“Tell me about a time when you disagreed strongly with your supervisor. ” “How would you do things differently now?” “What draws you to this program more than to any other?” If you have interviews coming up, whether for a seat in a college program or a job opening, will you be ready to answer…
College Admissions: Mining Identity for College Essays, Personal Statements
Langston Hughes begins his poem “Theme for English B” this way: The instructor said: Go home and write a page tonight. And let that page come out of you- Then it will be true. I wonder if it’s that simple? “Tell us about yourself” When colleges instruct you to “Tell us about yourself,” it may…
9 Secrets to Telling an Attention-Grabbing Story
You’ve completed most of your application. Now it’s time to write your personal statement. You want your statement to stand out from the rest, and the way to do this is to tell a compelling story – the tale of your greatest achievements, dreams, and challenges. You can tell a compelling story by tying together…
Common App Essay Prompts 2022-2023: Tips for Writing Essays That Impress
Many universities and colleges use the Common Application across the United States and in countries around the world. There are over 900 Common Application members in the United States, Canada, the European Union, United Kingdom, and worldwide. These institutions are united in their commitment to a holistic approach to the admissions process. This commitment means…
Writing About Your Experiences Abroad
You studied, worked, or volunteered abroad. Now you want to include part of this in your personal statement as part of an undergrad, AMCAS or other application. Maybe you want to show that you’ve experienced a different culture and expanded your perspective through your eye-opening experiences meeting new people, mountain-climbing, assisting in a rural community,…
10 Tips for Better Essay Writing
Let’s take your writing up a notch–or two! Ready to up your game in the writing department? Since you’re probably eager to show the adcom that you’ve got the “write” stuff and can relate your significant experiences and insightful ideas eloquently, these 10 tips are for you: Think about writing as a conversation on paper….
How Personal is Too Personal?
The personal statement is a terrific opportunity to share an intriguing and unique aspect of your life with the admissions committees. How much should you tell? At what point are you crossing the line into TMI? When I applied to college, I wrote a personal statement describing some challenging family circumstances I’d had while growing up….
7 Simple Steps to Writing an Excellent Diversity Essay
What is the diversity question in a school application, and more importantly, why does it matter when applying to leading programs and universities? A diversity essay is an essay that encourages applicants with minority backgrounds, unusual education, distinctive experience, or unique family histories to write about how these elements will contribute to the diversity of…
Admissions Tip: BE YOURSELF!
One of the things admissions committee members tell us again and again is that they wish – really, truly wish – that applicants would not try to write what they imagine the adcom wants to hear, but would just be themselves instead. Time and time again, admissions committee members tell us they wish applicants would…
Writing a Lead That Pops
How many times have you wandered through a bookstore or library, opening up a book to read the first few lines only to quickly close it again? How often have you tested a free sample on your Kindle only to decide after a paragraph that you’re glad you didn’t buy it? How often have you…
Revise and Polish Your Application Essays
You’ve got your first draft ready – this is a great milestone! Now it’s time to revise and edit. Outstanding essays are not sprung into the world on the first draft. Here’s how to edit and polish until your essay shines: 1. Let your essay rest for a day or two, particularly after an intensive…
How to Create the First Draft of Your Application Essay
You now have a clear sense of what makes an essay effective. You have reflected on the questions that helped you identify and develop your theme. Now it’s time to start writing. Before you begin, draft an outline, even if it’s only a very informal list of the main points you want to cover. Based…
Writing Your Career Goals Essay
The career goals essay–a close cousin to the graduate school statement of purpose–also demands a laser-like focus. Unlike personal statements that may discuss career goals but also allow for more flexibility in content, the career goals essay has a specific and packed agenda. In fact, a career goals essay questions may contain several questions in…
Finding a Theme for Your Statement of Purpose
All effective essays have a distinctive theme. Referring back to the essays we read in the previous post, we might say that our MPH candidate’s theme was her passion for finding answers to significant public health issues. Our law school applicant’s theme was his yearning for greater intellectual challenges while remaining in the healthcare field….
Identifying the Ingredients of a Winning Essay
As you gear up to write your application essays, you may have looked at sample “winning” essays published in books or on websites, only to ask yourself afterward, “Sure, these are great, but what do these essays have to do with me?” This blog series will show you how to plan for, draft, and edit…
3 Reasons Why Writing About Overcoming Obstacles Strengthens Your Application Essays
Why do obstacles matter to the adcoms? Applicants love to write about their accomplishments, whether in personal statements for graduate school or in b-school essays that ask for greatest achievements, challenges, and the like. And when they do, they are not shy about coming up with tangible accomplishments: driving innovations that led to revenue boosts…
Tips for Answering the University of California System Personal Insight Questions [2021 – 2022]
The University of California System or UC’s, as they are commonly known, consist of 9 campuses that utilize the same application. They are: UC Berkeley (Cal), UC Santa Cruz, UC Davis, UC Merced, UC Santa Barbara, UC Los Angeles (UCLA), UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and UC San Diego. You will use the same responses for…
The College Application Process: A Survival Guide for Parents
Is there a college-bound senior in the house? If so, you may feel the ground shifting beneath you. When this high school senior becomes a college freshman next year, it will be a transformative time. With so much riding on where students will end up attending college, it’s no wonder that the relationship between applicants…
The Essay Whisperer: How to Write a College Application Essay
In your senior year of high school, the pressure is on to write your college application essays. Your mission: to present yourself in a way that is real, substantial, and authentic, and thereby boost your chances of getting accepted to the school of your choice. But the anticipation of writing your college application essays may…
How Should I Choose Which Essay Questions to Answer When I Have Choices?
You’re sitting down to face your application, and you are glad to see that you can choose which essay questions to answer. You’re not stuck answering a particular set of questions. It’s good to know you have options. After all, you are determined to answer the questions that allow you to portray yourself at your…
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