So given the subjective nature of the process, it isn’t entirely unreasonable to ask–over and over–what looks good on a college application?

So what looks good on a college application?

It’s not what you do, but how well you do it

Many parents believe there is some secret checklist that one follows to get into selective colleges:  

• community service,
• academic research, 
• leadership,
• sports,
• the arts,
• an internship.

But colleges care much less about the actual activity you pursue than the impact you make and the level of achievement you are able to reach. 

Athletics and college admissions

While it’s nice to play a sport–and American culture certainly emphasizes sports in our schools–the more selective colleges won’t care that much unless you are good enough to play for them and help them win the conference title.  Of course there are other benefits to sports other than the college application process, but if you want the sport to “look good” on the college application, you have to play well enough to get onto the college or university team.

Volunteering and college admissions

The situation is similar with community service.  Many people ask us how many hours of volunteer work look good on a college application. But it’s not about the number of hours. It’s about the impact.  For example, a student who spends 4 hours every Saturday for four years shelving books at the local library performs an important service to the community.  However, the impact is minimal:  if that student didn’t shelve the books, someone else would–eventually.  If, on the other hand, the student worked only a few hours a week over the summer to develop a new reading program for kindergartners and helped the library to write a successful grant proposal to fund it, the impact on the community would be much greater.  And imagine the two different recommendations the head librarian might write for these two students:  one was loyal and dependable and responsible, while the other was creative, innovative, and was able to envision a project and move it toward realization. It’s not the time you put in but the results you achieve.

Internships and college admissions

Similarly, internships are not about the time one spends or the prestige of the company.  It’s about what you do during your time on the job. It can be very useful for a young person to do a job shadow for a couple of weeks to learn about life as an engineer or a marketing director or sales manager. But that is a very passive sort of internship:  the student follows the principal around, attends meetings, and gets a feel for the world of work.  But what is that young person accomplishing? In some instances (though relatively rare), a high school intern is given a specific project to complete while on the job, and may also get some good supervision and access to various tools and systems that the young person can utilize to add value to the company. What colleges are looking for on the college application is your contribution, your agency, your impact on the organization. Most internships, to be frank, are of little value on the college application because most companies don’t have the wherewithal to conceptualize a meaningful experience for a high school intern–especially if the intern is going to be there only for a couple of weeks.  

Jobs on the college application

Having a job while in high school can look great on the college application. But here again, not every job is of equal impact. The student who slings ice cream a few evenings a week makes some good money and learns the value of punctuality, responsibility, loyalty, and adhering to the rules and regulations of the ice cream shop. However, the student who works very hard, goes above and beyond to build the confidence of the business owner may be promoted.

We once worked with a young woman who worked at In-N-Out Burger 20 hours a week all the way through high school. By the time she was a junior, she had been promoted to assistant manager and regularly opened or closed the store, handled all the money and receipts, and was trusted by the owner of the franchise to manage entire shifts on her own. Unsurprisingly, this young woman got a full tuition scholarship–in large part because of the outstanding letter of recommendation the franchise owner wrote on her behalf.  She clearly had a huge impact on this person’s business, and he was glad to tell the world what a responsible, considerate, diligent, and dependable human this young woman had become. So if you do get a job, and you want it to look good on a college application, look for ways to contribute above and beyond the expectations.

A case study of what looks good on a college application

Not too long ago we were working with a young man whose father insisted that he get a job. The father really loved the world of cycling, and he helped his son get an after school job at the local bicycle shop.  The young man was not very enthusiastic, but he was tasked with assembling bikes. By his own admission, he wasn’t very good at it, nor did he like it much.  But he showed up, day after day, and his coworkers liked him and engaged him in conversation. During these conversations in the shop, the owner learned that the young man was a computer whiz and enjoyed playing around with all sorts of programming software and had taken a computer science course in high school.  The owner then took him aside and showed him the inventory software they were using, and explained that nobody else in the shop could figure out how to work certain aspects of the software, and the inventory and sales data and reports weren’t matching up correctly. 

So the young man offered to help. And by the time he was done, he had completely reworked the software for the bike shop and created systems that the owner and other workers could use in a way that improved accuracy and efficiency–and profitability! And, incidentally, he never assembled another bicycle.  

Simply by showing up regularly, showing responsibility and a willingness to help, this young man made a tangible and useful contribution to the business he worked for.  When he put this job on the application, he could say much more about his work at the bike shop than reporting the number of hours worked and bicycles assembled. And his boss?  Just think of that glowing recommendation that was submitted along with the college application. 

Start ups can look good on a college application

The web is full of instances in which high school students started up new ventures, whether for profit or not-for-profit. These can definitely look good on a college application. Usually.

We worked with a young man who started up his own medical equipment donation organization–collecting supplies in the US and delivering them to clinics in Tanzania. Another young woman solicited donations to create back-to-school backpacks for elementary school students in low income neighborhoods. And another young man started up his own lawn care business that employed two other kids and made tens of thousands of dollars in a summer.  Yet another young man was written up in the New York Times because he refused to hear the word “no” when officials at this school said he could not create a film festival (he did it anyway). 

These are enterprises that the student conceived, planned, and executed themselves. Their motivations were sometimes different.  The young woman did her activity expressly to look good on her college application.  The young man with the lawn business need to pay for his car insurance, gas, and new tires.  What mattered, however, is that the students were firmly in charge of the programs they began, and had to resolve problems, react to setbacks, and interact with all manner of other people–almost exclusively adults–to achieve their aims. 

Less impressive start ups

Some start ups are less impressive, especially when it becomes apparent that parents are heavily involved in the success of the business, or provided the necessary seed capital to get it going (our lawn mowing student had to take out a loan from his dad to buy a mower), or otherwise provided too much support to make the venture go. Sometimes it’s hard to discern, from the outside, whether the venture is truly the brainchild of the child or the parent. But admissions officers have clues, most of which have to do with family income, social class, and privilege.  Kids whose ventures lie well outside the experience of the parents are most likely to be seen as creations of their own efforts–and not a result of parental guidance (or interference!). 

College admissions folks have become just a bit wary of the high number of start-up ventures that kids pursue.  It’s so easy in the US to set up a company or a non-profit company. The barriers to establishing a venture are pretty low. Here, as with any other activity, what’s important is not the establishment of the start up but the other metrics of success that the student is able to show: number of shipping containers delivered, number of kids who received backpacks, or the number of lawns mown and dollars earned.  Some ventures are able to show this sort of success, while others look good on paper, but don’t have the results to back up the claims.  

Intellectual curiosity is what looks good on a college application

These days, many kids are pursuing academic research as part of their college applications. They want to show that they have true intellectual interests and the skills and abilities to craft their own research. There are even programs out there for which families can pay to get the personalized guidance in developing and executing an academic research project. Other students make contact with academic researchers at local universities (or sometimes at far away universities) and develop research project with professors.  

Here again, however, not all academic research is treated equally in the college admissions process.  What’s important here–as in everything–is the impact, the substances, the quality of the research–and not the amount of time put in. It’s also not about the “prestige” of the university, the professor, or the department for which one works. In some cases, what is reported as “research” is nothing more than the student working in a lab cleaning test tubes or preparing samples.  It is not substantive work. 

In other cases, however, students are given quite a bit of responsibility within a structured laboratory environment, and they can actually contribute to the success of the research project. 

Sometimes the student is able to publish the results of the academic work they did, either as a co-author on a published research paper, or as a student author in publications like The Concord Review. 

Research is not just for science, either.  We’ve worked with students who have performed substantive historical research.  In one case it was with a professor, and in other cases it was with the guidance of a graduate student. One ended up being recognized in the publication the professor later published, while the other submitted his lengthy research paper for publication on his own. 

Reading looks good on a college application

Read. A lot. We can’t emphasize this enough. Reading not only will help your test scores improve, but it will both be a demonstration of your intellectual curiosity.  We are often dismayed when we ask high school students what they are reading.  Very seldom are they reading outside the school curriculum.

It is particularly disheartening when a student who swear she wants to do academic research is not reading in their professed field of interest. We have met kids who swear they are interested in neuroscience who have not ever read an article or book on the subject.  Or kids who want me to help them find a research project in biomedical engineering who cannot share anything they have read about it. 

Reading shows intellectual curiosity

But when a student tells us they are intellectually interested in something like military aircraft, and can point to the bookshelf full of books about Japanese kamikazes, the Red Baron, the history of commercial aircraft, air battles over Europe, and the use of rockets in warfare, we are impressed. And so were college leaders.  After this young man was interviewed by the Vice President of Enrollment for a college to which he was applying, the Vice President called to say how impressed he was. The young man’s enthusiasm and knowledge for his little hobby was contagious.  Needless to say, that college accepted him with a huge scholarship. 

The fact is that colleges want to accept learners, and learners are not just people who get good grades in school.  They are not just people who sign up for summer programs or do “academic research” with the guidance of a professor or graduate student. 

Learners are people who read, who teach themselves things.  They are people who have curiosities about the world, and then set out to satisfy that curiosity–whatever it is. Yes, watching YouTube videos or listening to podcasts can be informative.

But exploring the world’s libraries is really where we can find the repository of human intellectual inquiry. If you can’t find your library card or haven’t used it since you were reading Hop on Pop, now is the time. 

Do summer programs  look good on a college application?

Sometimes. 

The thing about the vast majority of summer programs is that they are relatively passive.  Someone else sets the syllabus. Someone else defines the parameters of inquiry. Someone else scaffolds the learning in ways that are digestible for younger learners (who have the attention span of a YouTube video rather than a 300-page book). And if there is a performance or assessment at the end of the experience, someone else has decided what that shall be, too. 

Summer programs can be a great way to advance your knowledge of a subject or get a taste of life or introduce you to an entirely new domain of knowledge. 

But, to return to the points above–isn’t that what the library is for?

The other thing about summer programs is that they tend to be expensive. In this way, they are beyond the reach of many, many students and their families.  And in some cases, the summer programs are great moneymakers for the colleges that offer them.  The Summer at Brown program is full of interesting intellectual offerings.  But thing of the profits Brown is spinning every summer.  The overwhelming majority of participants in the Summer at Brown program will have absolutely no chance of getting into Brown, while the kid who spend his summer reading histories of Civil War battles from the confines of his back yard may have a better chance of acceptance. 

Intellectual curiosity on the college application

What’s my point?  Intellectual curiosity comes from within. You can purchase ready-made programs to learn, and it can be helpful to learn in this way (after all, this is what college is all about–enter a classroom, learn from an expert, and perform an assessment to show you have enhanced your knowledge).  But the most selective colleges in the land are seeking young people whose intellectual curiosity is self-driven, not externally driven.  The self-motivated intellect is more desired–because those students are most likely to take best advantage of the resources at a place like Brown–rather than the kid whose parents paid a pretty penny for them to spend two-weeks on the Brown campus safely inside a college classroom learning whatever some graduate student cooked up on the syllabus. 

All this said, there are some summer programs that are very valuable and difficult to get into.  Examples include the Iowa Young Writers Studio, the Telluride Association Summer Seminar (TASS), and MIT’s MITES program and Research Science Institute (RSI).  And these programs may not even cost anything at all–but are offered on a competitive basis to the best of the best. 

Need help with that college application (and what looks good on it)?

The team at Great College Advice can help guide you in making choices about how to spend your time and how to ignite those inner curiosities.  If you want chat with a counselor to learn more about how we help young people craft interesting lives–and good college applications–give us a call or contact us via our website.  We look forward to the conversation. 

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With nearly 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other.

The post What Looks Good on a College Application? first appeared on Great College Advice.

There are lots of reasons why applicants might want to submit more than one version of the Common App.  

However, there are many situations in which you do NOT need to make an entirely new version of the Common Application.  Let’s look at those first.

Don’t make a new version of the Common App because you made a mistake 

If you submit a version of the Common App to one college and then you discover that you made some sort of error on that application, you don’t need to completely start over with a new version. Email the college to which you sent the mistake and explain what happened and ask–very nicely, without whining, and with great humility–if the admissions officer can simply update your file with the correction. Everyone knows that mistakes can happen, and admissions officers are generally fairly understanding in this sort of circumstances. It’s always better for you to catch your own mistake and alert the admissions office of it.  To leave the admissions office to discover the mistake would leave a question in their minds, especially if the boo-boo was big one.  Once you’ve sent the Common App to a school, you cannot correct it.  But you don’t have to start over with a completely new version of the Common App.

If you want to make changes for different colleges, you don’t need a new version of the Common App

Sometimes you may want to provide slightly different answers to some of the Common App questions for the different schools on your list.  One of the most common is to change the career interest you have identified on the Common App. Another example is changing the order of your activities or honors to present a slightly different strategy from one college to the next. Or, you may want to shift around your answers in the “Additional information” section so as to make it more specific to a particular university, major, or program. However, you don’t need to create an entirely different version of the Common App to make these changes.  Simply make the change, then submit the completed application–with changes–to the next college on your list.  Once it is submitted, you can then go back and change the answers to questions or reorder the lists, as you wish.  

The one thing to keep in mind ,however, is that making multiple versions of the Common App can cause you to make even more mistakes.  If you are making multiple versions, be sure to proofread over and over again–and to use the “preview” function of the Common App–to make sure that you are submitting the appropriate version to each particular school. Recall that the Common App was created in order to submit identical applications to all the schools on your list. By tailoring each application to each school on your list, you are creating headaches for yourself that require you to pay close attention to which version goes to which school.

If you write a new version of your essay, you don’t need a new version

Some students write a complete essay for the Common App, and then decide to completely throw it out and start over.  This can happen between the time one submits Early Action or Early Decision applications and the deadlines for the regular admission round.  Or they decide to revise it heavily based on feedback they have receive from a teacher, parent, or college essay consultant.

Not so long ago, the essay was the one thing you could not change on your Common App once you submitted the application to one college. Now, however, you can send a different version of your Common App essay to each and every school on your list.  But why would you do that?  The whole point of the Common App is to allow you to create a single essay that you send to all the schools on your list.  So we advise that you try to keep it to one version.

However, sometimes we discover new ways to improve the essay–so make those improvements when you can.  And if you decide that your current essay just isn’t a good representation of who you are and you want to go back to the drawing board, do it. You can always submit a new version of your Common App, if you really need to.

The 20-College Limit

Over the past two decades, students have gradually been applying to more and more schools.  There are lots of reasons for this–which we won’t go into here–but more and more students are considering applying to more and more schools.

As a result, some are trying to impose some limits.  Some secondary schools will not support more than 10 applications:  the college counselors will not send out more than 10 transcripts. This forces students to make tough decisions.  

The Common App, for its part, limits the number of applications you can submit to 20. 

In the past, you were able to create a new email to submit those applications > 20 with limited difficulties. However, the Common App has made it difficult to do. If you want to apply to more than 20 college, you should prioritize those that you want to submit via the Common App and go through the Coalition App or apply directly on a college’s website.

Summary

The whole point of the common app is that is “common” to all schools. This should be a benefit to most applicants who will not have to make more than version of the Common App before submitting the application to each of the colleges on their list.  However, if you make mistakes or need to make some strategic adjustments to your application, you can do so without making an entirely new version.

And if you’d like more assistance with how to approach your applications, contact Great College Advice a call and let us help you out.

Andrea Aronson
College Advisor
Westfield, New Jersey

The post Can I Make More Than One Version of the Common App? first appeared on Great College Advice.

What engaging topic, idea, or concept captivates you? College admissions officers want to know what interests you have. We sometimes call these “passions,” but we really don’t like that word much. Rather, consider the interests you have that keep you engrossed for long periods of time. You aren’t watching the clock, and suddenly you realize that the time has flown by. These interests can change from time to time, and a person might have one or more of these all-consuming interests. What are yours? More important, ask yourself why you enjoy it so much.

In our Common App essay guide post, we provide additional tips on how to tackle the Common App personal statement.

The engaging topic prompt from the Common Application.

Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Let’s break down each of the key phrases of this prompt. This will help you focus on what’s most important in answering this prompt. 

Topic, Idea, or Concept

This prompt gives you broad latitude to discuss pretty much anything you’d like to discuss. However, it’s important to remember that colleges and universities are places where the focus is academic and intellectual. It would be entirely possible to write an essay on something as seemingly silly as Taylor Swift or model airplanes or even on multiplayer computer games (my students have written successful essays on all three of these topics in the past).

Notice, however, that the prompt does not use the word “activity.” As we will see, certain activities are related to the topic, idea, or concept, but the prompt asks you to keep your description focused on the academic or intellectual foundations that underlie the things you do. Your chosen focus for this essay could be just about anything, but what matters is the thought that may lead to the activity—and not on the activity itself.

Learn More

Even as you get excited about the social aspects of college, don’t forget that the primary focus is on learning. This phrase also keeps the focus on an intellectual or academic plane. Colleges and universities are communities of learners, first and foremost, and this is your opportunity to demonstrate that this is your first priority in going to college. Colleges want students that are intellectually curious.

Engaging and Captivating

The topic, idea, or concept you choose implies some sort of action that demonstrates your interest. What do you do to activate or express your interest? The prompt sets a high bar: you find this interest so appealing that you sometimes get lost in it. And this is your story for this particular prompt: give an anecdote that demonstrates the depth of your interest, that shows the reader that you can become completely engrossed and lose track of time.

Why

This word is the key to the essay. You need to justify—in some way—your devotion to this particular idea, topic, or concept. If you have chosen the right subject for your essay, your level of interest is so high that it is infectious. Your aim, then, is to explain the reasons for your interest and to convey the reasons for that interest to your reader.

You will have done your job well if your reader comes away with a newfound appreciation for an idea, topic, or concept that she has never considered to be so engaging or captivating. Share your enthusiasm by explaining the why behind your interest.

Need some help answering the engaging topic prompt for the Common Application?

Need some help with your college essay for the Common App? Whether you are aiming for the Ivy League or you want to look your best for the college of your dreams, our expert advisors can help you brainstorm, structure, and edit a great college essay that will help you stand out from the crowd.  

Give us a call or fill out our contact form. 

Want to know how to respond to the other Common App essay prompts? Here are some more helpful links.

• See our guide to prompt 1 of the Common App Personal Statement: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
• See our post with tips on prompt 2 of the Common App Personal Statement: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? 
• See our recommendations on prompt 3 of the Common App Personal Statement: Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome? 
• Prompt 4: Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you? 
• See our guide to prompt 5 of the Common App Personal Statement: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. 
• See our blog post on how to write prompt 7 of the Common App Personal Statement: Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With over 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other.

The post Common App – the Engaging Topic Prompt first appeared on Great College Advice.

The Common Application prompts give you a chance to answer an interesting question, tell an important or revealing anecdote, and reflect on the ways in which the anecdote reveals something about your character, your beliefs, your values, or your personal priorities. This prompt, especially, focuses on the beliefs that are fundamental to who you are. But sometimes beliefs come into conflict with the beliefs or ideas of others. And sometimes those conflicts are what reveal our character.

In our Common App essay guide post, we provide additional tips on how to tackle the Common App personal statement.

What exactly, is the Common App essay about a belief or idea?

Here is the prompt as stated on the Common Application:

Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Let’s pick apart each phrase or idea of this prompt for your essay for the Common App.

Belief or Idea

This prompt hinges on some belief, idea, or value that you hold dear. At the core of the story, you must be able to identify this closely-held belief or idea and explain why it is important to you. The focus sets it apart from other prompts that focus more on intellectual ideas, experiences you have had, or feelings of gratitude.  This is also different from writing about either your background or identity (which are related, but not identical concepts) or your interests and talents that are addressed in the first prompt on the Common Application. Here you are being asked about a core value you possess.  Explaining the importance of this value will help you focus your essay on something critical to your humanity.

Questioned or Challenged

At various times in our lives, we are called upon to defend our ideals or our principles, either because others don’t share these beliefs, or because you may hold a view that is unpopular or out of the ordinary. Your story in this essay revolves around a time when you were called upon to defend your belief or idea against some countervailing force. This force could come from a particular person, a small group of people, or maybe even a very large group of people. What animates this essay, then, is the tension between your belief or idea and the beliefs or ideas of others. 

Your Thinking

The “story” that is at the heart of this essay is the genesis of the tension, how you came to realize some sort of conflict or challenge, and how you came to a decision to do or say something in response (or not). Given that your values were under fire, did you do or say something to defend those values? Why or why not? When writing this essay for the Common App, you want to make the effort to explain your thought processes that eventually led to some sort of decision, action, or realization. In fact, the focus on “your thinking” is what encourages the sort of reflection that is necessary in a good Common App essay.  You want to examine your thoughts, which should be easier to do as you look in the rearview mirror at the events you are retelling. You are not just recounting a story: you are examining both the narrative of the story, as well as the thoughts and actions of the main character–you.

Outcome

The decision, action, or realization you made is the outcome of the story. You want to be sure to describe the outcome. Don’t stop there, however: explain and analyze that outcome. Was the decision the right one? Did you act to defend your values, and if so, what was the result? Or, perhaps, you acted in a way that did not defend those values, and you later regretted your inability to stand up for your beliefs.

Either way, you are asked in this prompt to reflect upon what you did (or did not do) to defend your beliefs or ideas, and to determine whether you would approach a similar conflict of beliefs or ideas in the same way in the future.

So at the center of this essay is a conflict of ideas. You need to share your ideas and beliefs with your reader and demonstrate how your defense of those ideals may have led to personal growth.

*****************

Need help writing your Common App essay about a belief or idea? 

Give us a call. Whether you’re aiming for the Ivy League or you’re just trying to look your best for your top choice school, we can help you brainstorm, structure, and edit an essay that makes you stand out in the admissions process. For a free consultation, contact us here.

Want to know how to respond to the other Common Application prompts? Here are some more helpful links.

• See our guide to prompt 1 of the Common App Personal Statement: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
• See our post with tips on prompt 2 of the Common App Personal Statement: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? 
• Prompt 4: Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you? 
• See our guide to prompt 5 of the Common App Personal Statement: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. 
• See our essay tips for prompt 6 of the Common App Personal Statement: Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more? 
• See our blog post on how to write prompt 7 of the Common App Personal Statement: Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design. 

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With nearly 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other.

The post Common App Essay About a Belief or Idea first appeared on Great College Advice.

In our Common App essay guide post, we provide additional tips on how to tackle the Common App personal statement.

The Personal Growth Prompt

Here’s how the prompt is worded on the Common App:

Discuss an accomplishment or event or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

Next we will got through the prompt word by word and phrase by phrase to help you respond to this prompt in the best way possible.  The more you think about what the prompt is asking, the easier it will be to come up with an excellent idea for how to address it.

Discuss Your Story for the Personal Growth Prompt

At first glance, this prompt doesn’t seem to have a story at the heart of it. However, the focus is on a transition, which implies a description of “before” and “after” this event, accomplishment, or realization. So you should retell the story briefly to help your reader understand the transition. As with the other prompts, you should then go on to put this event, accomplishment, or realization into a larger context. You need to interpret this story for your reader through analysis and synthesis.

• Your story must be brief.  
• But it must also be interesting for the reader. You don’t need to think of a story that is heroic or grandiose.  While an “accomplishment” might bring about personal growth, sometimes the most mundane events or off-handed conversations can lead us to reevaluate ourselves or the world around us. 
• Again, the story is not the heart of your essay–it is the pivot between how you thought or felt before the accomplishment, even, or realization, and how you thought or felt after it. You need to define the transitional moment so that your reader can visualize this change.  
• But the real meat of your essay is the reflection you will make that is based on this brief anecdote from your life.

By reflecting upon what happened after this event, accomplishment, or realization, you can give your reader a sense of your increasing maturity and your priorities, values, and personality.

Personal Growth and Understanding

As we grow older, we find that in some situations we feel—or are treated—as children, while in other situations we feel more like adults. Sometimes this transition is subtle. Sometimes, however, this transition can seem more abrupt.

• This prompt asks you to more closely examine your own transition from childhood to adulthood. Granted, for all of us, this transition is slow and gradual (and frankly, sometimes even we are not sure we have completely transitioned to adulthood!).
• But no matter our age, religion, or culture, this transition is marked by some memorable stories–stories that you are being asked to share with your readers.
• But here again, remember that the meat of the essay is not the story of the transition. Rather the focus of this prompt is your reflection upon how you changed and grew as a result of this accomplishment, event, or realization.  

Accomplishments or Events

The transition to adulthood is marked by both accomplishments and events. An accomplishment is something that you achieved through hard work. An event, on the other hand, is a happening in which you may have been more passive. But nonetheless marks a very important milestone in your life.

• Some of these accomplishments and events are formal (e.g., learning Hebrew and reciting the Torah before your congregation in a ceremony before your friends and family).
• Other accomplishments and events are informal.

College admissions officers do not care so much about the exact nature of these accomplishments or events. Rather they care about how you tell an interesting story about your transition to adulthood.

Realization

Unlike an accomplishment or event, a realization can have no outward manifestation that others can see or experience.

• You may, instead, experience some sort of internal “Aha!” moment. Your understanding changes.
• You see yourself—or others—in a completely new light. Perhaps you shared this realization with others, or perhaps it is one that is intensely private.
• But the change or transition is real, because it leads to a new and different understanding of yourself and the world around you.

Summary: The Personal Growth Prompt

This Common Application prompt is a great opportunity for you to reflect on your own maturation. High school is a time in life when we make great strides on the road from childhood to adulthood.  This road is punctuated with various moments that lead us to reflect on how we are growing and changing.  The Personal Growth Prompt invites you to identify one of these important moments and then reflect upon this growth and change.  

College admissions officers want to understand the “real you” underneath all the academic and other data on the application.  This prompt is a great way to show them who you really are.

Need some help with your college application essay?

Whether you’re aiming for the Ivy League or just want to look your best when applying to the school of your dreams, our expert advisors can help you brainstorm, structure, and edit a fantastic application essay. Give us a call or complete our contact form for a free, no-obligation consultation.

Want to know how to respond to the other Common App essay prompts? Here are some more helpful links.

• See our guide to prompt 1 of the Common App Personal Statement: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
• See our post with tips on prompt 2 of the Common App Personal Statement: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? 
• See our recommendations on prompt 3 of the Common App Personal Statement: Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome? 
• Prompt 4: Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you? 
• See our essay tips for prompt 6 of the Common App Personal Statement: Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more? 
• See our blog post on how to write prompt 7 of the Common App Personal Statement: Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design. 

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With over 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other.

The post Common App Essay: The Personal Growth Prompt first appeared on Great College Advice.

In our Common App essay guide post, we provide additional tips on how to tackle the Common App personal statement.

So, here’s how the “writing about failure” prompt reads:

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Below we will review all the key words of this prompt, and give some tips about how to address this prompt of writing about failure.

Recount a Time 

First, you are being asked for a specific event in time in which you encountered some sort of obstacle. Thus you will tell a story to your reader in which you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. Here’s what to focus on:

• This story should be succinct, but contain a beginning, middle, and an end.
• Provide enough detail that your reader can follow the narrative, but not so long that you get boring—or worse, go over the word count limit.
• Remember that the story is merely the entry point to the heart of the essay:  your “reflection” on this failure. 
• Your failure does not have to be a big, embarrassing, terrible event.  In some cases, a failure might be one that is otherwise invisible to other people.  It could be an incident in which you failed to live up to your own moral standards.  Thus the magnitude of the setback or challenges is not what is important; rather it is how you responded to these obstacles is what will be at the heart of your essay.
• Bombing a math test or other academic failures is not the best topic – focus on something else other than a classroom assignment.

How did this experience affect you? 

Be reflective. Examine your emotions.

• What was the impact of this failure?
• How did it make others see you?
• How did you see yourself after this incident?
• Did it make you angry, embarrassed, disappointed, secretly thrilled, or downright sad?
• What was the immediate impact of your failure?

This is perhaps the hardest part of answering this prompt: you have to go into that mess of feelings that you’ve tried to put behind you. But the admissions office is asking you to share, so share you must.

What did you learn?

This seems obvious, but these lessons can be hard to articulate. Begin with a list:

• How many things can you pinpoint that you learned from this mistake?
• Think about how you can learn things at different times, too. Sometimes we learn things from failure immediately. Other lessons take longer to sink in. 
• I recommend that you come up with three solid lessons for this essay.

Writing a college essay about failure:  Summary

Writing about failure can be difficult. And when writing about failure, the fear is that the essay will come off as too negative, too self-critical. The ultimate direction of this essay should be positive and optimistic. You should not worry too much about the nature of the mistake: we’ve all made them, and admissions officers, frankly, have seen them all. The point of this is to allow you to demonstrate your maturity, your humility, and your ability to turn a bad experience into a good one.

So in order to really turn this negative experience into a positive one, you really do have to dig into the ways in which this challenge or obstacle affected you.  And if you can carefully and thoroughly present the ways in which you have learned from this failure, you will be on the road to writing an amazing college essay that will convince readers that you are just the sort of human being that belongs on their campus. 

Need help writing your Common App personal statement?

The team of expert college counselors at Great College Advice have helped thousands of students write excellent college essays on every Common App prompt.  We can help you brainstorm topics, structure your prose, hone your messages, and edit the essay to perfection.

If you’d like more information about our college essay services or our comprehensive college advising packages, please contact us. Or just give us a call. We would be happy to chat with you. 

Want to know how to respond to the other Common App essay prompts? Here are some more helpful links.

• See our guide to prompt 1 of the Common App Personal Statement: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
• See our recommendations on prompt 3 of the Common App Personal Statement: Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome? 
• Prompt 4: Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you? 
• See our guide to prompt 5 of the Common App Personal Statement: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. 
• See our essay tips for prompt 6 of the Common App Personal Statement: Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more? 
• See our blog post on how to write prompt 7 of the Common App Personal Statement: Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design. 

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With over 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other.

The post How to Write the Common App College Essay on Failure first appeared on Great College Advice.

• Create your college list;
• Visit some colleges;
• Begin or continue to show demonstrated interest;
• Plan your college application strategy;
• Get started on your college applications.

Create Your College List 

Your first task in your summer application checklist is to complete your college list. While you may still be do some college visits in the fall, you should exit the summer with a solid grasp of the schools where you will likely apply. Grab your Fiske Guide to Colleges and re-read the write-ups on the schools that interest you. Visit the individual college websites and do a deep dive on all aspects of a school including academics, housing, activities, and the surrounding area. While on the site, take a virtual tour of the campus. Look for any virtual admissions programs offered this summer and sign up to learn more. Take notes along the way and make a list of questions that you may still have. Once you have exhausted your research capabilities, feel free to reach out to your admissions rep to introduce yourself and include a question or two of significance.  

Remember that your list should be well-balanced in terms of ‘reach’, ‘match’, and ‘likely’ schools. As part of the list-building process, have a family conversation about the cost of college. Use the Net Price Calculator at each school to explore whether you may qualify for need-based aid and also research merit aid policies. 

Visit some colleges as part of your summer application checklist

Hopefully you were able to visit a few colleges during your junior year to get a sense of the kind of environment you could see yourself spending the next four years of your life (big/small, urban/rural, etc.) Although there won’t be many students on campus during the summer, a college visit can still be worthwhile as you’re likely to be able to explore the campus in a more relaxed manner and possibly spend more quality time with the admissions department.  

If you’d rather wait until students are back on campus, start planning your fall trips to the colleges on your list. If you want to learn more about maximizing your time on campus, read our article on planning your college visit. 

Your Application Checklist Should Include Showing Demonstrated Interest 

Visiting a college remains the best form of showing demonstrated interest in that school. Sign up for a formal tour through the admissions office so they have a record of your time on campus. However, if you’re unable visit, don’t worry. You can demonstrate your interest by signing up to receive information directly on the admissions website. You will then begin getting numerous emails focusing on different aspects of that college. Click on those emails and spend time visiting different areas of their website.

Also, begin following the school on Instagram and other social media platforms. In the age of analytics and data science, many colleges track a student’s activity across their Internet content where they then use that information to place a probability on (a) whether a student is likely to apply and (b) how likely that student would accept an offer. So, show your colleges some love and, in turn, they may return the favor come application season! 

Plan Your College Application Strategy 

Is there one school that stands out from the others on your list after all your college research? Is this the place where, if accepted, you would happily say ‘yes’ without a second thought? In this case, applying Early Decision (if offered) may be the right strategy for you. However, not every student has that one dream school or they may have a handful of schools at the top of their list. In this case, applying Early Decision may not be the application strategy for you. In addition, many universities, especially flagship public universities, don’t offer Early Decision but rather Early Action.  

Each student will have a different application strategy based on their college list. As you begin ranking these schools, visit their admissions sites to find their application deadline calendars as well as what is required beyond the formal college application. These other documents may include your high school transcript, standardized test scores (if required or you choose to submit), optional essays, your mid-year report, and other items.  

If you anticipate applying for financial aid, take note of the specific school deadlines. Mark your calendar for the October 1 opening of the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) portal which is the first step in the financial aid application process. (See this blog post for more information about the financial aid process.) 

Once you have determined the application requirements for each school, create a calendar or timeline of when you plan on submitting each requirement. Be sure to share this information with someone who may help keep you on top of your deadlines! 

Keep in mind that some colleges have not updated their websites with their official deadlines for next year. Most should be updated by August 1st. 

Get Started on Parts of Your Application 

Although the Common App doesn’t officially open until August 1, you can create an account ahead of time. You will be asked basic information about yourself (name, address, phone number, date of birth) and once you are registered you can begin familiarizing yourself with the platform. Feel free to begin adding the schools on your college list to your Common App account as well.  

Even though you have a few months until the Common App is open, you can still get a head start on your applications over the summer.  

Brainstorm College Essay Topics 

Although there are a few minor changes to the Common App coming this year, the Common App essay prompts will remain the same. So, feel free to begin brainstorming your personal essay. For tips on the personal statement, please read this post or this one. Most students underestimate the difficulty of writing a solid essay. Start on a draft or two now and show them to people who know you well. Gather their ideas, revise, and tighten. Those who leave their essays for the last minute come to regret their procrastination. 

Also, for those colleges on your list that will also require supplemental essays, review last year’s supplemental questions to get a sense of what to expect. Also, as you research these schools, take notes on what attracts you to them as it is likely you’ll have to write at least a few ‘Why College X?’ supplemental essays as part of the admissions process. 

Organize Your Common App Activities List 

One often overlooked area of the Common App is organizing your list of extracurriculars in a manner that reflects your passions, level of commitment, and achievement. Spend some time over the summer putting together a master list of your activities throughout your high school career. Make note of your role(s) and accomplishments in these activities so you can bring them to life as you describe them in the Common App activities section. 

Put Together a Resume as Part of Your Application Checklist

Most schools do not want you to submit a formal resume because they can see your extracurriculars and achievements in your Common App. However, it is still a good idea to have an up-to-date resume. You may need one for scholarship applications, and you can provide it to the people writing your letters of recommendation. 

In addition, if you are applying to a specialized art or music program, you may be required to submit additional materials that will showcase your talents. So, putting together video or audio recordings of your performances or a portfolio of sample drawings is a great way to start getting your additional art materials organized. 

Does your rising senior need help getting started on the college application process?  

This rising senior summer checklist contains recommendations to stay on track and take control of the college planning process. However, if you feel as though your student needs help finalizing their college list or brainstorming college essay topics, please contact us for a complimentary initial consultation. The team at Great College Advice has deep experience in guiding students along the road from high school to college. We provide personalized college consulting focused on helping make the process of preparing, selecting, and applying to college more successful, less stressful, and more fun. Have a fantastic summer! 

Follow the Great College Advice Guide to College Admissions:

• Guide Through Every Year of High School
• 9th Grade: Build the Foundation by getting good grades in the most rigorous courses for you; 9th Grade College Admissions Guide
• 10th Grade: Gain Momentum by continuing to receive good grades in difficult courses while also starting to narrow down your activities to those you find most interesting; 10th Grade College Admissions Guide
• 11th Grade: Stay Focused as your junior year is the most critical in terms of grades while juggling leadership roles and college prep; 11th Grade College Admissions Guide and 11th Grade College Admissions Guide for 2nd Semester

Since 2007, the expert team of college admissions consultants at Great College Advice has provided comprehensive guidance to thousands of students from across the United States and over 45 countries across the world. Great College Advice has offices in Colorado, New Jersey, Chicago, North Carolina and Massachusetts.  

In addition to our one-on-one counseling, Great College Advice extends its support through one of the most active and resource-rich Facebook Groups for college-bound students and their families: College Admissions Experts. With over 100,000 members—students, parents, and experienced counselors—this vibrant forum offers peer support and expert advice like no other. 

The post College Application Checklist for Rising Seniors first appeared on Great College Advice.

Here are a few benefits to consider.

• Honors programs are often found at midsize or large universities. This is an opportunity for you to get the “small school experience” at the large university.
• Are you serious about your academics? Honors programs are a great way to surround yourself with like-minded high-achieving students in the classroom.
• Worried about those large intro courses your first year? Many honors class are small in size and also fulfill distribution or general core requirements.
• Some honors programs offer an honors living community for a chance to live with others honors students. In many cases these are some of the nicest residence halls on campus!
• Interact with top professors. In many cases, honors courses attract some of the colleges top professors to teach. Sometimes, these courses are in a professor’s specialty area and a course they wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to teach.
• Depending on the college or university some honors programs have scholarship opportunities attached to them.
• Some honors programs allow you the opportunity to strive to graduate with Latin honors (Summa Cum Laude, Magna Cum Laude, or Cum Laude).
• Many honors program will give you the chance to write an honors thesis. This is an amazing experience to get engaged with research.
• Some honors programs offer special access to guest speakers on campus, workshops, performances, and lectures.
• You may find that some honors programs offer priority course selection, so you get to sign up ahead of your peers!

An honors program may not be right for every student but if accepted it is worth considering the benefits. If possible, try and talk to the honors program office at the school you are considering and possibly some current students in the program to learn about their experience.

Great College Advice

The post Participating in an Honors Program first appeared on Great College Advice.

The Most Flexible Common App Essay Topic

Here is the actual prompt on the Common Application.

Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

Now let’s take a few moments to dissect this prompt, phrase by phrase, word by word. This dissection will help you formulate your Common App essay topic.

Your Choice

The nice thing about this prompt is that the admissions folks leave the choice of topic entirely to you. And therein lies some of the danger of deviating from the other prompts. You are free—and encouraged—to go beyond the limitations of these other prompts. Nevertheless, you will want to consider the fundamental commonalities found in the above prompts.

Ideas and Concepts

Your college essay should represent you as a student and as a learner. Not every topic has to be entirely serious. However, you should consider whether your chosen topic has any intellectual or academic depth.

Transitions

The heart of many of these prompts is some sort of change in your mindset, perspective, or understanding. Admissions folks are looking for young people who have made some sort of transition that demonstrates their maturity, depth of thought, or newfound ability to see the world in a new light.

A Story

To be successful, you must have some sort of anecdote animating your essay that helps your reader to see your point. This is where you will “show” your reader your fundamental point. You are the main character of this essay. Through this character, you can demonstrate aspects of your personality, your values, and your point of view.

Analysis and Reflection

Every other prompt requires you to dig underneath the surface. They ask you to go beyond superficialities and to uncover the important truths at the center of your story. It is not enough to tell your reader the story. You must also demonstrate the fundamental importance of the story to you. The story is the vehicle to convey a deeper understanding of you as a person. In a sense, then, your Common App essay topic rests on this analysis and reflection–and less on the “story” you tell.

Already Written

Some colleges encourage the submission of essays you have written as part of a class or other assignment. These essays may represent you very well as a student and demonstrate some of your intellectual abilities and academic depth. If you choose to submit an academic paper, it is sometimes best to do so as an additional or supplemental essay to your application. In some cases, you may have written some sort of personal essay or narrative as part of a creative writing assignment. If this personal memoir has most of the elements described above, it could be an excellent college essay.

Own Design

It is perfectly acceptable to experiment with the form of the essay. Admissions folks want to encourage your creativity, and they are looking for unique approaches. For example, some students write very successful poems in response to the prompts. Others have written mini-plays or screenplays. You are welcome to experiment with the form. However, you will want to keep in mind the elements described above. While the form can be highly creative, it is important to keep the purpose of the college essay in mind. You must communicate to your reader something important, something fundamental about who you are as a person, as a citizen, and as a learner.

Need Help with the Common App Essay?

Need some help writing a great college essay for the Common Application? Having difficulty finding a good Common App essay topic? Whether you’re aiming for the Ivy League or you just want to look your best when you apply to the college of your dreams, our team of experts can help you brainstorm, structure, and edit an excellent piece of writing that will help you stand out in the admissions process. Give us a call at 720-279-7577 or schedule your complimentary meeting today.

The post How to Choose a College Essay Topic first appeared on Great College Advice.

Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma-anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

The Problem

The core of this essay is a puzzle, a riddle, or a difficult question that begs an answer. Education, after all, is the process of gaining knowledge, skills, and understanding that will help us solve problems of all types, whether personal, political, ethical, economic, social, technological, or scientific. Central to this prompt is your curiosity. What puzzles or fascinates you—or bothers you? Define the problem carefully and clearly, and describe it so the reader can feel your fascination.

Personal Importance and Significance to You

Why is this puzzle interesting to you? This piece of the prompt invites you to tell the story of how or why this puzzle occupies your mind, your body, or your spirit. From where does your interest emanate? Tell the story of how your fascination developed, and why this problem became significant to you. To be clear, this idea of significance is based on your own intellectual, spiritual, ethical, or personal experience. For this essay to work, you have to really care about the problem in a personal way.

Steps Taken

The prompt makes it clear that there is another “story” in this essay: the narrative describing what you did—or what you will do—to address this problem. If the problem at the center of this essay is something you have tried (and perhaps succeeded?) in solving in the past, then you need to recount the sequence of events that led to that solution.

If, instead, you have not yet tackled this problem, then you need to imagine and describe the actions you could take in the future to find a solution—or at least whittle away at the problem and move toward a solution.
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Need help brainstorming, structuring, and editing your college application essay? Let our team of experts help you develop an outstanding essay to make you stand out in the admissions process. Give us a call today.

Mark Montgomery
Educational consultant and admissions expert

The post Great College Essay: Solve a Problem first appeared on Great College Advice.