What Is the Common App Personal Statement?

Some days, it might feel like there is just so much to do when it comes to the college application process. And there is. But the personal statement, while significant, should come as somewhat of a relieving assignment. Unlike other essays, this one requires no research. It just requires some knowledge about yourself and often, the best ones are just honest, authentic portrayals of some aspect of the applicant. In fact, the best ones are usually those in which the writer had some fun.  

What Are My Chances at the Ivy’s?

As we’ve stated before, we do our best to answer the emails we receive from our readers. Recently, we wrote a blog post titled “Which Ivy League Should I Go To?” and in that post we kindly requested that our readers stop asking both that question, and variants of it. If you’re a regular reader of our blog, you should know that we do not subscribe to the theory that everyone needs to go to an Ivy League school.

How Do I Choose a Major For My College Applications?

Choosing a major to write about in your college applications is important, but we’ll get to that in a moment. What’s way more important to understand is that it’s completely, totally, absolutely normal to not know what you want to do with the rest of your life. At 17 or 18, it’s rare to have everything figured out. It’s rare to have everything figured out, ever. You might have goals and ideas, and those goals and ideas might change more than once. That’s fine, too. Most of the students we work with panic when they tell them they have to choose a major before writing their supplement, so you’re not alone if trying to choose yours is causing you stress. We understand how scary it sounds, but it’s an effective application strategy and there are multiple reasons why:

What are my Chances of Getting into Cornell?

Our clients and the regular readers of this blog should know by now that we do not subscribe to the insane theory that everyone should go to an Ivy League school. The truth is that most students aren’t better off at an Ivy, and one of our goals is to demystify the application process so that kids can apply to schools that they actually have a chance of getting into. That said, there are still a lot of high school students (and parents) out there that think the Ivy League is the only way to go.

Who Should I Ask for a College Recommendation Letter? 

College applications aren’t just work for you. Often times, they mean work for your parents, college counselors, and teachers, too. So, hopefully you’ve been nice and respectful to a few (if not all) teachers throughout your time in school, because they are a critical part of the admissions process. The purpose of the teacher recommendation is to establish credibility for the applicant. Every other piece of the application is pretty much authored or engineered by you. The teacher recommendation allows universities to see if applicants are who they say they are. They’re also an opportunity for someone who knows you well to sing your praises and tell them something they might not know yet.  

The Best Southeast Asian Studies Programs

We originally intended to write a blog post on the best undergraduate programs for students interested in majoring in Southeast Asian studies. We set out to find programs that would allow students to delve into the histories of Southeast Asian countries while taking classes about literature, religion, and language. The results of that search were very disappointing.

Which Ivy League School Should I Go To?

Subject: College choice

Message: Hi! I’ve read your website and it seems like you’ve helped a ton of people get direction on their university choice. I was wondering if you could help me out too? I really have no idea where I want to go and I’m in my senior year of high school. I want to get into one of the Ivy’s but I don’t know particularly why or which one.

The Best Pre-BFA Summer Programs 2019

If you are an aspiring artist of any medium, spending your summer as a volunteer assistant arts teacher one day/week is not going to cut it. College admissions are, frankly, ruthless, and the BFA-track provides no exception. So, we’ve curated a list of impressive and rigorous summer programs for aspiring, cut-throat artists wishing to immerse themselves in their craft once school is out. 

When Should I Start The Common App?

It’s about that time of year when we start fielding questions about timelines, essay topics, and the Common App. It’s also the time of year when students find every excuse in the book not to keep things moving regarding the college process. The dreaded task of studying for finals might even seem more appealing than creating your Common App account, or perhaps you’ve deemed rewatching every season of Game of Thrones more important than opening up the Common App homepage.