We’ve spent the past few weeks breaking down each Common App essay prompt one by one, and now it’s time for the grand finale: our ultimate guide to writing the Common App essay. Sure, there are seven different prompts, but at the end of the day, every school is looking for the same thing: a story.
Getting waitlisted or deferred from your dream school is hard. We know it’s hard! You feel rejected, but it’s this weird non-rejection rejection that can leave you feeling lost and confused. And while a lot of things in college admissions are totally out of your control, there is something you can do if you’ve been waitlisted or deferred to give yourself another chance. A letter of continued interest, sometimes known as a waitlist letter or deferral letter, is one of the few, actionable things you can control when admissions decisions seem so out of your control. It’s your only chance to make a good second impression, and we help students write them every single year.
Getting waitlisted is the ultimate limbo – it’s not not a rejection, but it’s not a full-on denial, either. And depending on your circumstances, you could be feeling everything from mild disappointment to full-on panic. Don’t get yourself into a tizzy just yet, because there are things you can do to give yourself a shot at getting off the waitlist and make sure that you have a plan in place for the next year.
Hey, look, sometimes ED doesn’t work out the way we want it to, and we have to change strategies. If you just got rejected or deferred from your ED/EA option, we’d like to introduce you to our good friend, Early Decision 2. ED2 is just as binding as ED, and it signals to the school that you are serious about attending that school, and guess what? Schools like when you’re serious about them.
Your GPA is arguably the most important part of your application, so it’s crucial to take this aspect of your profile seriously when you’re putting together your school list.
Here’s a bit of a secret for you: there is no such thing as a minimum GPA. There are suggestions, averages, and certainly test score ranges to take note of, but there is no such thing as a GPA cut-off for students to look out for that rules out certain schools or that guarantees acceptance to others.
Before you dive into a college supplement, there are a few things to look for and review that will guide how you approach each and every application. The majority of the work for any application comes before you start actually writing. We’ve discussed in past blog posts how you can tell a lot about a college just by reading through its supplement. This point also reflects the biggest part of your applications, which is reading. While colleges are looking for responses that answer their questions, they are also looking for answers that indicate that you have read through and thought about their supplement thoroughly.
To continue our Hidden Gems series, we’re focusing on Wheaton College in Norton, MA (not to be confused with the Christian liberal arts Wheaton College in Wheaton, OH). Wheaton is a liberal arts school of about 1,600 students. It’s beautiful, it’s in a great location, and we want to shed some light on it for you. Wheaton made the news recently with the college’s announcement of its Refugee Scholarship, so you might be familiar with the name already.
If you’re like us and you read through dozens of college supplements every week breaking them down, you begin to realize that they have a lot in common. But you’re probably not like us, which is why we’re here. You’re welcome. There are a few supplements that are particularly unique, but most supplements all aim to understand the same thing: 1) why are you applying to their school and 2) what will you bring to the community both inside and out of the classroom? These questions come in different words and formats. Though you should feel free to explore a wide range of reasons, activities, academic topics, as well as reveal aspects of your personality, there are a few things you just shouldn’t touch. Here are 10 things to steer clear of in your college supplement—this goes for any and all supplements.
Pitzer College is located in Claremont, CA and is one of the Claremont Colleges. The other colleges in the consortium include Harvey Mudd, Pomona, Claremont College, and Scripps. Pitzer has about 1,000 students and emphasizes student participation and mindfulness (their motto is “Mindful of the Future”). As such, their supplement is outward-facing and asks you to write about your contributions to and observations about the world. Our advice on how to ace this supplement below.
Twas the month before Summer, and all over town,
Not a junior was prepared, no one had broken ground;
They studied for AP and subject tests with care,
In hopes that Harvard would soon answer their prayer;
Their teachers had written their letters with pride;
While parents and guardians raved by their side;
Mamma had bombarded the guidance counselor suite,
“Little Johnny needs AP French—he will be elite!”
Fall classes were picked, and college tours set,
When all of a sudden, Little Johnny awoke in a sweat.
“Oh no!” He exclaimed as he started to panic,
“I have no plans this summer—I need something gigantic!”
We know. How clever, right? Let’s focus on what brought you here, though. If you’re reading this right now, you don’t have summer plans. Take a breath. You’re going to be fine. It’s not IDEAL but it’s not the end of the world. Let’s start planning. If you’re reading this right now, it’s too late to apply to a summer program and more likely than not, you can’t intern anywhere. You could get a paying entry-level job somewhere for the summer, but it might not be the kind of resume boost you’re looking for.
A large number of the products that improve our lives are produced by molecular changes that have been carefully designed and controlled. Because of this, a chemical engineer succeeds and contributes to a wide variety of industries. The majority of chemical engineers go on to work in manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, biotech, energy, environmental health or safety industries, food processing companies, or laboratories.
Claremont McKenna is a small liberal arts college with around 1200 undergraduate students. The curriculum has an emphasis on economics, government, and public affairs, though it’s a liberal arts college, so it offers classes in a large number of disciplines. The college is located in Claremont, CA, close to Scripps College, Harvey Mudd College, Pomona College, and Pitzer College. All of these schools are part of a consortium called the Claremont Colleges. They share a lot of information and resources, and have different focuses though they are all wonderful schools in their own right. Claremont McKenna’s supplement is pretty straight to the point--read on:
As you might know, we have a lot of thoughts about community service and the college process. We even wrote about why you shouldn’t write an essay about community service. We’re certainly not going back on our word, but we wanted to delve into a caveat of that opinion. We want to share our advice for the benefit of students who truly believe that they have a specific community service experience worth sharing. It’s not unheard of, but there are a few factors to consider before you decide. First, make sure that you’re well-versed in what to avoid in your community service essay. Namely, most community service essays make you come off as privileged and unaware, as well as basic and cliché. We don’t want that. More often than not, we would strongly advise against writing about community service. Before you take this advice, please contact us so we can tell you if it’s a good idea.
Haverford College is a small liberal arts school of about 1,290 undergraduate students. Campus calls Haverford, MA home, and it’s definitely homey. The majority of classes on campus are taught seminar-style. The college has a 9:1 teacher to student ratio, which speaks to its focus on not only student to teacher but student to student interaction. Classes are for the most part discussion-based, with an emphasis on debate and open dialogue. Haverford believes that every student has more autonomy than the normal college student, given their academic structure and their Honor Code. The Honor Code plays a big role in the college’s supplement, so it’s important that you read through it and really understand it before you dive into the supplement. We break it all down below.
BREAKING NEWS. It’s hard to get into competitive schools. Every April and May, scores of **profound** think pieces come out that cite the year’s acceptance rates. They (who is “they”?) proclaim it’s “impossible” and “harder than ever” to get in as acceptance rates plummet. Parents and students across the world get panic attacks thinking about the odds. “How is my kid going to get into Yale when the acceptance rate is 6.9%!?” While the raw numbers support these fears, we’ve postulated that these acceptance rates are incredibly inflated.
College campuses differ in every way imaginable, from location and size to age, grandeur, and access to cities or nature. It’s hard to make a choice about what matters. In that vein, we wanted to provide a roundup of the top 10 schools that we consider the best for those students who want an academic challenge and also seek easy access to the outdoors. The following is a list of academically selective schools that also offer a range of outdoor activities and opportunities to immerse yourself in nature. If your priorities are academic rigor and fresh air, then these schools are a great place to start.
When you think “engineering,” you don’t necessarily picture a small liberal arts school. Think again. While engineering and liberal arts don’t often mix, they sometimes do. Rather, engineering in a liberal arts environment does exist and we’re here to tell you why we think it’s a great idea. Think of it as the best of both worlds. Not only are you able to study engineering and gain an extensive amount of hands-on research, but you’re able to do it in an intellectually stimulating environment with a diverse student body.
Potential careers for computer scientists include becoming an analyst or scientist of computer research, a software engineer/developer, a database administrator, or a computer network architect. Computer scientists are skilled at every aspect of computer communication, which means they can create frameworks to solve software issues via research, development, or a combination of the two.
Continuing our How To Get In series, this time we’re tackling the Dartmouth supplement. The Dartmouth College supplement consists of two additional short writing responses. The biggest challenge is the length of the writing responses--the first response is 100 words or less, and the second is 250-300 words. For both, we encourage our students to repeat and embody our mantra of: “think small and tell a story.” We break down every prompt for you below.
Not everyone can be a straight A-student, and not everyone can have and maintain a 4.0+ GPA. We get that. While grades and test scores are important in the college admissions process, they aren’t absolutely everything. We have worked with a great deal of students who are either strong students but have below-average test scores, or who are on the cusp of achieving an A-average, but certainly have a GPA that falls markedly below that cut-off. We’ve helped a lot of students gain admission to schools of their choice despite these softer spots in their profile.
Your college guidance counselor at your school is an instrumental person in your college admissions process. Though you mostly see them right now for occasional check-ins and receive emails from them, they will ultimately be someone who can be a true advocate for you throughout this process. Most important to consider, though, is that they will be writing you a recommendation letter. In the second round of admissions after grades and scores, their recommendation letter and your teacher recommendation letter are incredibly important factors. They write each student a recommendation letter, so it’s smart to get to know them early. While you can’t control the words that your counselor writes in their recommendation, you can certainly influence the content and tone with your actions. Here are some tips that we recommend for getting on your college guidance counselor’s good side.
While all of the components of your college application are important, one particularly crucial element that requires notice, effort, and thought are your teacher recommendations. Teacher recommendations are an integral part of your application because it’s an outside perspective. Your teachers and counselors are offering a discussion of your character based on their observations and experiences, and that should not be overlooked. It’s important to give this aspect some significant thought, and just FYI: don’t just assume you should ask your English teacher because you’ve gotten straight 100s on all of your quizzes and papers. Think again, and read on.
Building a balanced list is about research and knowing what you want. The first component has to do with identifying the school’s numerical range that you’re interested in--the average SAT/ACT scores are available on the schools’ websites, and from there you compare your own score. If your scores are above, it’s a safety, if they’re around the same, a target, and if you fall below numerically, then the school is a reach. Before we delve into building your list, make sure that you read up on the difference between reaches, targets, and safety schools in our blog post on the topic. This post builds on that knowledge.