“My heart had stopped beating. The heart rate monitor stood still at a hollow flat line. As the doctors shuffled around the room searching for shock paddles, my mom cried at the window. With a round of successful defibrillation, I was revived. I view this medical triumph as my second chance at life, my opportunity to be the best version of me. Without facing death, I wouldn’t have the perspective I do on life. I am truly a miracle.”
The Hidden Value of Writing a Bad First Draft of Your College Admission Essay
Every great piece of writing has to start somewhere. You can be sure that The Great Gatsby wasn’t one of the greatest books of all time when it was solely a first draft. Even the most well respected authors go through various drafts before finishing their pieces. The art of writing is based on revision. Hemingway had to write and rewrite before he was happy with his work. It took him 39 rewrites to get the last page of A Farewell to Arms to sound the way he wanted it to. If they can do it, so can you.
The 17 Best Acting BFA Undergraduate Programs in America
A Bachelor of Fine Arts degree is ideal for students that love to act and already know they want to be actors. BFA programs are incredibly time intensive and require full focus. Generally, BFA programs have studio components. It is the most prestigious degree you can receive in arts. Although there are many BFA programs in the country, the following are the best.
How to Write the Williams College Supplement 2016
Imagine yourself in a tutorial at Williams. Of anyone in the world, whom would you choose to be the other student in the class, and why?
Every year there are multiple supplements that ask you to write about a person. Whether the supplement is similar to Williams, which asks you to choose a person for your class, or Barnard where you’ll have to write about having lunch with someone, this question comes up a lot. As with all supplements, there are an endless amount of options.
Harvard's Acceptance Rate is Inflated
Frank Bruni recently wrote a satirical piece about Stanford having a 0% acceptance rate. Although Stanford received many qualified applications, Bruni wrote that none of them fully impressed the admission staff. With no “Olympic gold medalists” in the applicant pool, Bruni sarcastically comments that they’re hoping for better applicants next year. Although this article acts as a commentary on how outrageous the college process has become, we received many emails from concerned parents asking how this was possible. Since the college process has grown so competitive, people actually thought it was possible for Stanford to accept zero people. To make matters worse, the most recent acceptance rates have hit historical lows across the board. These decreasing acceptance rates have become exponential in the past years. With this insight, it makes us wonder how these statistics are formed. The reality of college acceptance rates is that they are incredibly inflated.
How to Hack the College Admissions Process: Advice from Our Seniors
Our class of 2017 has started the college application process. They are writing their essays, finalizing their lists, and visiting schools. Most of them are calm and feel very prepared, but they can’t help but be a little anxious. There are so many unknowns in this process, so we decided to ask our class of 2016 for some advice. As the TKG class of 2016 heads to schools across the United States, including Stanford, UPenn, NYU, USC, University of Michigan, UNC Chapel Hill, Barnard, and more, they’re offering their advice for our upcoming seniors.
The Best Colleges with no Supplements
It excites our students to find out that a school they’re applying to doesn’t have a supplement. Although supplements serve a very important purpose, they can be tedious to write because of the time and research involved in making them unique. We went through the top 100+ schools on the US News and World ranking and found all the schools that don’t have supplements. If you’re on the fence about applying to a certain school on this list, then this might be the factor that makes you apply. However, we don’t recommend applying to a school simply because it is supplement-free.
How to Get into Wesleyan
As applicants, you know that a standardized test requires studying and preparation. Years of work lead up to a 3 hour and 50 minute exam that will supposedly tell a person everything they need to know about you. For some, the tests are where they shine; their strengths lie in succeeding under pressure and scoring high. However, many of us feel less comfortable with the idea of letting a test determine who we are.
When is the Last Time I Can Take the SAT for Regular Decision?
Six Pieces of Advice for your Common App Essay
Don’t forget to keep the narrative structure
The college essay should be a story, not a book report. You want to create characters and a plot arc that readers can follow along with. Much in the same way you would tell your friends a story about something that happened, you don’t want to go straight to the take home points. Instead, build up the story so the reader is emotionally invested and wants to know more. The story should come to a head and pay off for the reader.
The Smartest Strategy for Applying to a Reach School
Most people don’t remember when they learned about Harvard for the first time. Harvard looks and feels like “college.” With its red brick buildings and green quad, Harvard the movie magic, picture perfect image of a college. No matter who you are or what your various connections to the school may be, Harvard is a reach for almost everyone. A reach school is a school where a student falls towards the lower end of the indicated range, or any school that admits less than 20% of applicants who apply. Reach schools are incredibly well known and sought after—think Ivy League+ schools. In order to get in, you need something special. We can’t give you an exact formula for getting into Harvard, but we have developed unique strategies for helping students get to their reach schools.
When and how to Ask for a Letter of Recommendation for College
As we’ve said, colleges aren’t just admitting your grades and test scores. They really want to know who you are and why you would be a good fit at their school. By your senior year, there isn’t much you can do to change the nature of your application. Unless you are retaking your tests, your grades and scores are basically set. There are only a few aspects of your application that you get to start from scratch at this point: your essays, your supplements, and your recommendation letters. Your teachers work with you everyday and can speak to qualities you possess that aren’t mentioned elsewhere in your application. The quality of your recommendation letter is extremely important, but we’ve found a lot of our students feel awkward when it comes time to ask their teachers. Here’s a guide to help you figure out how and when you ask your teachers for letters.
Who Should I Ask for a Letter of Recommendation for College?
The Recommendation Letters are a hugely important and often overlooked portion the college application. Your grades and scores don’t tell the whole story. Unlike the essays, recommendation letters give someone else the chance to advocate on your behalf. You have the chance to have a teacher you admire tell a school what makes you stand out from other candidates. Of course, who you ask to write your recommendation is extremely important because it will affect how the admissions committee sees you.
What is the Coalition Application?
The Common Application (Common App) has been a staple of the college application process for more than forty years. The Common App has done an excellent job of streamlining the application process and made it easy to apply to multiple schools. While not every college uses the Common App, it has become the choice of most top colleges in the recent past. However, in the past few years, there has been criticism of the Common App.
Best Test Optional National Universities
Top Test Optional Liberal Arts Schools
Over the past few years, standardized testing has become a heavily contested subject. Although some argue that it is an important data point and equalizer, more and more schools are moving towards becoming test optional. Test optional means students can choose to submit their test scores, and a lack of submissions won’t affect their chances. Here is a list of the top test optional liberal arts schools.
When Is The Last Time I Can Take The SAT or SAT 2 For Early Decision Schools?
Early decision school applications are due in the beginning in November on either November 1st or November 15th. Early decision has increased in popularity over the past few years as many people believe that there is a significant advantage to applying early. While there are certainly advantages and disadvantages to applying ED, we always want to make sure our students know about the different testing deadlines. Can they take a November SAT and have it count? Do they have to send the scores directly?
The Ultimate Safety School Strategy Guide
We hope you get into your dream reach school, and we plan on giving you all the advice to make your dream come true. But the reality is that you need to have a solid backup plan just incase. In the beginning of the college application process, most of our students have the wrong attitude towards safety schools because they assume they will get into at least a few of their target and reach schools. Safety schools are never to be looked down upon. We find that students who do that end up picking their safeties at random. A safety should be a school a little below your target range that you still would love to attend. Although we’ve never had a student who hasn’t gotten into at least one of their reach schools, we want to ensure you’re prepared for that possibility.
The College Essay as a Social Experiment: How to Start a College Essay About Yourself
You can write your college essay about anything, which is part of the reason it is hard to find a subject. Having no predetermined topic will undoubtedly feel overwhelming, especially since most high school students aren’t used to writing that way. You’re stuck looking for an answer to the question “what colleges are looking for?” The answer is, frustratingly, nothing. They’re looking for well-crafted, thoughtful essays that tell them something about you they can’t glean from your app.