Summer before senior year:
- Brainstorm ideas for common app essay
- Create a preliminary list of about 20-25 safety, target, and reach schools
Parent’s Guide to Helping Students with the College Admissions Essay
The college admissions process can be just as stressful for parents as it is for students. Parents feel that they need to manage their child’s time, stress, schedule, and expectations, which can lead to tension. The college process requires students and their parents to be as unified and cooperative as possible. We’ve created a step-by-step guide for parents to help their children with the college admission essay.
Do Honors and AP Courses Matter your Senior Year of High School?
As cliche as it may sound, high school is a marathon, not a sprint. Many students think that colleges won’t look at them unless they’ve had everything figured out since their freshman year. That is simply not true. Admission officers know that a huge part of high school is growth, which is important to convey this in your essays. But, your senior year is a great way to demonstrate what you’ve learned from your experiences in high school.
Phrases you Should Never use in a College Admission Essay, Part 2
In the second installment of “Phrases to Avoid,” we have compiled 39 more phrases sourced from real college essays that you should never use under any circumstances. They include unnecessary hyperbole, awkward word choice, and tired cliches among their many problems. In many cases phrases like these are a red flag to an admissions officer, and using any one of them can help land your essay in the rejection pile.
How to Write a College Essay About Failure
The common app offers five prompts for the personal statement, aka the dreaded “college essay.” Despite the fear the essay evokes, each option gives you the chance to be creative. While we encourage students to explore their quirkiest side, it can often be challenging to strike that balance between being creative and answering the question. The first obstacle is choosing which of the five prompts to answer. Today we’re going to explain some strategies for how to answer the second prompt on the common app.
Six Things High School Juniors can do to Prepare for the College Process
The end of junior year can be one of the most stressful times of the college process. Everything begins to pile up at once and friends start to get competitive. You have to stay focused, organized, and do everything you can to alleviate your stress. To that end, here’s a list of the six things you should be doing at the end of the Second Semester to maximize your time and be efficient:
15 Words you Should Never use in a College Admissions Essay
After reading hundreds of college essays, we have compiled a list of words you should never use in your college admissions essay. Some of these words embody the emptiness of vague or overly complex word choice, others are redundant, some are grounds for an almost automatic rejection. You only have 650 words max in most of your essays. Every single one should count.
How to Become President of Every Club
You’re a leader even if you don’t know it yet. If you want to go to a highly competitive school, you already know how much your extracurriculars matter. But, it is the quality of those extracurriculars and your work within them that matters. Schools want leaders who are going to be excited about impacting their college community, not followers looking for a way to stuff their resume.
What are Colleges Looking for
Dear Aspiring College Applicant,
I know you’re telling yourself you’re not going to get into college. Everyone around you is so much more qualified than you are. You could have higher grades, better test scores, more impressive extracurriculars. If you had just put one more hour into studying, you would have gotten an A instead of an A- in that class. That class is the reason why you’re not going to get into Brown. You’ve convinced yourself you’re going to get rejected from literally everywhere you apply, leading to shame, embarrassment, and regret.
Why you Shouldn’t Care About US News Rankings
In 1995, Reed College, one of the best liberal arts schools in the country, announced it would no longer submit data for consideration in the US News College Rankings. They made this decision based on the arguments that the ratings were deeply flawed and not representative of a school’s best qualities. In researching the system they found that just 2% of college counselors believed that US News’ methods were effective, and that 91% of colleges were manipulating their submissions to artificially raise their ranking.
Things to do Freshman Year to Prepare for College
The college process starts earlier every year. In our home base in New York City, it seems that it begins around age two when parents start looking at options for Pre-K. By the beginning of middle school many parents are already looking for independent college counselors, consultants, and ACT tutors. This approach might seem aggressive to some, and while we don’t think a ten year old should be thinking about college, ninth grade is an appropriate time to start talking about the future.
When Writing your College Admissions Essay, Know your Audience
Up until now, the audience for your writing has probably been limited. You’ve had essays and papers due for your humanities classes, where you know the teacher well, and maybe you’ve dabbled in creative writing for yourself or a school assignment. With the exception of a few students, most first time college applicants have never written a cover letter or any other sort of writing that is intended to be read by an unknown audience. This is one of the many struggles with the common app personal statement—the college essay. It is difficult to strike the right tone because most likely, you’ve never written anything quite like it. The first thing we always tell our students is to consider their audience.
Should I Apply Early Decision to College?
When you apply to a school Early Decision you are making an unbreakable commitment. You’re telling the school, “you’re my first choice and if I get in I promise to attend.” There’s basically no caveats, exemptions, or options. If you apply to a school Early Decision and you get in, you’re going. If this sounds a little scary, that’s because it should be. Choosing to apply early is a big decision with ramifications for you long beyond the college process. It’s vital to thoroughly weigh the pros and cons. Early decision isn’t for everyone, and often times when students apply ED for the wrong reasons the college process can become even more stressful.
How do you Choose the Right College After you’ve been Accepted?
Once you’ve been accepted to multiple schools the most fun part of the college process begins. You get the chance to imagine yourself as an incoming freshman and decide why you’d want to go there more than the other schools you were admitted to. If you’ve gotten into your dream-reach school and a few safeties, the choice can be easy. But often you’re choosing between a couple of great options, and it can be more than a little terrifying to definitively pick one.
Is it Better to Get an A in a Regular Course or a B in an Honors Course?
This is one of the most common questions we get asked at TKG and one of the most pervasive false dichotomies in the college process. The frustrating answer is that if you want to go to a top tier school, you need to have the best grades in the hardest courses. Simply put, you want an A in an Honors or AP course. As acceptance rates plummet and applicants become ever more qualified and impressive, the need to take the most rigorous course available has become more important.
The Difference Between Early Decisions 1 & 2, Restrictive Early Action, and Early Action
Early Decision (ED), Early Decision II (ED II), Early Action (EA), Restrictive Early Action (REA). All of these are ways students can apply to a school before Regular Decision. But, it is easy to get lost in a sea of abbreviations, overlapping deadlines, and indecipherable admission statistics. So we’re going to go through and outline the differences between these programs, what they mean, and the various deadlines.
How Important are Extracurricular Activities in the College Application Process?
Think of extracurriculars like a side dish at a restaraunt. They may not be the main event, but they’re chosen deliberately by the chef and without them you’d be disappointed and left with an incomplete meal. The extracurriculars are not the main portion of your application—your grades, scores, and essays will always be more important—but your application, like your meal, would be incomplete without them. You need to decide which activities are going to be the best for you, keeping in mind that they need to elevate you and bring out your best qualities. Colleges don’t want students who spend all their time in the classroom and the library. The more active a member of the community, the better you are as a candidate.
What Should my College Essay be About?
Of the hundreds of essays we’ve read, we’ve found that the most successful essays fall into five categories.
The first is the genuine thought-provoking essay. This is the hardest type of essay to write because it is absolutely impossible to fake, which makes it is a favorite amongst admissions officers. Students who write a genuine thought essay are unusually insightful for their age and tend to make precocious observations. What makes this type of essay so unique is the author’s ability to bring the reader into their world, to articulate in 650 words how they see the world and how their perception has shaped who they are. In The Poetry of Lost Childhood, the author tells the reader how he sees and experiences the world by painting a picture rich in metaphors and depth. It showcases prodigious writing skills, an amazing level of intellectual depth, and a tone wise beyond its years. While these essays are not for all students, when done well they can often be the most rewarding.
When Should I Start the College Admissions Process?
The college admissions process is like preparing a five-course meal as a first time chef. It is incredibly daunting. If you prepare your ingredients correctly you’ll be fine, but you absolutely can’t wait until the last minute to figure everything out. The college process is multifaceted and everyone approaches it differently. There is no uniform start or end date. The Common App, the universal application that is accepted by over 400 schools, comes out on August 1 but if you wait until then to start thinking about college you’ll undoubtedly be overwhelmed. It would be like waiting until the day before Thanksgiving to start planning. After helping students who have started at every point possible, from sophomore year of high school to one week before the application is due, here are our key takeaways: