At Great College Advice, we work with families every day who are navigating the financial side of college admissions and seeking scholarships and financial aid opportunities. One of the most important things we tell parents is this: external scholarships are a valuable supplement, but they are secondary to the financial aid and merit-based scholarships awarded directly by colleges. Institutional aid is the single biggest funding source for most students. That said, external scholarships represent real money, and a strategic approach can add thousands of dollars to your child’s college fund.

Below, we break down the best scholarship resources, explain how to evaluate them, and share insider strategies drawn from our team’s decades of admissions experience.

How External Scholarships Fit Into Your College Funding Strategy

External scholarships are real money, and they add up. But the families who save the most on college do not rely on outside awards alone. The most impactful financial decision most families make is building a strategic college list that includes schools likely to offer significant institutional merit aid. Before applying for aid, you should also understand how financial aid interacts with admissions.

Many quality colleges and universities routinely discount tuition by $20,000 to $35,000 per year for strong applicants, and those numbers can often be negotiated upward with competing offers from peer institutions. Over four years, that represents $80,000 to $140,000 in savings — a figure that dwarfs most external scholarship awards.

Jamie Berger, veteran college admissions expert, has guided families through this process for years: “For successful financial planning, it is crucial to have clearly defined expectations about what each college on your list is likely to offer. Strategic list-building is not just about admissions. It is about putting your family in the strongest possible financial position.”

External Scholarship Resources at a Glance

Frequently Asked Questions About External Scholarship Resources

What are the best external scholarship resources for high school seniors?

The most effective scholarship search starts closer to home than most families expect. Sarah Farbman, Senior Admissions Consultant at Great College Advice, advises families to begin with their high school guidance counselor: “Your guidance counselor is a resource many families underuse. They often know about local scholarships that never appear on any website, and those awards typically have far fewer applicants.”

Once you have explored local options, move to the major aggregator platforms. These are the expert-vetted scholarship search engines that our team recommends:

• Fastweb — One of the largest and longest-running scholarship databases, listing both traditional academic awards and niche scholarships. Great College Advice has highlighted Fastweb as a comprehensive resource for finding everything from conventional merit awards to unusual opportunities.
• Big Future (College Board) — The College Board’s scholarship search tool connects students with awards based on their academic profile, intended major, and personal background. Because Big Future draws from College Board data, it can surface opportunities matched to your PSAT, SAT, or AP performance.
• Going Merry — A modern platform that streamlines the application process, allowing students to apply to multiple scholarships through a single profile.
• Scholarships.com — A free, well-organized search engine that categorizes awards by deadline, award amount, and eligibility criteria.
• Appily (formerly Cappex) — Particularly useful for matching students with colleges that offer merit aid in addition to listing external scholarships.
• College Xpress — Offers scholarship searches alongside college matching tools, useful for families building a strategic college list.
• Unigo — Known for curating unique and niche scholarship opportunities that students may not find elsewhere.

For a broader look at financial aid websites, including resources for FAFSA guidance and loan management, see our consultant Andrea Aronson’s guide to the top websites for financial aid assistance.

The bottom line: Use aggregator platforms as discovery tools, but invest your deepest effort in local and niche scholarships where the odds are genuinely in your favor.

How do I find local scholarships that are less competitive?

Local scholarships are among the most overlooked opportunities in the college funding landscape, and for practical families focused on ROI, they should be at the top of your list.

As the Great College Advice Family Handbook explains, “Local scholarships are much better bets than broader scholarship search websites.” The reason is straightforward: a community scholarship from your town’s Rotary Club or a local business association may attract 20 to 50 applicants, compared to tens of thousands for a nationally advertised award. Your odds improve dramatically.

Here is where to look:

• Your high school guidance counselor — The single best starting point. Counselors maintain lists of community-based awards that are rarely publicized online.
• Local civic organizations — Rotary, Kiwanis, Elks Lodge, Lions Club, and Veterans of Foreign Wars chapters all sponsor scholarships.
• Employer-sponsored programs — Check whether your employer (or your child’s employer) offers scholarships for employees’ children.
• Religious institutions — Churches, synagogues, mosques, and other houses of worship frequently offer education grants to congregants’ families.
• Community foundations — Nearly every county and region has a community foundation that administers dozens of small scholarship funds.
• State higher education agencies — Many states offer merit and need-based grants that require a simple application.

One parent in the Great College Advice community shared that their child applied to eight local scholarships and won three of them, totaling over $4,000, while a nationally advertised $10,000 award they spent considerable time on yielded nothing. The competitiveness hierarchy works in your favor: local awards beat regional, regional beat state, and state beat national.

Are scholarship search engines like Fastweb and Going Merry worth using?

Yes, but with realistic expectations. Scholarship aggregators are excellent for discovering opportunities you would never find on your own, particularly niche awards tied to specific interests, backgrounds, or career goals. Fastweb alone lists scholarships worth billions of dollars collectively.

The trade-off is the volume of competition. Because millions of students use these platforms, any scholarship listed on Fastweb or Going Merry will attract a large applicant pool. That does not make them useless; it means you should be strategic about which listed scholarships you pursue.

Focus on awards where your child closely matches the specific eligibility criteria. A scholarship for left-handed students studying marine biology in the Pacific Northwest has a tiny applicant pool, even on a national platform. The Great College Advice Family Handbook notes some genuinely unusual scholarship categories: there are awards for duct tape prom attire (the Stuck at Prom scholarship offers $5,000), a scholarship specifically for redheads, and a tall persons scholarship for women 5’10” and over or men 6’2″ and over.

Important: Every legitimate scholarship search platform is free. If any service asks you to pay a fee to access scholarship listings, treat it as a red flag. You should never have to pay to find scholarships.

How do I calculate whether a scholarship application is worth the effort?

This is the question that separates strategic families from those who burn out on scholarship applications. Sarah Farbman puts it plainly: “If that scholarship is $500 or $1,000 and it takes you several hours to write a brand-new essay, you have to do the math for yourself.”

Here is a practical framework for evaluating scholarship ROI:

Step 1: Estimate your hourly return. Divide the scholarship amount by the number of hours you expect to spend on the application. A $2,000 scholarship that takes four hours of work nets you an effective $500 per hour — an excellent return. A $500 scholarship requiring six hours of original essay writing yields roughly $83 per hour, which may still be worthwhile but is less compelling.

Step 2: Factor in essay reuse. Many scholarship prompts revolve around the same themes: leadership, community impact, career goals, overcoming adversity. If your child can repurpose an essay already written for a college application, the time investment drops substantially and the ROI improves.

Step 3: Assess the competition. A local scholarship with 30 applicants offers fundamentally different odds than a national award with 30,000 applicants. Weight your effort toward lower-competition opportunities.

Step 4: Prioritize renewable awards. A $2,000 annual scholarship, renewable for four year,s is worth $8,000, dramatically better than a one-time award of the same amount.

For families working with a college admissions consultant, the scholarship search strategy is often integrated with the broader college list-building process, ensuring that the schools your child applies to are already positioned to offer strong merit aid. As Jamie Berger, veteran college admissions expert, emphasizes, building a smart college list is the most powerful financial strategy because institutional merit aid can save $20,000 to $35,000 per year at many quality institutions.

Can winning an external scholarship reduce the merit aid my college offers?

This is one of the most important and least-discussed realities of college financial aid, and it catches families off guard every year.

The answer is: it depends entirely on the college. Some institutions have scholarship stacking policies that reduce your institutional grant dollar-for-dollar when you bring in outside scholarships. In that scenario, a $3,000 external scholarship simply replaces $3,000 of the college’s own money, and your family’s out-of-pocket cost stays exactly the same.

Other colleges handle outside scholarships more favorably. Some will first reduce any loans in your aid package (which genuinely helps you), while others allow external scholarships to stack on top of institutional aid, effectively reducing your total cost.

Jamie Berger’s advice to families on this topic is characteristically direct: “Every school is different. Contact them directly.” Before investing significant time applying for external scholarships, call or email the financial aid office at each college on your child’s list and ask specifically: “How does your institution handle outside scholarship awards in relation to our financial aid package?”

A community member noted that financial aid packages can vary widely even for the same student, which makes this due diligence essential. The same outside scholarship could save your family thousands at one school and make zero financial difference at another.

For a deeper understanding of how financial aid decisions work and why filing early matters, see our financial aid timeline for high school seniors.

What is the difference between renewable and one-time scholarships?

Understanding this distinction is critical for families thinking about college costs over the full four years, not just freshman year.

Renewable scholarships are awarded annually for multiple years (typically four), provided the student maintains specific conditions such as a minimum GPA, full-time enrollment, or continued participation in a particular program. A $5,000 renewable scholarship is actually worth $20,000 over a four-year degree. These awards represent the highest-value external scholarships available.

One-time scholarships are paid out once and do not repeat. A $5,000 one-time award is worth exactly $5,000, which is still valuable but represents a fundamentally different proposition for long-term financial planning.

The Great College Advice Family Handbook notes that third-party scholarships generally range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, with the total value depending heavily on whether the award is renewable. When comparing two opportunities, a $1,500 renewable award nearly always beats a $3,000 one-time award in total value.

One caution: renewable scholarships carry risk. If your child’s GPA dips below the renewal threshold, the scholarship disappears, creating a sudden funding gap that is difficult to replace mid-college. As one family in the Great College Advice community observed, losing a scholarship when transferring between colleges is another common pitfall, since many merit awards are not portable. Read renewal conditions carefully, and factor that risk into your financial planning.

When should my child start searching and applying for external scholarships?

The ideal time to begin a focused external scholarship search is the summer before senior year, though awareness should start much earlier. Some scholarships accept applicants as early as freshman year, and a few programs specifically target younger students to build a pipeline.

Here is a practical timeline:

Junior year spring (March–May): Begin researching scholarship databases and building a list of opportunities with deadlines in the fall and winter. Identify essay themes that overlap with your college application essays.

Summer before senior year (June–August): Draft reusable essay templates around common scholarship themes: leadership, community service, career aspirations, overcoming challenges. Visit your guidance counselor to collect local scholarship information.

Senior year fall (September–December): Apply aggressively. Many of the best scholarships have fall deadlines that coincide with college application season. File the FAFSA as soon as it opens on October 1, as some scholarship and institutional aid programs reference FAFSA data, and filing early maximizes your aid eligibility.

Senior year spring (January–May): Continue applying to scholarships with spring deadlines. Review financial aid award letters as they arrive and compare how external scholarships interact with each school’s aid package.

As one parent in the Great College Advice community shared, filing the FAFSA early made a significant difference in their child’s overall aid package, and they wished they had started the scholarship application process sooner rather than treating it as an afterthought.

For a comprehensive look at every deadline and milestone from freshman through senior year, explore our college admissions guide for high school.

Apply for Financial Aid with an Expert by Your Side

We help families get accepted with scholarships. At Great College Advice, our consultants integrate scholarship strategy into the broader admissions plan from day one. We help families identify which colleges are most likely to offer strong merit packages, how to position applications for maximum aid, and when it makes sense to negotiate. 

Ready to get started? Schedule a free consultation today.

The post External Scholarships for High School Seniors first appeared on Great College Advice.

College admissions officers—as well as the members of the Common App—spend a lot of time crafting their essay prompts. They are looking for answers to specific questions so they can learn more about you. So give them the answer.

Analyze the Prompt

Before you start, you should carefully analyze the prompt. Look at the keywords. What are the individual elements of the assignment? How can you address each element? What are you being asked to do? What does the reader want to know about you? Physically underline the keywords, and jot down a few notes as you go.

For our updated Guide to the Common App Essay, please review this recent post.

But don’t try to over-analyze things. Don’t assume there is a right or a wrong answer to the question, or a right way or wrong way to address the prompt. They are looking for your answer, your response, and your reflections.

However, answering the prompt does not mean you have to write a boring, conventional essay. You may be able to figure out a way to bend the prompt a bit. Words and concepts are open to interpretation, and sometimes you can open up a whole new world of ideas by simply defining the terms of the prompt in a creative way.

Common App Prompt: Personal Growth

For example, prompt #5 of the Common App personal statement asks you to: Discuss an accomplishment or event or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. 

On its surface, this prompt seems to be asking about a specific moment in your life. But really, this prompt wants a before-and-after. Tell the college admissions officers about one way you’ve grown as a person, demonstrate that you are aware of that period of personal growth, and be able to reflect on it in a mature way. 

Briefly Explain Your Story  

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. 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.  

Describe the Catalyst and that Sparked Personal Growth  

The story is not the heart of your essay–it is the pivot between how you thought or felt before the accomplishment, event, 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. College admissions officers do not care so much about the exact nature of these accomplishments or events or realizations. Rather they care about how you tell an interesting story about your transition to adulthood and how this change or transition led to a new and different understanding of yourself and the world around you.  

Reflect on How You Have Grown  

The real meat of your personal growth Common App essay is your reflection based on this brief anecdote from your life. By thinking deeply about 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. College admissions officers want to understand the “real you” underneath all the academic and other data on your college application. This prompt is a great way to show them who you really are. 

Dissect the Prompt in Order to Answer the Prompt

So, by breaking up the personal growth essay prompt into digestible pieces, you can make sure that you are actually taking care of Job #1: Answering the Prompt!

The Great College Advice guide to the perfect college essay

• Overview
• Make yourself the main character of your essay;
• Go Deep;
• Grab the reader’s attention with a compelling introduction;
• Keep the reader’s eyes glued to the screen by telling a good story from beginning to end;
• Make sure the length of your essay is appropriate;

Need help writing the perfect college essay?

The expert college counselors at Great College Advice have years of experience helping students craft college essays that stand out to college admission officers. We know how to help you choose topics, structure the prose, hone the messages, and edit the essay to perfection. These essays are an essential aspect of the college application process, and you want to make sure your essay represents you well. If you need some personalized guidance on how to write the personal statement and supplemental essays, please give us a call or fill out our contact form. We’d be delighted to chat with you about how we can help.

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 The Perfect College Essay: Answer the Prompt first appeared on Great College Advice.

Admissions officers often give a score to the essays as they read them.  In some instances, the Common App essay is scored separately from the supplements.  In other cases, admissions officers score all the essays together:  Common App plus the supplements.

Either way, lackluster responses to those supplemental essay prompts can really hurt your chances of admission. So put in the effort to make sure those supplemental essays shine.

Top 3 tips to improve your supplemental essays

Don’t wait until the last minute!

Some students are chronic procrastinators. They leave important things to the last minute. While I will admit, reluctantly, that once in a blue moon a student is able to pull out a masterpiece with only minutes to spare, these sorts of students are about as rare as snow leopards.

You want to make sure you have plenty of time to brainstorm good messages for your essays, and that you have time to create paragraphs that are well-structured, clear, and concise. Many supplements are short.  Therefore you need to pack them full of juicy words and ideas. Creating prose that is both pithy and clear takes time and effort–and usually multiple drafts. 

So start early, and focus on ensuring that the messages you want to convey in these short supplemental essays are clear and compelling. 

Answer the question!

One of the most frustrating things about reading supplemental essays is that students often do not answer the question. The admissions officers take a lot of time crafting the prompt in hopes that they will get thoughtful, interesting answers that will help them differentiate the applicant pool.  They want to admit applicants who have taken the time to answer their questions carefully and completely. They want to know that the applicant cares enough about their application to their school that they dedicate the time necessary to do a great job.

The “Why do you want to go to this college” is among the best examples of how important it is that you take the time to plan and execute a teriffic answer to this prompt. Most colleges want to know why you are interested in attending. So tell them!

Write about specific things that have attracted you to the school. Go beyond the beautiful campus and great food in the dining hall. Talk about a professor you researched on-line and can’t wait to take a class from. If you are playing a sport, talk about your impressions of the coach and the team. Find out about the programs the student government organizes then talk about how you can’t wait to organize a specific event next year. Really envision yourself as a student at the school and then tell the admissions officer what you think that would be like.

Similarly, the “tell us about your academic interests” essay requires thought. You want to take the time not only to say what interests you, but why you are interested in these disciplines, topics, or ideas. What excites you about these ideas and theories? Why would it be important to you to explore these ideas more deeply? What resources at the school would help you achieve your academic objectives? Be specific, be concise, and be enthusiastic.

Though it may sound weird and cruel, supplemental essays are supposed to be the “fun” part of your application. So, take them seriously.

Don’t repeat yourself on your supplemental essays

Each piece of writing on each application you submit should tell the admissions office something different and interesting about you. So you should not write supplemental essays that significantly duplicate information provided in other places on your application.

For example, don’t use the supplemental essays to recount or amplify your extracurricular activities. There is ample space on the Common Application to identify and explain your extracurricular involvements:  the Activities section. Use that space wisely. But don’t repeat yourself by saying similar things in your Common Application. For example, if you are the captain and quarterback of your school football team, don’t write a supplemental essay that talks all about football. If you’re asked to write about an activity you enjoy, use the supplemental essay to highlight your interest in building model airplanes or archery or crossword puzzles. Round out the vision of you as a multidimensional person so that the admissions office gets a more complete picture of your humanity.

Similarly, don’t repeat facts or themes or ideas from your Common Application personal statement. You want each supplemental essay to present fresh content–fresh ideas about who you are as a person. Admittedly, sometimes the prompts from the Common App can come back around in a new form in the supplemental essays. Try to find a way to write about something new without duplicating the personal statement.

If you really can’t think of anything, it might be best to rework your personal statement into a supplemental essay for a particular application, and then write an entirely new personal statement (the Common App allows you to do such shenanigans for one application, if you need to). But this would be a drastic measure.  So avoid it, if you can.  Instead, think of new ways to explore a similar topic so that you can reveal more about who you are on the application as a whole.

Need help writing supplemental essays for your college applications?

The expert college counselors have years of experience helping their students develop interesting, clear, and successful supplemental essays for the Common Application.  Whether you need help only with essays or you prefer to get more comprehensive college admissions help, the folks at Great College Advice can make the entire college admissions process less stressful and more successful.  Contact us today for a free consultation. We look forward to getting acquainted.

The post Supplemental Essays Are Important! first appeared on Great College Advice.

If you are going through the college application process, more than likely you are encountering supplemental essay questions asking you to elaborate on why you want to attend that institution. The question takes many forms. Why are you a good fit? What will you bring to our campus? What is it about our school that makes you want to attend? But, ultimately, it’s really the same question just asked in a different way: “Why this college?”

In my line of work as a college advisor, I read a lot of these essays, and I can say that I see many weak attempts at answering this question. Students seem to fall into the same “traps” every time. So, in this article, I’m going to cover the do’s and don’ts of writing a great response to the “Why our college?” question. Follow my advice, and it should lead you to an essay that will stand out to admissions offices.

Getting Started: Do Your Homework

“Why do you want to go to this college?” I ask.

“I dunno.”

You’d be surprised at how often I engage in this little snippet of conversation. Often young people settle on a college choice without much thought. Maybe it’s close by. Maybe it’s famous. Or perhaps Mom and Dad have pushed the college. Maybe it’s where your friend attends, or where your boyfriend wants to go.

But this essay forces you to really think about why you want to go—and to present your reasons in an essay.

So the first thing you must do before you start writing is to know the answer to the question: “Why this college?”

One of the ways to do this is to sort of reverse-engineer your choice. You need a list of criteria that drives your college choice. So if you find yourself at a loss to come up with solid, rational reasons, perhaps have a look at this article about how to choose a college based on such criteria. 

Once you have this solid list in hand, then you can begin to craft your response to the “Why this college” essay.

Construct a template for the Why This College essay

If you have carefully thought through the basic criteria for all the colleges to which you will be applying, and if you have carefully selected colleges that fit those general criteria. Then you can begin to build a generic framework for answering this question.

What follows is a list of “dos” and “don’ts” for answering the “Why this college” essay prompt.

The Why This College Essay DOs:

DO take clues from how the question is asked

Since these questions all fall into the same category of “Why do you want to go to our school?”, it’s easy to simply just answer it with that particular question in mind. But you should read the question carefully because each college will have a slightly different angle on it. You want to be sure that you are answering all aspects of the question. Sometimes, colleges will give you clues as to what they are looking for in how they phrase the question, and this can help you develop ideas on how to answer it.

DO explain why you want to spend the next 4 years of your life there being involved in intellectual and academic pursuits

While this tip may sound like a no-brainer, you’d be amazed at how many students forget to mention the academic reasons that attract them to the school. Instead, they focus on all kinds of other things: awesome sports teams, a beautiful quad, or a killer climbing wall. But aren’t you going to college to get an education, first and foremost?

Think about and research the educational opportunities that are offered at the school. Why are they an academic fit with who you are, how you learn, what you have done, and what you are interested in pursuing? Think about the general curriculum of the degree, the structure of your intended major, and other academic resources that attract you (e.g., specific research facilities, academic centers, specialized libraries, and/or study abroad).

You don’t have to know what you want to major in to include this in your essay. In fact, if you are undecided, it’s okay to talk about that, but then consider: what does that school have to offer you to help you explore and decide?

Do discuss how and why you fit at the school

Schools want students on their campus who are going to be happy and successful. Just as every student is different, so is every college, and admissions offices want to be sure that you understand what their school is all about before you land on their campus. After all, if you get there and you don’t fit in, you’re not going to be happy.

What do I mean by “fit?” For example, say you are applying to a school with a student body that is known to be significantly involved in community service. And this is something that you yourself have been a part of while in high school. Talk about that. What if you are looking for a school with a lot of spirit? Because that’s something that you didn’t have in your own high school experience? You can discuss that. Whatever aspects of a school are attractive to you, be sure to back them up with personal reasons.

Do give examples of how you will get involved at college and have an impact on campus

Colleges are all about building an academic community. with the key word being “community.” That means that they don’t just want students who are going to go to class, go home, and not contribute to the life of the campus. Colleges and universities are just pieces of real estate: it takes people to animate them and give them the vibrancy that probably attracts you.

College admissions people are looking for givers. They are looking for individuals who will enliven the campus. So, tell them how you plan to get involved.

Think about the activities you enjoy. How will you continue those activities on campus? Show the admissions committee that you envision yourself in that same activity once you get to college. For example, if you enjoy making ceramics, give them a vision of how you—as a political science major—will spend time in the pottery workshop firing your work in the university kiln.

Also, think about the activities you’d like to try. Explain why this new activity interests you, and present a detailed vision of how you’ll get involved. For example, perhaps you live in Florida but your chosen college is in a snowy locale. Give an image of yourself rollicking in the drifts and engaging in winter sports wearing a puffy parka. Show the admissions folks that you are excited by the possibilities of your new “home.”

Do be specific

I cannot stress this enough. Above, I suggested topics that you should try to cover in your essay. With each of these, you must get specific, specific, specific. And did I mention that you have to get specific? So, discuss some classes that intrigue you. Find a professor who focuses on your area of interest and mention her work. Talk about particular clubs and activities where you could see yourself contributing. Name the academic center or the name of the swimming pool.

Highlight things that impress you about the campus and make you want to go there. Touch on interactions that you make with students, staff, or alumni of the school. Name names. Let the college know that you are really interested in attending their particular institution by showing them that you know about and are interested in specific things.

As I said before, you need to do your homework and tailor your essay to each college. While the structure of the “Why this college” essay may be the same from college to college. The substance of the essay must be highly specific to each college on your list.

Do your research

Before you ever start typing your response to this essay question, know what you are talking about. Spend some time on the college’s website so that you truly understand what the school has to offer you. And why you really should want to go there. Check out what the college prides itself on. Look at the course offerings. Be clear on how the curriculum works. Educate yourself on the extra-curricular opportunities. The only way you can get specific (see bullet point above!) is to do your research.

The Why This College Essay Don’ts:

Don’t focus on superficial aspects of the school

Oh, how many essays have I read that have talked about how great the food looked in a college’s cafeteria? C’mon. Is that really a reason that you want to go to a certain school? Even if it is, that shows a shallowness of thought that you probably don’t want to reveal to the college of your choice. You must gear your essay to discuss more meaningful aspects.

Common pitfalls when it comes to these more “superficial” topics are:

School Setting and/or Geographic Location

Students spend a good chunk of their essays focused on a school’s setting or geographic location. They simply talk about the location without either making it about the school or about themselves. (“And the University of XYZ is located right in the heart of ABCity, which I love so much!”) While the setting is, of course, an integral part of the school, when the student makes this the crux of their reason for attending. It sounds like the student just wants to get to that location.

Regardless of the school itself, it’s perfectly fine to talk about the location and have that be a reason. But as with any other aspect of your essay, you need to make your discussion personal and relevant to you. (“I love the fact that the University of XYZ is located in the heart of ABCity because I’m a musician myself who loves listening to all types of music from show tunes to jazz. I would really enjoy getting a chance to go to the many different types of musical performances that I’ll find there.”)

College Reputation

A college’s reputation is NOT a good reason to say you want to go there. That says nothing about you nor why you are fit for it. On the other hand, if you can back it up with specific examples of why that reputation was earned, and its relevance to you, then go for it. For example, you could say, “I’m excited about the prospect of studying engineering at U of XYZ, which has attracted top-notch faculty, such as Prof. Prizewinner who teaches engineering in my area of interest.”

Don’t just compliment the school

“U of XYZ is by far the best place on earth! It has the most intelligent and motivated students anywhere! Your study abroad programs are like no other!” Most colleges are proud of their institutions, and they should be. But, let’s face it, none of them is a utopia. Unfortunately, you sound completely fake when you make sweeping, superlative statements about the school without also being able to support your claim.

While you absolutely should be enthusiastic and think very highly of the schools you are applying to, and you should tell them. So, a better approach is to complement the school in the context of yourself.

For example, if you want to study abroad, and the college has a strong offering in that area, that can be one of the main reasons that you are attracted to it. Then discuss a particular program they have that might appeal, And, explain why it excites you and why you feel it’s so top-notch. Remember, specificity is always best.

Don’t waste words telling them what they already know

Often, when students do get specific about particular courses, programs or activities that they are interested in at a given school. They spend the majority of their writing focusing on describing and explaining it. Well, guess what? The school already knows what that class, program, or activity is all about because it’s their class, program, or activity! Don’t waste your precious words. Spend your prose making it personal. Discuss how those courses, programs, or activities fit with who you are and what you want to accomplish.

Don’t write a “Plug and Play” essay

A “Plug and Play” essay is one where you submit the exact same essay to each school that asks the question. Then you only change up a couple of small details, one of which is the college’s name. If you are applying to several schools, the “Why Our School?” question is one that you will probably have to answer multiple times during your application season. So the appeal of doing a “plug and play” is obvious. I do not, however, recommend this approach.

Experienced admissions readers know a mostly generic “plug and play” essay when they see one. And it does not cast a favorable light on the student. It leaves the impression that the student didn’t have enough interest in the college to take the time to understand the school or to write an essay that was based on the unique things about that institution.

It’s okay to reuse the same themes about yourself from one essay to the next so that you don’t have to completely reinvent the wheel. But you absolutely should tailor the essay to the individual school that you are writing about. Also to be genuine about the reasons that you are interested in that particular institution.

Don’t go too broad when you have only a few words

The length requirements for the “Why our college” essay cover a range. Some ask for just a few characters, while others have no restrictions. The most common maximum length requirements, however, seem to be in the 150-300 word range. I’ve recommended a lot of things that you should consider covering when you write this essay. But how do you do that when you only have a little bit of space to do it in?

In a word: focus. Don’t try to do it all. Instead, pick one or two things that appeal to you about the school. Then drill down on just those things. Better to go deep than wide so that you can really make the argument, at least on one level. Why you and that institution are the right fit.

Conclusion – the Why This College Essay

Combining the dos and don’ts of writing the “Why our college” essay will help you to strategically approach developing a truly strong piece of writing. While trying to incorporate all of these strategies into your writing may seem a little scary (and, of course, we are always here to help!), remember that the goal of any piece of writing that you do for a college application is to allow the admissions office to understand more about you, who you are, and what makes you tick.

The post Write a Great Why This College Essay first appeared on Great College Advice.

The definition of community is open to interpretation and can be difficult to pin down. We each belong to a wide variety of communities ranging from our family and friend groups to being members of the global community.  

My Communities 

For example, I belong to a bunch of different communities. I sing in a choir, so I’m part of the community of the Colorado Chorale community (and within that community, I’m a member of the tenor section). I go to see plays a lot, so I’m a member of the “theater-going” community. Birdwatching can be fun, I find, so I belong to the “community of birdwatchers.” I belong to a club or two, so I’m a member or those communities. I belong to a political party, which is a community in a sense. I went to Dartmouth, so I belong to a community of alumni, both locally and globally. Same with my grad school: my friends and I still talk about belonging to the “Fletcher Community.” 

When I lived in Hong Kong, I was a member of the American community, which was part of the large expatriate community. I speak French and live in Denver. Therefore, I’m part of the community of Denverites who speak French as a second language. I live in a specific neighborhood in the city of Denver in the State of Colorado in the United States. All of those communities define me in one way or another. Finally, at a more intimate level, I also belong to a family community that is very important to me.

Really, when you stop to think about it, we all belong to a large number of overlapping communities. Think of a Venn diagram with lots of overlapping circles—and we are at that tiny dot in the center where each of those circles overlaps. 

Why write the community essay for the Common App?

Why do colleges ask you to write this community essay? In writing about community as it relates to you, you reveal important details at the core of who you are. Colleges are hoping to bring students to their campuses who will contribute in a positive way to campus culture, whether intellectually, socially, or through their extracurricular activities. 

They want students who will be successful in their new community and enrich the college through their varied backgrounds, experiences, accomplishments, activities and behavior. Thus, the way you answer this prompt will help them imagine if you would be a good addition to their campus community.

Here are some examples of the community essay prompt:

• Please complete the following, and have a little fun doing so: “I appreciate my community because …” (up to 300 characters)
• At MIT, we bring people together to better the lives of others. MIT students work to improve their communities in different ways, from tackling the world’s biggest challenges to being good friends. Describe one way in which you have contributed to your community, whether in your family, the classroom, your neighborhood, etc. (200-250 words)
• What have you done to make your school or your community a better place?  (up to 350 words)
• Everyone belongs to many different communities and/or groups defined by (among other things) shared geography, religion, ethnicity, income, cuisine, interest, race, ideology, or intellectual heritage. Choose one of the communities to which you belong, and describe that community and your place within it.  (up to 300 words)
• Macalester is a community that includes people from many different backgrounds, some who have lived around the world and others who have lived in one place their entire lives. Please write an essay about how your background, experiences, or outlook might add to the Mac community, academically and personally. (up to 500 words)*

* Note: this last prompt doesn’t ask about a community to which you currently belong, but rather asks you to reflect on what you will bring to the community. This essay is a mix of activities and community essays. However, this essay should emphasize what the applicant would add to the campus community.

The community essay vs. the community service essay

Notice that this essay is not narrowly focused on any service you might provide to your community. Of course, it is entirely possible that your involvement in a community may include some sort of involvement that helps to promote the community and the interests of its members in some way.  

However, the community essay prompts do not specifically ask you to talk about this service. The prompts want you to think about what it means to “belong,” and how you conceive of yourself in the larger world. A sense of community may, indeed, lead you to act in certain ways to advance a cause, donate your time, or exert your energies to meet the needs of your community. Your actions certainly may become part of this community essay as a way to demonstrate the ways in which you identify with—and contribute to—this community. But the focus of this essay is on that sense of belonging. 

Service to your community—or to someone else’s?

To put a finer point to it, it is possible to provide “community service” to communities to which we do not belong. We might donate time to the homeless community—but that does not make us homeless. We might spend time working with refugees, even if we, ourselves, are not refugees. Or while we might enjoy good health, we still might donate time to make meals for the critically ill.

So make sure that when you write the community essay you zero in on a community that defines you, and not on the service you devote to a community that is not your own.  

When preparing for the community essay for the Common App, DO THESE THINGS:

Think carefully about your choice of community

The community you choose says a lot about you. Think carefully about what message even just the choice of community might convey to your reader. In fact, you may even want to start by asking yourself “What aspects of who I am do I want the reader to know?” and then pick the community that will do that in the best possible way. Think, too, how your choice can help you differentiate yourself and share important insight into who you are. 

Factors for you to consider as you brainstorm the community essay for the Common App:

• Which communities are most important to you and why?
• What do these communities say about you that you haven’t shared with your reader elsewhere in your application?
• What roles have you played in these communities?
• How would you measure the impact of your participation in these communities?
• What does your participation in these communities say about your character, qualities, and how you interact with the world around you?
• What does the overall message say about you as a future college student?

Use this as an opportunity to reveal more about yourself

This prompt isn’t just to elaborate on your community; this is another opportunity to reveal important qualities about yourself. Explain why this community is so important to you. Write about what you learned about yourself and how it has shaped who you are. Reveal how you have made contributions to this community.  

Show, don’t tell

Like every essay, the details show your reader what you want them to know about you. Be specific, but selective, with the details you include. Every word should contribute to the message you want to share with your reader. If you have space, share an anecdote to help the reader visualize the qualities that you are trying to share.

Ensure you answer the prompt fully and directly

Some of these prompts are simple and short, but other schools have long prompts. Don’t get lost in answering the first part of the prompt and forget about the remainder. Re-read the prompt after you have drafted your ideas to make sure you’ve addressed everything. 

In addition, sometimes, if you have multiple applications that ask a “community” question, you may be tempted to simply repurpose the same exact essay from one application to the other. Beware! Each prompt will have different nuances to it, and you will need to ensure that you are actually answering the prompt that is being asked. You can certainly re-use the content from one application to the next, but you should tailor how you express those ideas so that they match the prompt.

When drafting the community essay for the Common App, DON’T DO these things

Don’t be afraid to “think outside of the box”

Some communities to which we belong are obvious because we participate in them on a daily basis. These would include our families and our friend groups. Others are obvious because they are clearly defined: the football team or student government. But what about those informal communities, occasional communities, or hard-to-define communities to which you might belong? Are you a crafty person who blogs about your creations with an online community?

Do you belong to a book group in your neighborhood? Are you a classic car connoisseur? Even writing about things that might not seem like natural “communities” can work quite well as long as they reveal important aspects of who you are. For example, we’ve read a successful “community” essay about a student who belonged to a community of anonymous subway riders. We read another about a community of students who wear crazy socks to school. 

Don’t share obvious details

The detail about the community is not the most important part of your response, even if the prompt does say to “describe a community to which you belong.” Consider only sharing those details about the community that ties into what you are trying to share about yourself. For example, most drama groups put on performances for the public.

But not all drama groups are community-based and have participants ranging in age from 9 to 99. If part of your story is about this multi-generational community, then this detail plays a part in your story. Include those details that play a role in why the community is important or impactful for you.

Remember these things about the community essay for the Common App

No matter which community you choose to write about, you want to be sure that you reflect deeply about why this community is important to you. If you have a longer word count, you can consider using an anecdote to share with the reader, but for the shorter prompts, keep your writing personal, but just more to the point.

And don’t lose sight of the reason that you are writing this essay. You are applying to be a part of a new community. You want to show that you have a deep appreciation for the sense of satisfaction, dedication, and attachment that comes with being a member of a community. The purpose is to demonstrate that you know how to nurture the community and how you nourish others’ sense of belonging in that circle.  

Colleges want to know that you will keep the flame of that college community alive, even as you graduate and move on with your life. The admissions office wants to know that you will cherish and contribute to the community that they already call their own. Convince them that you deserve to belong.

The post The Community Essay for the Common App Supplements first appeared on Great College Advice.

TRANSCRIPT:
I’m here right now on the campus of Temple University in Philadelphia, and behind me is the library, there’s a big lawn over here, there are lots of kids hanging out, it’s a beautiful spring day just before finals, everybody’s relaxing. It’s also Friday, and so there are trucks lined up all up and down some of these avenues serving things like hoagies and wraps and crepes and there’s a “sugar bomb” truck or something. All kinds of places, getting ready for a Friday night here on some of the main drags. You can tell it’s kind of noisy, this is an urban environment so if you’re looking for a very active, fun, diverse campus in a city easily accessible by public transportation, this is a good place for you.

Great College Advice

The post Education Consultant Visits Temple U first appeared on Great College Advice.

Part of a series on Bates College.
Part 3 … Part 5

TRANSCRIPT:

Another thing that sets Bates apart from many of its competitor schools. If you will, is that the outdoors is an integral part of this campus. It is located in Maine, which is a beautiful state, and the outdoors is so much a part of what Mainers are really about. So you have the mountains and skiing that’s about an hour away, it’s really great, fantastic skiing. And then you have one of the most spectacular natural sea coasts in North America. So you’ve got plenty of outdoor opportunities.

Now keep in mind, of course, this is Maine, so there will be snow on the ground. It’s green and beautiful today in the summer. But there will be lots of snow on the ground so it’s winter sports. And Bates also has Division I skiing, including Nordic skiing so winter sports are really, really popular here.

So outdoor activities, if you’re interested in getting outside, going camping, going hiking, being part of the beautiful outdoors of America, Maine and Bates: you need to think about those.

Mark Montgomery
Expert Educational Consultant

The post Consultant on Bates: An Outdoorsman’s College first appeared on Great College Advice.

TRANSCRIPT:

One of the other things that I found were interesting about Bates is the history matters. History matters with a lot of these colleges and Bates is very different from most of the other New England colleges in that it was set up by Free Will Baptists. And the Free Will Baptists were committed to ensuring that Bates was a campus that would be welcoming, not only to the local community and to America’s elite.

But also to women, so it was the first college in New England to accept women and also other minorities, including blacks. This was set up before the end of the Civil War, and from the very beginning they accepted freed slaves into the campus community.

So why does that matter? Well, it’s part of the ethos. It’s part of the way that Bates thinks about itself and presents itself and projects itself into the world, that this is a progressive learning community. It’s an intentional community that has always been diverse. That has always been accepting of people of every stripe, including every religious background, every socioeconomic class, every ethnic background.

So that is just one of the core principles at this college that does set apart a little bit. Everybody’s going to talk about how they’re into being welcoming and tolerant and accepting. And of course that’s part of the American reality today. But Bates has walked the walk from the beginning of its history whereas some of the Ivy League schools, well, all of the Ivy League schools. And many other elite small colleges in New England just didn’t begin that way. So that’s an important part of Bates’ history to keep in mind.

Mark Montgomery
Expert Educational Consultant

The post Bates College: A Welcoming Community first appeared on Great College Advice.

In a past post I discussed the value of participating in an honors program . Honors programs and leadership programs are a fantastic way to surround yourself with other high achieving and motivated students. This is the perfect moment to spend a little time researching in detail about the kinds of programs that the colleges offer and if you are qualified for them.

You may also want to look at and consider the following:

– What is their admission criteria for acceptance into the program?
– How many students are admitted into the program?
– What are the benefits to participation (Do you get priority registration, small classes, special living opportunities, etc)?
– If not accepted for your first year can you apply later on in college?
– Are there special classes or evening commitments involved?
– Does the program apply to all majors?
– Do you get access to additional advising opportunities?
– Do you need to live with other honors students to participate?
 
Take this time to learn about the honors opportunities for talented students at the college of your choice and then start working on those applications!
Good luck!
 

The post Applying to College Honors Programs first appeared on Great College Advice.

Great College Advice 

The post Avoid Text Lingo in Your College Essay first appeared on Great College Advice.