When Do I Start to Worry? #CommonApp & #CollegeEssays?

When it comes to college application essays, there's a fine between worrying too much and not worrying enough, between starting too early and waiting until it's too late to comfortably do a first-rate college application essay or five or ten of them. 

Some college counselors do a hard sell and try to drum up business by drumming up frenzy and anxiety early on. That's not my style. In the last few months, I've been blogging about general issues related to college admissions and applications, without getting into the nitty gritty of the essays themselves. Not worrying about the essay can be just as important as knowing when to start worrying about it. And in place of "worrying," let's substitute "planning." 

For one thing, the only essay we're sure about now is the Common Application essay, which will be the same set of prompts used last year, so even if you wanted to start doing your essays now, the only one you could do is the Common App. All the supplementary essays, and those for schools that don't use the Common App and its essay (a good number of state schools, art schools, and conservatories) are not yet posted and won't be posted until summer. And most applications can't be submitted until late summer or early fall. 

But Memorial Day Weekend is a turning point in the calendar, and though it's not the official start of summer, it marks a transition in the direction of summer - and it's a good time to start thinking about formulating lists of prospective colleges and the essays that they might require. For many families, it's a time to plan to put aside time to do the Common App essay and the supplements, when we know for certain what they'll be. Students can get a good idea of the kinds of essays that will show up by looking at last year's requirements. FYI: They are far more demanding and varied than "Why do you want to go to this college?" 

If you're planning ahead for yourself or your son or daughter, please keep me in mind. I work with students around the world via Skype, and in person in New York City, Boston, and, for three weeks this July, on Martha's Vineyard, where I will be giving two two-week long workshops on doing the Common App essay, and seeing students privately, in person and via Skype. You DO NOT need to be on the Vineyard to work with me during these weeks.

To read more about my approach, the Vineyard workshops, the colleges my clients have gotten into, and to read testimonials, please visit my website: Don't Sweat The Essay or email me at Liz@DontSweatTheEssay.com. 

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Those 4 College App Essays About Money, Work, Social Class

The New York Times article I posted earlier might only be available to those who pay a special premium. If you want to read the four college application essays the Times selected in the previous post, here's the place to start. Apologies if you could not get to the Times piece through the link in my previous post.

"Talking about money is hard. Writing well about yourself may be harder still. So trying to do both at once, as a teenager, while addressing complete strangers who control your future, would seem to be foolhardy.

"But each year, plenty of high school seniors who are applying to college give it a go. Many skip the story of the sports team triumph or the grandparent’s death and write essays about weighty social issues like work, class and wealth, or lack thereof. Perhaps that’s what affects them most. Or maybe those are the subjects that they think will attract an admissions officer’s eye.

"In any case, for the second year, we put out a nationwide call for the best college application essays about these topics. With the help of Jennifer Delahunty, the dean of admissions and financial aid at Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, and an accomplished essayist and editor herself, we picked four to share here. READ MORE

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College App Essay Topics: Money, Social Class, Work

I think it's a bit early to start writing one's college application essays - though many graduate students have much earlier deadlines - but not too early to think about life experiences that have meant something to us, and that might turn out to be persuasive essays. There are many lists we're all familiar with about subjects to avoid in college application essays. Here's a brief story in The New York Times by Ron Lieber about subjects to consider, and that students are not often encouraged to think about: money, social class, and work. Here's the opening of the piece. I encourage you to take a look. Be sure to click on the link to the four essays!

"Last year I got a tip from a friend who is a college-admissions officer about the rising number of application essays her school was receiving about money, social class and work. As someone who is engaged in a yearslong effort to get people talking about money more often, I wanted to encourage this trend. I also desperately wanted to read them myself, so I asked readers to send them in. We published four last year and have just put up four more." READ MORE

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College App Essays & the End of Net Neutrality

This blog is dedicated to information about college admissions, often with a focus on college and grad school application essays. I don't blog about political issues here, but I'm breaking the rule because the issue under discussion will directly affect your ability to read this blog, to look at my website, and to have access to thousands of blogs and websites that all of us use every day to navigate the complicated world we live in, whether we're applying to college, looking for information, or shopping for hand-made gifts. 

You've probably heard the term "net neutrality." It means, essentially, that you can click on my website and on google.com, and you can access both sites with equal speed and ease. The end of the net neutrality - which major corporations desperately want and are close to getting - will be the end of your being able to access all but the biggest companies online - the end of it without paying huge fees for that access. Please read an excerpt from this latest article, and if you are moved to sign a White House petition asking the President to "Maintain Net Neutrality," you can read the petition and sign it here. As I write this, the petition has 34,800 signatures. 

For the news and the background, an excerpt from "The Internet is About to Become Worse Than Television" by Annalee Newitz:

"Last week, an obscure but potentially internet-transforming document was leaked from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. It revealed that government regulators are considering rules that would give big companies a chance to make their online services run faster than smaller ones.

"The proposed rules were revealed in the New York Times, and they would overturn the principle of "network neutrality" on the internet. Put simply, network neutrality allows you to use services from rich companies like Google and small startups with equal speed through your ISP. You can read a blog hosted on somebody's home server, and it loads just as quickly as a blog on Tumblr.

"Without network neutrality, Tumblr could cut a deal with your ISP — let's say it's Comcast — and its blogs would load really quickly while that home server blog might take minutes to load pictures. It might not even load at all. You can see why people in the freedom-of-speech obsessed United States might not be happy with chucking network neutrality. It privileges some speech over others, based on financial resources." READ MORE   SIGN THE PETITION

Yes, #Ivy Admissions Are Tighter For Some Than Before

No, you are not hallucinating. It is harder to get into the Ivies for certain groups of people that would have gotten into them a few decades ago - that is, high achieving, largely affluent American kids. The reasons for this are not news to everyone, but the article in today's Times, "Getting Into the Ivies," analyzing why these numbers have changed, will help all of us understand what kids in the U.S. are up against when they apply to elite colleges and universities. The answer? Follow the money. Ivies are now admitting large numbers of foreign students in large part because they don't need financial aid.

What does this mean to U.S. kids and their families with Ivy hopes and dreams? I could say what people in my field expect me to say: "The right essay will make all the difference." Of course I believe in the essays, but I also believe that it's time for students and parents to look beyond the Ivies in their college searches, and try to come to terms with the fact that the landscape has changed.

Just yesterday, I was talking to a mother in Massachusetts whose daughter is a rising senior. When I mentioned some schools to think about, including an outstanding school in the Midwest, the mother blanched. "I couldn't send her that far away." I sputtered and tried to explain that this wasn't really so far, but before I could finish my sentence, she said, "She has her heart set on Stanford. I would let her go that far if it was to Stanford." Teenagers want to separate from their parents, but they also care what they think, and they pick up their parents' energy and attitudes. Keeping an open mind in this process is a great place to start.

And there's this: Times change. Climates change. Kids change. Even landscapes sometimes change. A great quality to cultivate is adaptability. Have a look at the Times piece and let me know what you think. Here's an excerpt:

"For American teenagers, it really is harder to get into Harvard — or Yale, Stanford, Brown, Boston College or many other elite colleges — than it was when today’s 40-year-olds or 50-year-olds were applying. The number of spots filled by American students at Harvard, after adjusting for the size of the teenage population nationwide, has dropped 27 percent since 1994. At Yale and Dartmouth, the decline has been 24 percent. At Carleton, it’s 22 percent. At Notre Dame and Princeton, it is 14 percent." READ MORE
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Finish Your College Application Essay in July on Martha's Vineyard

I'm back on the Vineyard this summer - 2016 - and will be working with students and giving a free talk at the Edgartown Library. Read about it here.

Last summer, I worked privately with a good number of rising high school seniors on Martha's Vineyard and Cape Cod, making occasional day trips to the island from Boston, and working by Skype otherwise. This summer, I'll be on the island for 3 weeks, and I'll offer 2 workshops (running concurrently) over a 2-week period, and I'll also do private sessions on and off the island during that time, in person, if possible, or via Skype. (This past year, I worked by Skype with students in Seattle, Hong Kong, Cairo, Alaska and Trinidad.)

If you want to get a head start on the Common Application Essay and you'll be on the Vineyard, consider signing up for one the workshops. If you sign up before June 1, the cost is lower than after June 1. The workshops are Mon/Thurs and Tues/Friday, and each one meets 4 times. By the end of 4 meetings you'll have either a finished essay or a very good draft that I will continue to work on with you - on or off the island - until it's ready to send off. I will also be available to work on supplementary essays.

The workshops will be small, personal, and productive, and you'll come away with a few new writing skills too. Just bring your laptop.

For details about dates, times, and prices, click here and then click through to the SUMMER ESSAY WORKSHOP page. Please contact me with questions and concerns.
To visit my website, click here: 
To email me: liz@DontSweatTheEssay.com
To call me 1-855-99-ESSAY

Meet in Hong Kong May 15-23 for Help w/ College Application Essay

I will be visiting Hong Kong for a week - May 15 to May 23 - and meeting with students and parents of rising high school seniors who are interested in applying to college in the U.S. in the fall. My focus is is helping students find their college application essay material and their voices, and helping them craft successful, persuasive essays and personal statements that will show their best selves to college admissions offices.

For those who need test prep, I partner with the folks at Arborbridge, and Josh Stephens, their Director of International Development, and I recently wrote this Huffington Post piece, "International Students: Top 10 Tips for U.S. College Applications."

If you or your son or daughter wants to talk about how we can work on college essays and applications via Skype this summer or fall, please let me know. This past year, I worked with college applicants around the world - including Alaska, Trinidad, Cairo, and Hong Kong. This testimonial is from the student I worked with a Hong Kong. It was usually 8am in NYC, where I am usually am, and 8pm in Hong Kong. P.S.: She got into her first-choice school!

"It was an absolutely wonderful experience to work with Liz. Being a nervous international student desperately looking for help and advice to compose essays for a system I knew nothing about, I'm so glad that I found Liz. I was quite skeptical about this whole process at first, to work with someone from the States while I'm in Hong Kong. I never thought this whole thing could work over internet with her being 8000 miles away from me! But here we are. We worked the whole thing out through Skype and Google Docs. She was very helpful, inspiring, and patient, and she encouraged me to dig up stories within myself that I wouldn't have considered as writing materials otherwise. She helped me to see a bigger picture of where my words were heading, while correcting minor but essential grammar mistakes. She also helped me organize my stories. Liz is an amazing tutor, and I'll always be grateful for her guidance and understanding."

Send me an email: Liz@DontSweatTheEssay.com. I look forward to hearing from you.