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Four Tips for Displaying Teamwork in Your Application Essays

a team high fiving demonstrating teamwork in applications

Teamwork – and its close cousin, leadership – are highly prized by graduate programs and universities. But if you haven’t worked in a team on any regular basis, don’t worry! You’ve probably got a number of examples of teamwork in your back pocket that you didn’t even realize were there. Consider the following four ideas when you …

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Four Ways to Highlight Your Strengths in Your Application Essays

One of the most important pieces of advice you’ll ever get regarding your personal statements and application essays is this: Show, don’t tell.  It’s a classic writing lesson, and you’ve probably heard it before, but how do you actually “show, not tell,” in your essays?  Simply “telling” is ineffective, because it usually involves boastful claims such …

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How to Choose the Right Graduate School

2025 How to Choose the Right Graduate School

Many people who think about advancing their skills or changing their career direction via a graduate degree believe they must attend a “prestigious” graduate school – one that is ranked highly in the surveys conducted by U.S. News & World Report, Bloomberg Businessweek, and other media outlets. These candidates apply to the schools in the top ten …

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Writing an Engaging Essay Introduction

an applicant writing an engaging essay introduction on a laptop

In today’s world, where everything moves at lightning speed, we’re constantly making fast decisions.  This applies to admissions committees, too. The pressure of their job forces them to make very quick decisions about whose applications they will invest more time in and whose will merit only an obligatory but cursory review before being set aside.  …

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Admissions Tip: Be Yourself!

Psst! How would you like to know the one thing that admissions committee members really want from applicants? Here it is: they wish – sometimes they even dream – that applicants would stop writing what they imagine the adcom wants to hear. Instead, they want candidates to just be themselves, presented articulately, of course. We …

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Starting Your Application Essay: Three Tips

If you haven’t yet read the other blog posts in this series, go ahead and check them out: Once you have reflected on the questions that helped you identify and develop your essay theme, you should have a clear path to writing an effective essay. Here are three essential steps to help you achieve that …

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Three Don’ts When Asking for Letters of Recommendation

The individuals who agree to write your letters of recommendation (LORs) are doing you a favor, so the least you can do is make their job easier by following proper LOR etiquette. Breaking the rules we outline in this post could result in your recommenders deciding not to write a favorable recommendation letter for you or …

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How the Team Approach to Admissions Consulting at Accepted Benefits You

If you are a current Accepted client, you’re likely familiar with our firm’s practice of conducting peer reviews as part of our service. Peer review is a crucial step in our process, one in which Accepted consultants seek input from their colleagues in the firm, asking them to help evaluate and enhance our clients’ essays …

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Three Must-Have Elements of a Good Statement of Purpose

What are the essential components of a strong statement of purpose essay?  Very simply, you’ll need to include your MAP: your Motivation, Aspiration, and Perspiration. At Accepted, MAP has a double meaning for individuals writing statements of purpose and goals essays. It illustrates the road one should follow when writing one of these essays. Here’s …

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Are Scholarship Databases a Good Way to Find Scholarships?

Scholarship databases are an attractive idea for most applicants – after all, who wouldn’t appreciate an easy way to find scholarships when searching can be so difficult and time-consuming? However, search databases, such as Unigo or Cappex, are only as effective as the person doing the searching. These databases work best when you have a …

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