On January 25, 2012, someone on the College Confidential discussion group posted this thread:

Did you ever dump a college from your list because of the type (or number) of essays?

Responses flooded in, mostly from parents of students who had indeed given up on an application because they were intimidated by the essay questions, and many from the students themselves.  One woman’s daughter dropped three applications and added one that had easier essay requirements. One aunt reported that her nephews applied to one school only – Iowa State – because the school did not require essays. And another self-proclaimed lazy procrastinator chose her colleges based on the ease of their essay requirements.

Colleges dropped by students ran the gambit and were headed up by Wake Forest and U Chicago:  Barnard, Brown (2x), BU, Bryn Mawr, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, University of Chicago (8x), Claremont McKenna (3x), Columbia University (3x), CMC (2x), Cornell, University of Delaware, Duke, Elon, Georgetown, Grinnell (2x), Marquette Honors Program, University of Maryland, University of Michigan, MIT (2x), UNC (3x), Northwestern, Notre Dame (2x), NYU (2x), U Penn (3x), Princeton, Puget Sound, Rice (3x), Rutgers, Tufts (2x), Stanford (2x), Syracuse, UVA, Wake Forest (8x), and Yale (2x).

Why the aversion to unique essay topics?

I could rant about how students are lazy or haven’t received sufficient training in thinking for themselves or thinking creatively.  I could suggest that if our educational system did a better job on these fronts, and with teaching writing in general, students would not avoid writing essays that challenged them to invest time and thought.  I could also suggest that students don’t start their application process far enough ahead of time to ensure they have the time and attention for some uncommon essay questions.

All of those things might be true, but I am more interested in the schools’ logic behind asking unusual question such as “What does Play-Doh have to do with Plato?” (U Chicago), “What is your favorite ride at the amusement park?  How does this reflect your approach to life?” (Emory University), “Imagine you have to wear a costume for a year of your life.  What would you pick and why?” (Brandeis University), and “What would you do with a free afternoon tomorrow?” (Yale).

Why the inclination toward unique essay topics?

Colleges may be showing themselves to be current with the times, as suggested in The new college-admission essay: Short and tweet(ish).  Some applications ask for short essay answers of 25 words, such as “My favorite thing about last Tuesday” (University of Maryland), perhaps catering to the Twitter generation.  Tufts, George Mason and the University of Dayton allow prospective students to submit a video essay instead of a written one.  Students might jump at the chance to communicate in ways that are spreading like wildfire in the world of social media.

The right fit

In the College Confidential discussion, most students reported that they dropped schools not simply because of the essay requirements but because there was an additional reason the school was not a good fit.  Some were not excited about their on-campus visit.  Some realized when they were asked why they wanted to attend a particular school that they had no good reason.  Conversely, some students reported taking on writing difficult essays because a school was their clear first choice.  Some loved writing the very same essays that sent other students away (Wake Forest and Chicago essays included).  And one student actually rejected a school (Wash U in St. Louis) because they did not ask a supplemental essay question!  He thought the school was trying to increase its U.S. News rankings by encouraging applications.  Not surprisingly, two other students applied to Wash U (as well as to many other schools – Dartmouth, Harvard, and William & Mary to name a few) because of the simplicity of their essay requirements.

Perhaps colleges like Wake Forest and U Chicago are shooting themselves in the foot.  Several anecdotes appeared in the College Confidential discussion about students who got accepted into one school with a simple application (Harvard, for instance) while they were still working on essays for another school.  Schools with longer or more complex essay requirements might be losing some qualified and motivated students in addition to the ones who just don’t care enough to jump through the hoops.

Yet for most schools, it appears that they are doing a good job of weeding out applicants.  If an Honors application intimidates you, that’s a very good sign that you are not meant to be in that program.  If an essay challenge makes you realize that you’re not up for that challenge, regardless of the reason, then that school has done you and itself a favor.  What a great strategy for winnowing down the number of applications to a pool of students who will face an extra challenge or two because they want so much to go to a particular school.

As one member of College Confidential, stated, “Frankly, there are too many well-rounded, excellent students applying to the best universities to distinguish a select few without asking stranger, creative questions. It’s there that you begin to see a student’s personality and that’s what gets you in.”

Are essay questions scaring you away from a school?  Maybe it’s time to get some help.  If you want to brainstorm with a professional about what you could write in response to some of these wacky questions, contact The Essay Expert.  We’ll be happy to help.

The New York Times has been rife this season with articles about the college application essay.  The Common Application’s newly reinstated 500-word guideline is the topic of much conversation, as are general themes and strategies for the personal statement.

It is now early November.  Some early application deadlines have come and gone, and November 15 deadlines are around the corner.  Is your high school senior still stuck or struggling with his or her personal statement?

Many people, not just college applicants, have a hard time writing about themselves.  Yet that’s exactly what you need to do when writing a personal statement.  No matter how much you might not like it, your personal statement is about you.  There’s really no way around it.

Today I will provide some assistance and resources to help any college applicant to get those 500 words written.

1.  Relax!  Have fun!

“It’s all about loosening up,”  says a California college professor in Crafting an Application Essay That ‘Pops’, a New York Times article which reported on the recommendations of 5,000 admissions officers and counselors who gathered at the latest NACAC conference.  I couldn’t agree more.

To help students have fun with their personal statements, Stanford University has come up with an interesting twist:  They ask applicants to write a letter to their future freshman roommates.

Here are some samples, quoted in the article, of how students approached the essay:

“If you want to borrow my music, just ask. If you want to borrow my underwear, just take them.”

“I eat ice cream with a fork, and I drink orange juice right after I brush my teeth just for the sour taste.”

“If you have anything other than a Dodgers poster on the wall, I will tear it down.”

Note that all these lines are written in the first person – unfortunately to some, a required element of writing about yourself.  And note that all the lines are unique.  It’s unlikely that two applicants would have written the same thing.

Here’s the key to writing a great essay:  Write something no one else could have written.

If that sounds like a daunting task, loosen up!  Take a cue from Stanford’s essay question, no matter what topic you choose to write about.  All you have to do is tell stories about yourself.

2. How NOT to Start your College Application Essay

One common pitfall students fall into is trying to write an essay about their reasons for applying to school, instead of simply telling a story.  One of my recent clients started her essay to graduate school with, “I am applying to the XX school for several reasons.”  I coached her to simply start telling her story.  This approach made the project a lot easier, and made her essay a lot more interesting!

Here’s the start of an essay that meets this requirement:

When I went to Fall Out Boy’s Chicago radio show, there was the comment from the drummer, “The girl from New York is here.”  When I fought my way to the front of the crowd in Florida, there was the bassist’s point of his finger at me as he mouthed one of my favorite lyrics: “I still hate you.”

This opening line works because it tells a story no one else could tell.  It brings us into a world unique to the applicant.  And it sets us up to think something interesting is going to happen in this essay.  The reader is compelled to read the next line.

Contrast this to an alternate version of the essay that might have read, “Music is one of my passions, and because of that I attend a lot of rock concerts.  My favorite band is Fall Out Boy.”

You might laugh, but version two is the way many college essays read.  Or, to avoid boring the committee, applicants swing the other way:  “Raindrops heated by the flashing lights above, falling abundantly and without end, singeing my hair, my skin, my eyes…”

Here’s a tip:  If you are not a brilliant creative writer, just stick to the facts.  They will set you free.

3. Doing it in 500 Words

The Common Application now suggests a 500-word limit for a college application essay.  The more you stick to a story – a story that is directly linked to the point you want to make in your essay – the easier it will be to stay within that limit.  Note that it’s okay to spill over by a couple of words – but think of how impressed an admissions committee will be if you can knock their socks off in 500 or under?

The New York Times’ “The Choice” blog provides spot-on advice for how to stay succinct in Advice on Whittling Your Admissions Essay.  Read this article immediately if you are over the limit and unsure of how to cut your writing down to size!

You might also gain some breathing room from Matt Flegenheimer’s October 28, 2011 article, College Application Essay as Haiku?  For Some, 500 Words Aren’t Enough.

Need Help with your Personal Statement for College?

If you’re still stuck, panicked, or unsure, consider getting some help.  The Essay Expert’s Ivy-educated consultants are skilled in working with students to craft essays that say more than you might even imagine can be said in 500 words.  Just try us!

This week I watched the film “Temple Grandin,” a true story about a brilliant – and socially outcast – autistic girl.  Temple’s mother forced her to go to college, despite Temple’s desire to work on a ranch instead.  In this case, the mother’s insistence turned out to be best thing that could have happened to Temple.  She went on to get a Masters Degree and to become a professor of Autism and Animal Science at Colorado University.

This movie was timely because I had just been interviewed for an article, published in Forbes, entitled Students Unhappy With College Options Weigh Transfer vs. Gap Year.  A “gap year” is a year off between high school and college, and students who choose to take this year off fall into two categories.  Some are up to great things in the world – training for the Olympics, trekking in Nepal, studying marine life on the barrier reef.  These students have a passion that they want to pursue and college takes second seat to these dreams.

The other category would have preferred to go straight to college, but they do not get admitted to a school they want to attend.  Should they go to their “safety” school or spend a year doing something else, hoping they will have better luck next year?

What if my child wants to take a year off?

If you’re the parent of a student considering a gap year, and if you strongly believe she should go to a safety school rather than take a year off, see if you can get her to come to that decision herself.  As I stated in the Forbes article, I believe that forcing a teenager to go to a school she thinks she’ll hate can be a recipe for disaster.  I believe Temple Grandin was the exception rather than the rule.

Life’s Unpredictability

Many students who do attend schools that were not on the top of their list end up having a great time (as attested to by Carolyn Mulligan, College Admissions Consultant). I believe most of these students came to the decision themselves to attend a less than perfect school. I have experienced this type of phenomenon myself; when I first started my business, I thought I would hate marketing.  Guess what?  It’s my favorite part of my job!

On the flip side, sometimes you think you will love something only to find out it was not the right fit after all.  This happened to me as well: I thought I’d like being a lawyer, and discovered it was not the perfect fit I had imagined.

Do your research!

For high school seniors, before jumping in to what looks like an undesirable situation, and before saying a definite no, visit the school.  Speak to students.  Sit in on classes. Maybe even stay overnight and eat breakfast in the cafeteria or dining hall.  If at all possible, find out what it’s like to be there.  Then make your decision.

If you do decide to take a year off, make it a valuable year.  Learn something you wouldn’t have learned in college.  Gain life experience.  Become more of the person you want to be.  If you can do any of those things, in my opinion, you will not only be a better college candidate the following year, but you will be a more fulfilled human being.

Have you ever accepted an offer for a job or school admission that you thought you would love and ended up hating?  Or discovered you didn’t fit as well as you thought you would in a job or a school?  What’s your advice for students facing these decisions?

A New York Times article reported on February 24, 2011 that Princeton and Harvard have chosen to reinstate their early admissions programs.  Apparently they weren’t comfortable sticking out like sore thumbs in the Ivy League.

As reported in The Daily Princetonian, Princeton’s President Shirley Tilghman had this to say about the decision:

“We have carefully reviewed our single admission program every year, and we have been very pleased with how it has worked…  But in eliminating our early program four years ago, we hoped other colleges and universities would do the same, and they haven’t.”

This decision highlights how much the Ivy Leagues are bedfellows.  Harvard made its decision first, and although Tilghman claims that Princeton “might” have reinstated early admissions even if Harvard had not, Princeton’s decision was clearly heavily influenced by Harvard’s.

Diversity Schmersity

It is well-known that applying early decision markedly boosts applicants’ chances for admission, and that early applicant pools tend to be higher income and less diverse than the regular admission pool.  The initial reason for eliminating early admissions back in 2006 was the assessment that early admissions had an overall homogenizing effect on collegiate populations. Princeton’s Tilghman remains hopeful:

“I think there’s a lot of confidence among the staff at the admission office — and I have to take that confidence pretty seriously — that we are going to be able to sustain the gains that we’ve seen,” Tilghman said. “I’m cautiously … optimistic that we will be able to sustain the gains.”

Why oh Why?

I wonder what the impetus was for Princeton and Harvard’s choice.  The most obvious possibility is that they were losing top candidates to other schools with early admissions programs.  Isn’t it interesting how the NYT, Princetonian, and AP articles don’t mention that?

Skeptics will likely surmise that there must be some financial gain for Princeton and Harvard in reversing their 2006 decision.  Although this might be the case, there is some mitigating news. The Associated Press reports that Harvard is increasing financial aid in the face of its 4% tuition increase, and that it has pledged improvements in minority recruiting.  I’m sure there will be many people keeping a close eye on the results of the return to early admissions, and I hope Tilghman’s prediction is on the money.

Writing a college admissions essay about a famous person is similar to writing about your grandmother, it’s tricky to write about a famous person.  You risk writing a short academic paper rather than a true personal statement.

Here are 7 tips for keeping your essay about a famous person interesting (note: the first two tips are very similar to the tips for writing about your grandmother!):

1.       Focus on you, not on the famous person.  Write your thoughts and opinions about the person.

2.       If you find you have written more than one sentence in a row that is all about the famous person instead of about you, add the word “I” or “me” to at least one of the sentences!

3.       Do NOT copy information from the internet about the person and put it in your essay.  It will be crystal clear to the admissions committee that you did not write that part of the essay, and it is extremely easy to copy and paste text and put it into Google.  If anything pops up in the results containing that text, you will NOT get into college.

4.       Think about the first time you heard about the famous person, saw the person on television, read a book by the person, or saw the person’s artwork.  What were your thoughts in that moment?  How did the person, book or artwork affect you?

5.       What happened next?  Did you go research more about the person?  Did you start reading every book by the person?  Did your friends and family start giving you books about the person or his or her work?

Tell the story as it progressed of what you learned about the person, and about what kept you interested.

6.       Talk about how your understanding of the person’s influence or work changed over time.  As you matured, did you start to gain a deeper understanding or see things from a different perspective?  Share the details of this process.

7.       Tell us how this person or work has had an impact on your life.  How are you different because of your contact with and knowledge of this person?

As you can see, writing about a famous person can actually be very personal.  The personal side is what will keep the attention of the admissions committee members.  Remember, they are just as capable as you are of using Google and Wikipedia to find out about a famous person’s life.  What they want to read about is your unique experience.

For examples of successful college essays, The Essay Expert recommends Accepted!  50 Successful College Admissions Essays by Gen and Kelly Tanabe.

Still not sure how to write a great college application essay about your sport?  Contact The Essay Expert for a FREE 15 minute consultation.

Almost as popular as the “My Grandmother” college application essay is the essay about sports.  If you are planning to write a sports essay, you risk boring the admissions committee as much as would a mediocre ballgame.

Here are some tips to make sure your college application essay about your sports involvement makes a good impression:

1.       Whatever you do, do NOT write an entire play-by-play essay about the “Big Game” – even if you scored the winning touchdown or home run. This topic is way overdone.  You can certainly write a paragraph about the game, but then move on to another aspect of your sports involvement.

2.       Consider writing about the experience of being on a team.  What does it take on a day to day basis?  What have you learned?  How have you grown?  How have you balanced your commitment to sports with your academics?

3.       Don’t be afraid to write about your shortcomings.  If you start in a place where you didn’t know something, or where you weren’t on your best behavior, or even where you were injured, then you have somewhere to go/grow to.

4.       Consider writing about your particular role in the team dynamics.  Do you have a leadership role?  If so, what’s your leadership style and how does that style show up in other parts of your life?

5.       Consider writing about what it takes to play your particular position.  Offense?  Defense?  Pitcher?  Outfield?  Team play or individual sport?

What metaphors can you draw from the position you play or from your strengths in the game?

Do you find yourself playing a similar role in life to the one you play on the court or the field — or maybe even the opposite role?

For instance, if you play offense, do you end up being aggressive about winning or going after things in other aspects of life?  Or has playing offense taught you strategies to defend yourself or your positions in life?

6.       Stay humble even if you are a big winner!  You can share impressive facts and showcase your talent as long as you really share something about what you’ve learned and how you’ve grown.

7.       Talk about people and other topics that interest you, not just about the game.  If you’re all about the game, you don’t show your ability to interact with future classmates and you miss out on opportunities to sell yourself to the committee.  Colleges are looking for leaders – and leadership takes more than winning a game.

For examples of successful college essays, The Essay Expert recommends Accepted!  50 Successful College Admissions Essays by Gen and Kelly Tanabe.

Still not sure how to write a great college application essay about your sport?  Contact The Essay Expert for a FREE 15 minute consultation.

One of the most popular topics for the college application essay is “My grandmother.”  If you are planning to write an essay about your grandmother, you have a challenge ahead of you.

How will you make your essay stand out amongst all the other grandmother essays?

How will you make the admissions committee remember your essay and not just yawn over it?

Here are some essential tips to write a college application essay about grandma:

1.       Focus on you, not on your grandmother.   When you wrote your first grade school essay about grandma, it was all about grandma.  Now it’s gotta be all about you. Write about your experience, your thoughts, and your opinions as they relate to your grandmother.

2.       If you find you have written more than one sentence in a row that is all about your grandmother instead of about you, add the word “I” or “me” to at least one of the sentences!

3.       Use very specific examples of conversations you had with your grandmother.  That way you can’t possibly write the same essay someone else has written.

4.       Know your starting point and ending point, and show growth.

Perhaps your grandma used to give you help and advice, and now that you are older you have become her advisor.  Perhaps you used to judge certain things as negative that you now see as positive.  Or maybe you didn’t understand something as a young child that you now understand.

Any growth or changes of perspective are great to write about.

5.       Keep it real.  Although a certain amount of description is necessary, if you get overly flowery with your language you’ll lose the reader’s attention.

6.       Consider writing about an object or activity that is related to your grandmother, but isn’t directly your grandmother.

For instance, let’s say your grandma was a gardener.  You could write about an aspect of gardening as your theme, so your grandmother would be part of the essay but not the sole focus.  Grandma may have taught you about gardening and you may have used some of those lessons in other parts of your life.  Your essay would then be about gardening as a metaphor.

7.       Want to write about grandpa instead?  He’s less popular but the same principles apply.

For examples of successful college essays, The Essay Expert recommends Accepted!  50 Successful College Admissions Essays by Gen and Kelly Tanabe.

Still not sure how to write a great college application essay about your grandma (or grandpa)?  Contact The Essay Expert for a FREE 15 minute consultation.

For each of the next four weeks, I will be writing an article with tips for writing college application essays.  I will cover the popular essay themes of “my grandmother,” “my sport,” “a famous person” and “a fictional character.”

These topics are extremely popular, and if you choose one of them it is paramount that you don’t sound like everyone else!  If you’re applying to Ivy League schools in particular, your essay can make or break your application.  Bore the Yale admissions committee or the Harvard admissions committee and you’re done for.

In my upcoming articles, there will be 7 writing tips for each type of essay so that yours is unique and keeps the admission committee’s attention.

If you’re not a member of my blog already, sign up now to make sure you get every nugget of wisdom I have to offer!

And if there’s another topic you want me to cover, let me know and maybe your pick can be topic #5.

As the owner of a company that coaches students on their college applications to Ivy League and other elite liberal arts schools, I was disconcerted to read a Wall Street Journal study finding that the largest public and private companies, nonprofits and government agencies favor graduates who did not attend Ivy League Colleges.  In fact, Cornell University is the only Ivy League school that ranked in the top 25.  The top picks?  Pennsylvania State University, Texas A&M University, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Despite this apparent problem for my business, I thought it fair to share the article with my readers.  And thankfully, upon further thought, I realized that it is not a problem at all.  Here’s why:

If you think you will go on to obtain a graduate degree, this report does not apply.  It did not provide any information about how many Ivy League graduates go on to graduate school, or what the rates of employment are for Ivy League graduates with advanced degrees.  And we know from PayScale.com that “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.”

How can we reconcile these apparently contradictory pieces of information?

What I make of all this is that if you don’t plan on going to graduate school, it might behoove you to attend a state school or other school on the Wall Street Journal’s list.  If law, medical, business or other graduate school is in your future, Ivy League is still the way to go.  And although I don’t have a report to back it up, I believe many Ivy-bound high school graduates have no intention of calling four years a complete education.

What do you think?  Will this information affect where you or your son or daughter applies to college?

For the full Wall Street Journal article go to Employers Favor State Schools for Hires.

Also see Penn State Tops Recruiter Rankings.

And if Ivy League or top liberal arts schools are still in your or your child’s future, call The Essay Expert at 608-467-0067 or visit our College Essay Services page.

Below is a letter of recommendation for which I am extremely grateful.  Dr. Carol Nash was my history teacher for two years in high school (including AP History), and boy could she write a letter of recommendation!

What do you see works in this letter?  What would you improve?  Here it is:

Dear Admissions Committee:

When Brenda Bernstein tackles a question, the result is a definitive work!  Brenda was in my tenth grade Global Studies class and, on my recommendation, my eleventh year 1985-86 Advanced Placement American History-Economics class.  She ranks among my most outstanding students.  It may be premature to speak of a definitive work; nevertheless, I am certain that she will be working on the frontiers of knowledge.

The students in the global Studies class were expected to find four articles on the French Revolution in different types of sources.  Brenda’s impressive search bore all the marks of an outstanding scholar.  For example, she located a particularly unusual primary source.  The result was an outstanding paper which represented a truly significant contribution to my understanding of the women’s rights movement in the French Revolution.  Brenda also most effectively communicated the information to the class during the class discussions.  For her paper on the socio-economic basis of Hitler’s rise to power, Brenda drew her material from sophisticated journals.  In the AP class, Brenda did a really exhaustive paper on Quaker anti-slavery sentiment.  The paper was full of solid information and creative and intelligent comments.  For example, she suggested that the Quaker community served as a support network for individuals who deviated from the rest of the establishment.  Brenda wrote all her papers with style and imagination, and she demonstrated complete mastery of the basic research techniques.

Brenda’s insightful treatment of the material was evident on her tests.  For example, analyzing how the new American nation inherited England’s problems, she observed that the decentralization of the Articles of Confederation created many problems just as the want of decentralization had done for England before.  This link shows her ability to compare, contrast, and synthesize.  The rest of the essay demonstrated her mastery of the historical literature.  Just as she wrote integrated and creative papers, Brenda wrote an excellent document based essay drawing comfortably from the documents and her outside information.  Brenda’s analytic essays comparing historians like G. Wood and C. Kenyon were exactly on target.  When she was asked to find evidence to support historical interpretations, Brenda demonstrated her superior capacity to interpret data.

Brenda is a petite young lady with an enormous mind and unusual intellectual maturity.  This is matched by her rich personality.

Carol S. Nash, Ph. D.