This post about the Common Application is part of a series of posts written to help you fill out the 2012 Common Application supplement for Ivy League schools. If you are a rising high school senior, there is a good chance that the Common Application website is bookmarked on your web browser, or printed,…
Admissions Tip: Thanksgiving Appreciation
I could write now about the aspects of my life I am thankful for: my husband, five healthy children, two delightful, adorable grandchildren, my daughter’s recent engagement, a thriving business, work that I enjoy, and good health. I have done so in the past as I wished you a Happy Thanksgiving, a US holiday that…
Athletic Appeal in Admissions
Long before Gabby Douglas flew through her floor exercise and Michael Phelps dominated the pool, admissions directors have been impressed by athletes. From stories about the perfect basket, goal, spike or serve, athletes have wonderful stories that display their endurance, strength, leadership and team skills. Fascinated by the applicant who used his marathon run as…
Where’s the Poetry? The Secret Ingredient in Your Graduate Application Essays
Strategy will necessarily guide your selection of essay topics, anecdotes/examples, and structure. Yet an essay built on calculation alone, even if the strategy is spot on, will often disappoint. Logically it all makes sense. But it doesn’t take flight. Poetry can be the secret ingredient to make your application essay sing – right into the…
MBA Admissions A-Z: E is for Essay
Next up in our MBA Admissions A-Z series is E for Essay, a topic on which we could very easily write an entire book. (Hey – we DID write an entire book. Scroll down for details.) Here we are going to focus on 4 critical MBA admission essay mistakes. Make sure that your essays DON’T…
Oh No! A Typo!!
Will it doom your otherwise perfect application to the great round file in cyberspace, putting the kabosh on years of effort and nixing your attempt to walk through the hallowed halls of your favored institution? No. A single, minor typo will do absolutely nothing. So don’t sweat one minor spelling mistake, a missed comma, or…
Common Application Essay Tips
If you are a rising high school senior, there is a good chance that the Common Application website is bookmarked on your web browser, or printed, sitting on your desk. An ominous reminder of the promise that you made to yourself: I will write my college essays this summer. With more than 300 colleges and…
Tips for Completing Your Yale University Application
This is part of a series of posts providing advice you can use when completing The Common Application for 2011. You can find the entire series, including tips for the Common App’s required essays and advice on completing the activities section at https://blog.accepted.com/acceptedcom_blog/tag/2011-common-application-tips. Yale offers both regular decision and single choice early action. Under single…
Tips for Completing Your Application to Princeton University
This is part of a series of posts providing advice you can use when completing The Common Application for 2011. You can find the entire series, including tips for the Common App’s required essays and advice on completing the activities section at https://blog.accepted.com/acceptedcom_blog/tag/2011-common-application-tips. To me, Princeton has one of the more interesting applications. Like Harvard, they eliminated early action/early decision,…
Epidemic Among Applicants!
Your personal statements, application essays, and statements of purpose are suffering. It’s serious. And could be fatal to your application. This latest epidemic of vacuous, declarative sentences that either state the obvious or make non-credible claims has reached epic proportions in applicant essays, personal statements, and statements of purpose. The cure? Substance and specifics. Stories…
7 Signs an Experience Belongs in Your Application Essay
You have a lifetime of experiences. Which should you include in your application essays or personal statement? How do you choose? The more of the seven signposts of significance discussed in this video that an experience has, the more it merits a place in your critical essay. Accepted.com ~ Helping You Write Your Best
Personal Statement Tip: Setting Scenes
To write a compelling personal statement or application essay, you need to draw readers into your experience without much set-up. You have to get to the heart of the matter quickly and at the same time make the reader care to read on. Visualizing a particular moment from a situation that disappointed or thrilled you…
How to Edit Your Application Essays
In an exclusive interview with… well, herself, Linda Abraham shares some advice that she’s learned over the course of almost two decades of application essay editing. Listen to the full recording of this excellent episode to learn concrete steps you can take right now to ensure that your essays are working for –and not against…
MBA Admissions A-Z: E is for Essay
Next up in our MBA Admissions A-Z series is E for Essay, a topic on which we could very easily write an entire book. (Hey – we DID write an entire book. Scroll down for details.) Here we are going to focus on 4 critical MBA admission essay mistakes. Make sure that your essays DON’T…
MBA Admissions A-Z: J is for Jigsaw Puzzle
Let’s take a look at all the elements that go into creating an MBA application: There’s your GPA, your transcripts, your GMAT, a resume, your letters of recommendation, all those boxes and forms on the actual application page, and finally, your MBA application essays. Creating Your Unique Puzzle One way we like to view all…
MBA Admissions A-Z: D is for Distinctive Writing
We’ve touched upon ways in which to highlight your uniqueness in “Be Yourself” (B in our MBA Admissions A-Z series). There we talked about the importance of expressing what you’re truly passionate about rather than simply enumerating those things that you think the adcom want to hear. Writing about your passions, as well as your…
Save $100 On B-School Editing & Consulting Services – LIMITED TIME OFFER!
B-School Applicants: Get your $100 off coupon here! Through August 31, 2012, you can save $100 on all non-rush MBA editing and consulting services (minimum order $1000) with coupon code MBA100! How’s that for some motivation to jumpstart those applications? Some services that may be of interest to you include: MBA Essay Editing Application Packages…
“I’m Smart, Really I Am!” How to Prove Character Traits in Essays
When you write an application essay or statement of purpose, you’re trying to accomplish several goals at once: You are trying to prove your worthiness to be accepted to your target school, while also trying to impress upon the adcom that you have desirable character traits that your program values. But how do you prove…
Essay Tip: The Editing Funnel
Most of you now are — or soon will be — editing your critical application essays and personal statements. When Accepted.com editors review and edit your essays they go through a process I call the editing funnel. If you choose to be your own editor, you should follow a similar process. At the top of…
3 Treats that Will do the Trick in Your Personal Statement or Application Essay
In my meanderings on the web, I stumbled across a short video on screen writing. The presenters are two Emmy-winning screen writers, and they know a thing or two about telling a good story. They boil the story-telling stew down to three words — actually 2 do’s and 1 don’t: The do’s: Therefore But The…
