• Home
  • About Us
  • Our Blog
  • Contact Us
  • Fees

The Excellent Essay Blog

There's so much going on in the world of college admissions that it's tough to stay informed. College essays are playing an increasingly critical role, and The Excellent Essay Blog keeps you up-to-date on the latest news.

Contact Us

VIDEO: Let your essay show your "humanity"

8/4/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
   New York Times writer Janet Morrissey hits the nail on the head when she describes the essence of your essay: It's a megaphone.
   "It’s not just a resume or a regurgitation of everything you’ve done," Morrissey says. "It needs to tell a story with passion, using personal, entertaining anecdotes that showcase your character, your interests, your values, your life experiences, your views of the world, your ambitions and even your sense of humor."
That's a tall order, to be sure, and pretty daunting to a lot of rising seniors. But consider the stakes. College is a lot tougher than it was 10 or 20 years ago -- for a whole list of reasons -- and "the personal essay and interview can often make the difference — either way," according to Morrissey.
   Keys that I teach about college essays will take you a long way, and hopefully will lead to an admissions officer to paying attention and moving you on to the next step.
  • This isn't a term paper. Don't write like you're in English class. Talk about yourself, be descriptive, have some fun, surprise the reader.
  • Be genuine. Don't try to be something, or someone, you're not. The idea is to let people know who you are and why you'd contribute to their freshman class. 
  • Hook the reader, then reel them in. Don't dump all you want to say in your first paragraph. Drop little hints of what's to come and make someone curious to read the next paragraph. And the next.
  • Tell a story. Your story.
****
  Use straightforward language. Tell the story of a day in your life that gives a little "snapshop" about your humanity. Watch this video to see more about your essay from Robert Springall, former dean of admissions at Bucknell University and now vice president for enrollment management at Muhlenberg College.
Watch the video:


   Here's a revolutionary thought: The goal of your college essay shouldn't be perfection.
  That's the proposition offered by Brennan Barnard, writing for Forbes. Rather than perfection, your goal should be to present yourself in your own voice, says Barnard, director of college counseling and outreach at The Derryfield School in Manchester, New Hampshire.
   "Writing about one’s self is perhaps one of the greatest challenges in college admission, especially for the overachieving perfectionist," according to Barnard. Your essay "is not just about how you write but also how vulnerable you are willing to be."
   Barnard offers seven tips for writing a strong college essay. And he quotes Todd Rinehart, vice chancellor for enrollment at The University of Denver:
   "Committees aren't looking for the perfect essay, topic or set of activities and achievement. We simply want an interesting, authentic and well-written glimpse into a student's life."
   Simple enough.


Arnie Rosenberg is the founder of The Center for Essay Excellence. He writes regularly about college essays and their importance to the college-admission process. Contact him at Arnie.Rosenberg.Editor@gmail.com.
0 Comments

'Tis the season . . . so get started now

6/8/2015

0 Comments

 
Picture
   The Class of 2019 has a lot to look forward to. The fall will be here before you know it, and with your last year of high school will come a barrage of activities, tasks, obligations and responsibilities that will dwarf your last 11 years in school.
   So this summer is the time for you to kick back and relax in anticipation of it all, right? Well, yes and no.
   No one expects you to spend all day at the computer, researching colleges, prepping for tests and searching for scholarships. Do some of that . . . but also lay the groundwork for your all-important college essays.
  My recommendation for the best way to ease your way into the sometimes-stressful process of writing your essay? Take it step-by-step:
  • Review the Common App and The Coalition for College essay prompts for 2018-19. Common App is reviewing its questions every-other year, so this year's essay questions are the same as 2017-18. Read through them, think about how you can relate to each question (and how each applies to you) and what kind of examples and life experiences you can talk about through the lens of each question.
  • Don't be a slave to your essay. It's still summer vacation, and you deserve your time off. But get into a routine where you're sitting down to write for 15-20 minutes each day. Don't stress about perfect writing, style and sentence structure. Just ramble some of your thoughts onto the screen. Don't worry about tying them together, either,
  • By the end of the summer, you'll have lots of short snippets, but nothing cohesive. But then you can start tying them together into an essay that flows and tells the story you want colleges to see.
  • You'll have a draft that's 80 percent done. Then -- hopefully with someone who's your editor -- you can work to cut the length if necessary, polish your essay and end up with something that tells YOUR story . . . something you're really proud of.
****
  "The truth is, most essays are typical. Many are boring. Some are just plain bad."
  OK, that's blunt. But it's true. But in delivering that blunt that assessment, The New York Times offers some simple but oh-so-important advice: Choose a topic that you care about. If that topic doesn’t matter to you, it won’t matter to the reader.
  Writing in The Times, Rachel Toor, a creative-writing professor at Eastern Washington University, offers a list of 10 things to avoid when writing your college essay. Here are a couple to help plot your way through the writing process:
  Avoid clichés. If there's a good way to make that admissions officer's eyes roll back in her head, it's offering up that worn-out phrase she's already seen  25 times that day.
  Don't repeat the prompt. Don't waste 12 words out of your 500 by starting with "The event in my life that made me a better person was . . . " Get right to it and say what you want to say.
  Use past tense when writing about past events. Present tense, Toor says, doesn't allow for reflection.

Arnie Rosenberg is the founder of The Center for Essay Excellence. He writes regularly about college essays and their importance to the college-admission process. Contact him at Arnie.Rosenberg.Editor@gmail.com.

0 Comments

Lots of advice from the college-fair circuit

11/4/2014

1 Comment

 
Picture
   It's always a learning experience for me to talk with students and parents. Regardless of whether it's as part of a college-night panel discussion, an Essay 101 program at a library or community center or at a high school college fair, I get as much out of it as anyone.
   That's the case with the round of college fairs we've just wrapped up. Over the past month we've met hundreds of parents and students, talking not only about their college essays, but about the college-application process overall. What I found was a remarkable lack of awareness of all the intricacies involved.
   Most of all, of course, we talked with students and their parents about their essays. And I wasn't surprised that even into late October, so many seniors hadn't yet done serious work on their essays. Will these students get their essays done? Of course. Even if they only complete just the Common App and one of its its five prompts, and do nothing for any of their top-choice schools or others, they'll get done.
   But how good will they be? And how close will they come to achieving the real objective of a college essay?
   What is that objective? Funny you should ask . . . . because of plenty of the seniors we spoke with at the college fairs couldn't really answer that question. They couldn't tell me that your essay is the one element of the application that gives an admissions officer a picture of you as an individual, not simply someone who took AP Biology or IB Human Geography.
   So many students are applying to colleges today, and high school students are achieving at levels so much higher that just a few years ago, that it's paramount to have something that sets you apart. Students -- and their parents, too -- seemed shocked when I told them the simple truth: Competition is tough. If you're putting your 3.8 high school GPA on an application, you can count on the fact that plenty of other students are applying to the same university with the same 3.8, with the same SAT score and with just as many extracurriculars and community-service hours. 
   Your essay is what separates you from the crowd and tells the university why they should want you.
   Still -- just as gratifying as the oblivion of some families was shocking -- was the presence of so many juniors and even sophomores and freshmen at the college fairs. They're doing the right thing by realizing it's not too early to learn the ins and outs of applying to college as well as chatting with representatives of colleges and universities they're interested in.
   In particular, I spent lots of time talking with juniors. I gave them and their parents two pieces of advice that are critically important at this stage of the process. First, spend time now reading successful essays. Many more universities are posting their best essays online for future applicants to read. I don't suggest you do what these students did, either in their style or their content.
   A great example is Johns Hopkins University, where you can read four years worth of "Essays That Worked."
  But before you launch into you own essay, it's beneficial to see the wide array of ways others have approached the task.
   And for high school juniors, my most important advice was to start early on their essays. Use the summer before your senior year. Of course, I'm not suggesting spending every waking hour at the computer, but if you wait until senior years starts in August, your head will be packed with so many distractions, and the life of a senior will take up so much of your time, you will have lost the best possible writing environment,
   College-fair season always is a huge learning experience for me. This fall I know I was able to pass along a lot of essay wisdom to everyone who stopped to chat with us at The Center for Essay Excellence.
   Good luck!
****
   It's not always procrastination that leaves a high school senior looking at a blank screen as the days tick off into November. Plenty of seniors face writer's block when it comes to their college essays.
  Unfortunately, friends, parents -- even teachers and counselors -- offer only cliches in their effort to help, according to independent college adviser Lee Bierer.  Some of the lame tips they offer up, she says, include "Relax" and
“Instead of seeing the essay as a challenge, look at it as an opportunity to share your innermost thoughts.”
   Neither one is likely to help much. But Bierer, writing in the Charlotte Observer, offers some much-more-practical pointers for unlocking writer's block. Here's a sampling:
  •    "Do something else creative. Cook, draw, paint, sing, play music. The hope is that by engaging in another creative activity your mind will open up and be less judgmental."
  •   "Do something physical. Get centered with yoga, run, take a Zumba class. Take deep breaths and approach the assignment with more positive thoughts."
  • "Talk it out. Pick someone who knows you really well.  . . .  Have them ask you questions that would help someone else get to know you better. Ask them to get you talking about some life experiences you’ve had and what you’ve learned."
  • "Think small. Colleges don’t expect you to have saved the world from Ebola. They’re just trying to learn what you care about and whether you’ll be a good fit for their campus."
****
   Dump the essay? That's what Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology is considering.
   James A. Goecker, vice president of enrollment management at the Terre Haute, Ind., college, believes a psychological test called "the locus of control" can be more telling than a 650-word essay because "it tells us more about success in college, which to me is more important than which book I'd take to a desert island and why," Goecker told the Lafayette (Ind.) Journal & Courier.
   "It's time for us to objectively take a step back," Goecker said, "and say, 'Is this really the best we can do?' "


Arnie Rosenberg is the founder of The Center for Essay Excellence. He writes regularly about college essays and their importance to the college-admission process. Contact him at Arnie.Rosenberg.Editor@gmail.com.

1 Comment

College Fair 101: Get the most out of your visits

10/11/2014

0 Comments

 
Picture
   It's football season, it's college-application season but it's also college-fair season. No. 2 and 3 go hand-in-hand, of course, and -- when it comes to choosing schools where you'll apply -- give you opportunities you won't get anywhere else.
   "You get a chance to talk to representatives from all over the country and sometimes they'll even have them from other places," explains Alicia Englestad, career/post-secondary counselor at Palo Verde High Magnet School in Tucson. "It's great to go to those to get a little bit of information."
   "And have your list of questions ready to go," Engelstad says on the bigfuture blog, sponsored by The College Board. "Things like the size of the school. Things like the size of the classes. Maybe what kind of


programs do you have? Have set up the ideas of things that are important to you."
   College fairs also bring together companies that provide important services for college-bound students. You'll find folks to discuss financial aid, test preparation, setting up your dorm room and that all-important college essay.
   For me, it's important to talk with as many high school seniors as possible about their college essays. Whether or not they choose to have me work with them on their essays, even a five-minute conversation at a college fair can make a big difference for you and your essay.
   Just a couple of minutes chatting with me can make a world of difference for the student who's been struggling with his or her essay. We'll talk about the basics -- choosing a topic, writing a compelling intro, keeping the reader engaged. If I can get you on the right track (or back on the right track if you've gotten distracted), that five minutes is a monumental investment . . . . for both of us.
   If you're in South Florida, I'd love to talk with you over the next two weeks. Look for me at The Center for Essay Excellence booth at the Boca Raton High School College Fair this Tuesday (Oct. 14), the Suncoast High School College Fair this Thursday (Oct. 16) and the countywide college fair on Wednesday, Oct. 22, sponsored by the Palm Beach County School District.
   The countywide event expects more than 175 universities and career programs
to be represented. Boca Raton and Suncoast expect 75 and 90 representatives, respectively, to be there to talk with you.
   But don't plan on just walking into these college fairs, or any college fairs around the country, and just wandering around. Make a plan and stick with it. Prepare your questions in advance and make sure you ask them.
   "College fairs are unique opportunities for you to meet college admissions people face-to-face and begin the process of showing colleges your 'demonstrated interest,'" Marjorie Hansen Shaevitz writes in The Huffington Post. "They are especially useful if you don't have the time or resources to personally visit colleges.
   "Not all colleges in the U.S. are represented at these fairs, but you will usually find at least some that are of interest to you. You never know, you might even find a few schools that you have never heard of that eventually end up at the top of your college list."
   In the blog, Shaevitz -- founder of AdmissionPossible.com -- provides invaluable advice on how to prepare for a college fair: what to do beforehand, how to dress, what to do when you arrive, how to introduce yourself to college representatives and an all-important list of questions you should ask of the colleges where you're interested in attending.
   Check it out . . . and come by and meet me at The Center for Essay Excellence booth at the three South Florida college fairs this week and next.

Arnie Rosenberg is the founder of The Center for Essay Excellence. He writes regularly about college essays and their importance to the college-admission process. Contact him at Arnie.Rosenberg.Editor@gmail.com.
0 Comments
<<Previous

    Arnie Rosenberg

    Arnie is an award-winning newspaper, magazine and online editor. He's been helping students perfect their college and scholarship essays for more than 15 years.

    Archives

    August 2018
    June 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.