! A great story.
In college applications, many times what makes a great story is to admit to a struggle or fault, and show how you broke through it. In a cover letter, believe it or not, you can do the same thing.
All kinds of people are saying “No one reads cover letters anymore.” Well, of course no one is reading them – because they are stilted and boring and no one can get through them! Have you ever considered that if you write a good enough story in your cover letter that it really *will* get read!
Do you have an example of a time when a project was failing, and you stepped in to fix it? That makes a great story! Is there an example of something you achieved that relates to the job you’re applying for? Don’t be afraid to tell these stories in your cover letters!
On your resume, too, tell as much of a story as you can in a bulleted line.
What not to write: “Assisted scientists with their research.”
What to write: “Conducted genetic, epidemiology, and behavior research on sport fish in Illinois, Canada, and the Bahamas.”
Ah, now that sounds kind of interesting!
For an example of a bio that tells a great story or two, see Senior Investment Analyst Bio on The Essay Expert’s website. This client reported to me that she loved her bio story so much that she kept reading it to herself after it was done!
Whatever the reason, we all love a good story. Tell one in your college and job applications. Tell one in your bio. If you do it well, your intended audience will keep reading… and reading… and reading.
Preview of Common Application Form for College Applications – Available Now!
The Common Application Form does not become officially available until August 1. But you can get a preview and start working on your essays now! To see the preview, Click Here
Is it Worth It to Compete for an Ivy League Education?
It’s undeniable that a degree from an Ivy League college holds a lot of prestige. In fact, I have personally experienced the benefit of an Ivy League degree in my career, as I’ve set out first as a lawyer and then as a resume writer and college essay advisor. “B.A. Yale ’91″ is enough to convince some people to hire me. Many employers prefer to hire people with one of those “magic” schools on their resumes.
I have a secret to share: I sometimes wish I had gone to Oberlin where the students might be a bit more hippie and down to earth, i.e., more like me. But I will never regret having a Yale degree on my resume. It helped me get into another prestigious school (NYU Law ’98) and has gained the respect of several employers and clients.
A recent article by Eve Tahmincioglu on msnbc.com, “An Ivy League degree no surefire path to success,” explores whether an Ivy League degree really makes a difference when it comes to how well a candidate will do in a job. The article concludes that hard work, not the college name on your diploma, leads to career success. Nevertheless, people with Ivy League degrees have significantly higher incomes than their non-Ivy counterparts:
“The typical Ivy League bachelor’s graduate earns about 27 percent more early in their career, and about 47 percent more by the time he or she is about 40, than the typical bachelor’s graduate from all U.S. schools,” according to compensation website PayScale.com.
I wonder: Do employers like to hire someone from the “right” school simply because of the prestige, or do they beleive they can rely on the pre-screening that the Ivies (and other top schools) do on every admittee? It seems to me that there’s a really good chance that someone who made it into an Ivy League school is among the best and the brightest. That’s not to say that a huge number of the best and the brightest — and the most hard working — did not go to Ivy League schools, either because they did not get in or because they chose less pricey options.
It’s understandable that many students prefer to attend Ivies, regardless of whether this education is essential to career success. Ivy League colleges come with a guaranteed caliber to the student body and community, to the professors, and to the education. And of course, the degree opens up many doors with ease.
The competition to get in to Ivy League and other top schools, as reported by Ms. Tahmincioglu in her msnbc article, is fiercer than ever: “According to the Harvard Crimson, the school accepted a record-low 6.9 percent of applicants this year even though the number of applications actually went up 5 percent — topping 30,000 for the first time in the school’s history.”
The long and the short of it is that if you want to have an easier path to some of the most prestigious jobs in the country, a Yale, Harvard or Princeton degree will go far. You still need to do well once you’re there, and you still need to work hard once you’re in the work force. But the big names on the resume don’t hurt a bit. And in my book, that’s enough to make it worthwhile to shoot for the best.
U.S. News Rankings — Proposed Changes — What Do You Think?
The U.S. News and World Report is considering some changes in the way they calculate their rankings. Have an opinion? Your contributions are welcome. What May Change in Upcoming College Rankings and Your Thoughts – and Our Responses – on College Ranking Changes
Parental Alert: 2010′s Five Most Dangerous Teen Jobs – from Workers’ Comp Insider
Are you encouraging your teen to work during the summer to gain experience, learn financial responsibility, and/or have something to write about in a college essay? Make sure whatever your kids are doing that they stay safe. 2010′s Five Worst Teen Jobs
