Caroline Koppelman
Official Common App Essay Guide 2025-2026

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.

Caroline Koppelman
How to Write Common App Essay Prompt 7: Example ...

We’ve been waiting for this one: it’s finally time to dig into Prompt #7, the crown jewel of the Common App essay prompts.

Caroline Koppelman
Ultimate Guide to Letters of Continued Interest ...

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.

Caroline Koppelman
Ultimate Guide to Getting Waitlisted 2025

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.

Caroline Koppelman
Best Early Decision II (ED2) Schools 2024-2025

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.

How to Write the Common App Essay Prompt #3, 2019-2020

We’re moving through these prompts in our series on the Common App essay prompts for this 2019-2020 application season. We’re going through every prompt and investigating, contemplating, and analyzing them down for parts. So many words, so little time! So little direction! It’s a lot. We know. That’s why we’re calling it like we see it with each prompt and giving you a bit of wisdom for if (and when) you’re feeling stuck. Here are our thoughts on prompt #3:

How to Write the Common App Essay Prompt #2, 2019-2020

Welcome to our overview of the Common App essay prompts for this 2019-2020 application season. We’re reviewing each prompt, discussing the pros and cons, and deciphering what it’s actually saying. We know that it can get messy and confusing because it’s overwhelming. It’s particularly overwhelming because you know that your personal essay is the most important part of your application. We’re your Google Translate for the Common App. Read on for the ins and outs of Common App prompt #2. 

How to Write the Wake Forest Supplement 2019-2020

Wake Forest University is located in Winston-Salem, NC and has an undergraduate population of around 5,100 students. It’s a southern, small-ish, bordering on medium but not quite medium-sized school, that identifies as a collegiate university with a liberal arts curriculum. It’s test-optional, which could be appealing for some applicants, but it’s still quite competitive. Their acceptance rate has hovered around 30% for the last couple of years, though dipped a bit below last year. It’s academically rigorous and boasts a number of quite unique majors and minors that appeal to the student who has a true understanding of exactly what they want to do. For example, their sports medicine program, Elementary Education program, Business and Enterprise Management program, which is rare for a liberal arts school, and their Cultural Heritage & Preservation Studies program.

Top Ten Schools for Fine Arts

This blog post is for the student that is considering pursuing a B.A. in Art, which could mean a few things. Maybe you love art but also want to take general education classes to supplement your education. Maybe you want to be able to draw, paint, or make sculptures but aren’t sure if you want to make a career out of it. Or maybe your parents won’t let you go to RISD. Keep scrolling to read about some of our favorite programs:

Best Test Optional Universities 2019-2020

While many schools still believe that SAT and ACT test scores are an important metric for evaluation, more and more universities are becoming test optional. Students can submit their scores if they want, but not doing so will not affect the evaluation of their application. Here’s a list of some of the top national universities that are test optional, which we created from a data set released on May 9th of 2019. There are additional schools on this list, but we selected the below based on interest from our client base. 

How to Write the Swarthmore College Supplement 2019-2020

Swarthmore College is a small, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, PA. There are around 1,600 undergraduate students. So, when we say “small” we really mean it. It’s a true liberal arts college, in that it has strong roots in the arts and humanities as well as has a strong engineering program and many degree options for those oriented more towards math and science. It’s a part of the Tri-College Consortium with Bryn Mawr and Haverford, and students have the ability to take classes cross-registered with the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. It’s competitive and academically rigorous, with an acceptance rate of around 8.7% for the class of 2023. Over 11,400 applied and 995 were accepted. It’s no joke.

The Best Test Optional Liberal Arts Schools 2019

Standardized testing is a heavily debated topic and in recent years, more and more schools have become test optional. This means that you can submit your scores should you decide to, but not submitting them won’t affect your chances of getting in. This list is not exhaustive, but instead focuses on the top liberal arts schools that our clients and readers most commonly apply to. We created our list from a data set that was updated on May 9th of 2019.  

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.