Felicia Fahey College Consulting

Felicia Fahey College Consulting These experiences might include taking care of younger siblings every day after school, for example, or picking up groceries for a grandparent, or working an after-school job to help the family cover rent. Such experiences demonstrate qualities that colleges are looking for, including courage, grit, responsibility, leadership, and resilience. They would like to know something they wouldn’t already know by reading the rest of your application. So think about what’s unique about you, and something about which you’re passionate, and begin writing. Bryant and other admissions officers want to read more compelling essays that “tell us how that experience affected” the student. Give the admissions officer a picture of who you are and the type of college student you would be if they offer admission. The essay should be more than words on paper or a glowing example of writing skills; it should be your story. This essay doesn’t share many life-defining revelations; we learn, as a brief aside, that the author often cared for her younger siblings, but little beyond that. Yet despite its relative lack of major information, it reveals a lot about who the author is. We learn that the author knows how to turn a phrase, the author is a warm and caring person, the author has a sense of humor, and the author will bring us cookies if we admit her to our imaginary college. All in all, we see a student who is a skilled writer with a warm heart â€" positive traits, to be sure. Sklarow's members also, of course, help students with essays. But he noted that his members adhere to his association's ethics guidelines as well as NACAC guidelines -- and that members talk about ethics all the time. Personally, he said he would offer this guidance to members on how to avoid problems. The personal essay was originally designed as a way to get to know individual students. They’re looking at your essay, recommendations and activities to understand the whole picture of you. It all depends on where you’re applying, your grades and your test scores. If you’re applying to a large state institution, and your numbers are strong relative to their average student body, then you’ll get in on the strength of your four years of hard work. The bottom line is that they may be getting 25,000 applications, and they simply don’t have time to sift through essays and recommendations. There are so many terrific free resources online â€" just google “brainstorming college essay” and you’ll be pleased with what comes up. Admission counselors heavily weigh the heartstrings pulled when presented with a well-written story outlining the applicant’s young life. For many, this will make or break their acceptance to a top-tier school. Many of the supplemental essay questions from colleges will ask the student why they are choosing to apply to that college in particular. That question can generate a lot of generic responses from students, said Sawyer of “College Essay Guy.” Don’t be generic, he said. One of the most intimidating elements of the college application for many students is the essay or personal statement. In our College Essay Clichés to Avoid post, we advised students against writing about moving to America from a foreign country. Second, students want validation that they have done a worthy job on their essay, and they naturally gravitate towards the adult mentors in their life. A college counselor or English teacher is great, but when we hear that parents, SAT tutors, or my-mom's-friend-who-is-good-at-writing are also weighing in, we start to worry. Some schools will tell you that two separate readers evaluate every essay in its entirety. As students begin their applications, here are some tips from the pros to make the process a little less panic-inducing. All of those tips are really great and helpful for most of the students who wanted to write down a successful college admission essay. Thus, this kind of tips are really common but still gives a good impact to the students. A recitation of your resume.They have already read that. They know your GPA, test scores, and ALL of your activities ad nauseum. Listing them again will not sit well with the vast majority of college admissions readers. However, with the rise in companies specializing in writing these essays and access to numerous copies on the Internet itself, that purpose is not being served. As a writer, a personal essayist no less, I admire the craft and precision of the personal essay, the skill of taking one’s life and carefully dissecting and portraying it in a way that moves someone else. This is a wonderful skill, but not one I believe is applicable in this day and age of college admissions. While strong academics and social curricula are essential to getting into a top school, for over 300 colleges it is the infamous personal essay that gets them into universities. Given volume, staff sizes, and compressed timelines between application deadlines and decision release, that seems at worst a blatant lie, and at best an incredibly inefficient process. However, if you’re applying to an Ivy League school or a smaller liberal arts college, then they’re really looking at the whole package and the essay can be very important. At some of these schools, there are very few students who don’t have near-perfect test scores and GPAs, so how do you stand out?