Thursday, November 27, 2014

College App Essays--Trimming Your College List

If you haven't finished your college application essays and you have a long list of colleges, this weekend might be a good time to finish the essays for the schools you are most interested in - and trim your list down to the colleges you actually want to go to.

As Frank Bruni explains, in his recent Times op-ed, "Promiscuous College Come-ons," colleges are marketing to entice students to apply, merely to increase their applicant pool so they appear to be more selective. Bruni's piece expands on the piece I penned for Huffington Post last week, "How Many College Apps Are Too Many?" which includes one website and two great books you can use to learn more about colleges and limit your list to the schools that are appropriate and of real interest to you. The website is College Prowler.

Take a read. If you have questions about the process, and the essays in particular, drop me a line: Liz@DontSweatTheEssay.com.

"BETWEEN the last application season and the current one, Swarthmore College, a school nationally renowned for its academic rigor, changed the requirements for students vying to be admitted into its next freshman class

"It made filling out the proper forms easier.

"A year ago, applicants were asked to write two 500-word essays as supplements to the standard one that’s part of the Common Application, an electronic form that Swarthmore and hundreds of small colleges and big universities accept. This was slightly more material than Swarthmore had previously requested, and it was more than many other highly selective schools demanded.

"Not coincidentally, the number of applicants to the college dropped, and its acceptance rate in turn climbed, to 17 from 14 percent, making Swarthmore seem less selective." READ MORE

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