The Worst Common App Essay

You might not be able to identify what makes a great singer great, but you know an awful singer when you hear one. It’s hard to explain what makes a great essay great, but when I read a dreadful essay, I know it.

Every year, I write about 30 college application essays even though I graduated from college 40 years ago. I should say that I don’t exactly write them, but I do help high school seniors come up with topics for their essays and then help those kids to polish their essays after the student finishes saying what she wants to say. I can (and will) tell you what sort of topics are real winners, essays that say something meaningful and true about a student and presents that student in a thoughtful, charming, appealing way. But first I need to warn you about dreadful essays.

What makes a really terrible essay terrible?

The worst essays come from senior English class. I’m an English teacher, so I can tell you with confidence that English teachers aren’t always great writers themselves. Has your English teacher written and published a book or even an article? Has she won any writing awards? Furthermore, Your high school English teachers hasn’t known you, their student, for more than a month or so, so why are you relying on his advice and guidance when it comes to writing a superior college application essay? English class essays often reflect the advice of someone who wrote an article on “How to Write a College Essay” 10 years ago. English class essays are often boilerplate, hackneyed, dry, uninspired. English class essays could often describe you and half a dozen other kids in your school or your sport or your club with the same overused phrases. [Yawn.]

Awful essays often reflect too much interference by parents. When students write about how they’ve conquered their fear (or special ed issue or their shyness or their academic challenges or their ADD) and show you that they are great now and now they can conquer life in the same way that they’ve conquered their whatever, I know a parent has taken over. When kids say, “I trembled in fear” instead of “I thought the teacher might actually bite my head off,” I know a parent has taken over. And if I know when a parent has taken over an essay, so do admission counselors. It’s not considered cheating for a parent or teacher or tutor to review an essay for grammar and punctuation and spelling or even word choice, but the essay topic and the essay language still has to retain the voice of a 17-year old, not a 45-year old who wants the prospective college to see their student as a shining star, just as that parent does. Parents, don’t meddle with your kids’ essays. It makes it seem as if you don’t trust your student to speak for himself.

Truly terrible essays explain how you, the 17-year-old student, have life figured out. When I finished first grade, I asked my mother why I had to go to second grade since I already knew how to read and write. Any high school kid knows that you’re not done learning at age seven. And any adult knows that you haven’t understood everything there is to know about life or even about yourself at 17. When kids write that they tried to make the team but failed, and, on the verge of quitting, decided to try once again and then made the team, that’s nice, but they can’t say, “And now I understand perserverance.” When kids write that they lost the big game but “Now I understand that it’s all about teamwork,” they look juvenile. When kids write that their parents sent them to Nicaragua for two weeks to build houses and “Now I understand poverty,” no you don’t. All you understand is that your parents could afford to send you to Nicaragua for two weeks and not everyone lives in your suburban town. You look spoiled and naive to say otherwise. It’s much more sincerely humble to write that you are beginning to understand something specific about yourself, but that you have a lot more to learn, and in part that’s what you hope to do in college.

The worst essays spend four paragraphs giving the history of your medical issue or insecurity or academic challenge and finally mention where you are now in the last paragraph or two.

Nasty essays criticize others, even if they deserve it. No college wants to hear that you got a 70 in Italian or Math because you had an incompetent teacher. No one wants to read that if your parents hadn’t moved, you’d be an A+ student. No one (except your mom) cares that you were on your way to gymnastic stardom until you dislocated your shoulder. And definitely no one believes that you would have done something meaningful and important with your life – but for Covid. Every student was impacted by Covid. Every sports team had cancelled games. Every club closed. Every science research project was postponed. But no one wants to hear that you couldn’t run or play ball or dance or join a club or make a meaningful contribution because of Covid. What COULD you do? Did you tutor neighborhood children? Did you sew masks when no one could get PPE? Did you design science experiments with materials kids had at home to help your elementary school teacher? Did you teach a senior citizen how to FaceTime with his grandchildren? It’s no one’s fault that you didn’t live up to your own potential – but you could write about what you might do differently next time.

So what SHOULD you write about?

If you’re on a team, what makes you different from the student next to you? It could be something that everyone knows about you, like you’re the tallest kid in your grade or you’re addicted to chocolate or you love country western music or classic cars. It could also be something that no one knows about you, like you love to clean bathrooms because of how sparkly they look when you finish (that was me growing up) or why you prefer to visit with your grandma in an old age home than visit your three-year-old cousin or why you’ve always hated the color blue.

And how should you start an essay? Just start. You can add an introduction and conclusion later. You can fix the spelling and grammar later. You can chose more expressive verbs and adjectives later. You can rearrange the sentences later. I can edit nearly anything, but I can’t edit nothing. So put something down on paper. Start several essays. When you find a topic you can’t stop writing about, you’ve found a winner. Try writing it as a letter to a friend, at least temporarily. Try writing it as a diary entry for now.

Just start writing. You’ll evenutally need an essay between 500 – 650 words, about a page to a page and a half. But for goodness sake, please don’t write about how your coach is such an inspiring guy because he convinced you to try out for the team once again before his annual trip to Nicaragua!

Wendy Segal

http://www.wendysegaltutoring.com

Applications are Up and Admissions are Down: What Can I Do With That Information?

Articles like the one below have been flooding my inbox this past week.    The moral seems to be that applications are up and acceptances are down — significantly down, especially among the most selective colleges.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/04/07/admit-rates-ivy-league-pandemic-test-optional/

I’m not telling you this to frighten you but rather to confront you with the reality that having colleges go “test optional” is a blessing and a curse.  A wider demographic is applying to colleges of all sorts, so you’ve got less of a chance of getting into the same school that a mere 2 years ago you might have gotten into fairly easily.

What you do with this information is up to you, but I do have some suggestions I hope you take seriously.

1.  Widen your net.  Apply to more colleges than you might have 2 years ago, and apply to a wider variety of colleges than you might have.  Include more safety schools because this year, they might not be so safe any more!  Don’t dismiss schools just because you haven’t heard of them.  The ones your friends are going to apply to aren’t the only good ones.

2.  Make sure your school grades and your SAT/ACT scores sparkle.  Now is not the time to slack off.  If 25% of students are applying and getting in without SATs or ACTs, 75% ARE submitting scores. Take a full courseload of quality classes junior and senior year to show you care about your education.

3.  Use every opportunity to demonstrate interest.  Colleges want to know that you’re not just applying to two dozen schools because you can.  They need to be able to accept only those students who might reasonably accept their offers. So fill out the “send me more information” form on EVERY college you’re even thinking of.  Then open the email they send you promptly and click on any and all links.  Email the admissions department with a thoughtful question or two.  Attend every open house you can, virtual or live.  If a college is visiting your high school – virtually or live – make it your top priority to attend.  “Like” each school’s Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter, and any other social media you know about.  If a school is offering live tours (many of my students have already gone on several live tours), go if you possibly can.

4.  Get creative with extra-curricular activities.  I understand that many traditional activities have been cancelled this past year, but that’s true for everyone.  You’re no worse off than every other athlete or dancer or singer.  Yet some kids have developed websites or helped seniors find vaccine appointments or sewn masks or worked at food pantries or held virtual homework sessions for neighborhood kids or knit blankets for babies or the wheelchair bound or worked remotely on political campaigns or created composite YouTube concerts with fellow singers or band members.  What have YOU done?  If the answer is “not much,”  go back to item #1 above and broaden and deepen your list of schools, because the kids getting into selective schools have done all these things and more.

For those of you who go to Yorktown High School, I’ll be speaking virtually about how testing and applications have changed over the past two years this Wednesday evening, April 14, at the request of the guidance department.  (If you don’t go to Yorktown, I’d be happy to speak to parents of your school.  All they have to do is ask!)

Let me know if you have any questions,

Wendy Segal

http://www.wendysegaltutoring.com

When Should I Apply to College?

The Common App opens for the new application season every August 1st.  That’s the date students entering their senior year in high school can begin to create their college applications, but by August 1st, you should really be toward the END of the college application process, which should have begun the summer going into junior year. (Juniors, are you listening?)

Sometimes I find it’s more effective to explain the schedule to students when I work backwards, like this:

The vast majority of the students I work with apply to most of their schools early action.  (Unlike early decision, early action isn’t binding.  It merely says to the college, “I’m showing you my application early so that you can give me a decision early.”)  Early action deadlines are generally November 1st.

That means EVERYTHING needs to be in by November 1st at the latest — your recommendations, your essays (yes, more than one if the college has a supplemental essay), your list of activities, your transcript, your SAT or ACT scores (which have to be ordered from either the College Board or the ACT and sent to each college directly by that organization -IF you decide to send any of the tests you’ve taken), any college credits you’ve earned by taking college-level classes.  EVERYTHING.

So realistically, you should have EVERYTHING in, done, and sent by October 7th at the latest because (1) you want to look eager to the colleges and (2) you don’t want to chance having the Common App website crash as you feverishly work to get everything in the last week in October (and it DOES crash – nearly every year!).  Most importantly, you want to apply by October 7th because the acceptance rate at nearly every college is higher for students who apply early action than for students who apply regular decision.  That’s not to say you won’t get into a college if you wait until the regular deadline between December and February depending on the school, but why not give yourself every advantage?  This article from last year explains that early action acceptance rates are getting higher every year (meaning colleges are taking more students who apply early and fewer students who wait until the regular deadline), and this year is certain to follow that trend.

Even if you’re not applying to a particular school early decision or early action,  you still can and should apply by October 7th.  Applying well before the deadline is one way to demonstrate your interest to the college.  Colleges also tend to distribute financial aid on a first come, first served basis, so the earlier you apply, the more money the college can offer you.

To get your applications finished by October 7th, you need to have:

• taken your SATs and/or ACTs as often as you think practical or possible to show your best self
• asked two teachers for recommendations (ideally, teachers you’ve had junior year in a subject area related to your intended major)
• written your Common App essay (if you Google “Common App Essay topics 2020,” the list of possible topics comes up) and had your essay reviewed by a teacher or tutor or parent (as long as you don’t let your parents edit your paper for anything other than spelling or grammar – I can always tell when a parent has been too hands-on with an essay)
• written your supplement essays (many schools require an additional essay or two or three!)
• created a list of colleges to which you plan to apply, with at least three good-match schools, three safety schools (they’re almost guaranteed to take you unless you commit a felony between when you apply and when they get your application), and three reach schools, which are unlikely to say yes, but hey, you never know
• visited several schools on your list (at least virtually)
• filled out your guidance department’s forms so your counselor knows which schools to send transcripts to (some high schools substitute Naviance for this step, and some schools ask you to fill out information on Naviance AND fill out forms for your guidance department)
• created a resume, or at least written down all of your extracurricular activities, including paid work, volunteer work, academic honors, and athletics grouped into those categories and in reverse chronological order (a resume makes it MUCH easier to complete the Common App and is useful when you go on interviews)

Look at the calendar.  October 7th is less than two months away.  What are you waiting for?

If you need help with your application or essay, don’t hesitate to book an appointment with me through my website.  I’ve been helping kids get into college for over 30 years, so the process doesn’t intimidate me at all, but it can be very daunting the first time.

Good luck!

Wendy Segal

http://www.wendysegaltutoring.com

Hooray! A bunch of colleges want me! Now what?

Congratulations!  You’ve gotten into at least a few of the schools you applied to.  Doesn’t it feel good to be wanted?

Now all the adults you know are asking:  So, where are you going to go?

How should you choose among the schools that said “yes”? 

Make a few lists based on criteria. For example,

• If all of the schools that said yes were down the block from each other, which would you pick?  (And now, decide how much distance matters.)
• If all the schools that said yes cost the same, which would you pick? (Have you tried telling your top school that they ARE your top school, but you might have to decline because another school gave you a better financial aid package?  Financial aid departments have the most flexibility right now, while everyone is trying to get admitted students to commit.)

Revisit your top three choices.  See if you can sit in on a class or two, or, even better, stay the weekend.  Go eat in the cafeteria.

Check out the schools’ Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages. Ask current students online about your particular major:  what are the best and worst things about that major at that school?

Ask me.  I’ve been helping kids get into college for over 30 years.  I have a fairly good sense of what most of the colleges my students go to are actually like, which ones have more of a clove-cigarette-smoking, birkenstock-sandal-wearing culture and which ones have more of a beer-drinking, everyone-goes-to-the-football-games culture and which ones have more of a we’re-here-to-study culture and which ones have more of a we’re-here-to-have-a-good-time culture.  I know kids who are attending or have attended most of the most common schools and I might be able to find you someone from northern Westchester for you to ask some questions.

Most important advice ever: Choosing a college isn’t a permanent decision.  

Some decisions are forever.  If you commit suicide, you can’t take it back.  If you have a child, you’ll be a parent forever, even if you don’t raise that child.  But choosing a school isn’t one of those forever decisions.  About a third of all college students do not graduate from the same college they first attended, so if you have to transfer, you won’t be alone.

Make the best decision you can with the information you have now, and then settle into it.  If you realize the school wasn’t what you thought in a few years, or if you yourself change in a few years, you can always change schools, especially if you’ve done a good job of keeping up your grades your first year or two.

Please don’t forget to tell me where you applied – and which schools said yes.  That sort of information really helps me give accurate advice next year’s students.

Congratulations on your success!

Wendy Segal

www.wendysegaltutoring.com

What Are Colleges Looking For?

A balanced student used to be just what colleges were hoping for:  a student who gets good grades, high SAT scores, plays the clarinet and soccer, and helps at the local food pantry for the hungry.  Then colleges realized that if they enroll an amazing scholar, a world-class clarinetist, a star soccer player, and a devoted community service activist, a college could have a balanced incoming freshman class even though each student only had one area of expertise.  The sought-after student, therefore, should exhibit what was called “passion.”  Unfortunately, what that college got was a class with some very odd albeit accomplished people who had almost nothing in common.

In the past several years, colleges have not been looking for balance OR passion.  They seem to want what can best be described as “consistency.”  If a student says he wants to be an engineer, he should be getting excellent grades in honors math and science classes.  His math SAT scores should be high.  He should be doing science research or participate in the science club or science Olympiad.  He should be volunteering at the local elementary school to tutor younger kids in math or science, or, even better, he should start a science club in the local middle school.  Even his paid work should be about science or engineering – he might work at a Home Depot or Game Stop store or be the nature counselor at a day camp.

If a girl wants to be a biology major and she likes to dance, she should be a junior teacher at her dance studio, and she should organize other dancers to perform at a local hospital or senior center to combine medicine and dance.  Her grades in honors science classes should be high, but she should also perform in a school dance group or musical theater when she’s not working at the local hospital’s gift shop.

Colleges also want to see kids follow through on their commitments.  If you are a boy scout, continue on to become an eagle scout.  If you take taekwondo or karate, achieve your black belt.  If you played tennis as a child, play it all four years of high school.  If you start taking Spanish in 7th or 8th grade, keep taking it all the way through 12th grade, whether you like it or not – unless it’s a severe drag on your grade point average.

Once a college finds a stack of students with commitment and consistency, good grades and good scores, and a handful of very positive teacher recommendations, how does it decide which of those students to accept?

Much of the criteria are completely beyond your control.  (This article discusses how grades and scores aren’t always what determines who gets in.)  A particular college may want more girls in a certain major.  It may want more students from the mid-west.  It may want a tuba player, not a clarinetist.  It may want fencing, not soccer.

Is there anything a student can do to differentiate herself from the crowd?  I’m glad you asked!

First, there’s the application essay.  If a student is clearly a shoe-in, a uninspired essay might but likely won’t change that decision.  If a student is clearly unqualified, an amazing essay probably won’t change that decision, either.  But most students fall somewhat in the middle – a reasonably good fit, but fungible, that is, exchangeable for any other student with those qualifications.  That’s where a stellar essay can help.  Colleges are looking for an essay that doesn’t merely review what’s already listed on your Common App activity page.  Colleges want an essay that is so clearly YOU that even without your name on it, everyone in class would know that essay could only be yours.  What is there about you, about your story, about your interests that distinguishes you from the rest of the soccer team or your fellow dancers?

And one of the biggest things colleges look for now is “demonstrated interest.”  Because the Common App has made it so easy to apply to dozens or even scores of colleges with one or two clicks, no college is really sure if you’re applying because you genuinely want to go there or if you’re applying just because it’s easy.  So show the colleges you’re applying to some love.  Visit their websites and enter your name and contact information in the “send me more information” page.  And when they respond with an email, open that email and click on the links.  (Yes, colleges can tell when you open their emails, how long you wait to open the email, whether you click on the link, whether you assign yourself a password – and it counts!)  Visit the college if possible, take a tour, and check out the admissions building.  Stop by the college’s booth at a college fair or attend an information session (don’t forget to sign in so the college knows you were there.)  Email the college with a question (but not one whose answer is already on their website).  And don’t dare skip attending the meeting when a college representative visits your school’s guidance department, even if it means missing a class you’ll have to make up.  Those representatives aren’t merely traveling salespeople for the college — they’re the actual admissions counselors who decide who gets in!

If  you have any questions, don’t hesitate to email through my website.  If you need help with choosing colleges to go on your list, or assistance with the essay or the Common App, you know where to find me!

Wendy Segal

http://www.wendysegaltutoring.com

 

Should I Take SAT Subject Tests? Should I Really Start Testing in 9th Grade?

I have written in the past with answers to frequently asked questions.  Now I’m writing about one of the most frequently UNASKED questions.  It seems that everyone knows you have to take SATs or ACTs to apply to most colleges, but SAT Subject Tests aren’t on many people’s radar.  If you are applying to a college ranging from somewhat selective to highly selective (students who get B+ in school to those who have nearly perfect averages), then the answer is YES, you should be taking SAT Subject Tests.

WHAT ARE SAT SUBJECT TESTS?

SAT Subject tests used to be called SAT IIs.  Way back when I was going to school, they were called “Achievement Tests,” and that’s what they are.  There are 20 Subject Tests: math (2 levels), science (bio, chem, physics), foreign language (with or without a listening component), literature, US history, and world history.  Each test is one hour, multiple choice only.  None of the tests has a short answer section or anything you need to write yourself.

WHO SHOULD TAKE SAT SUBJECT TESTS?

A few schools have made the news lately (at least the news I follow, which is heavily about testing and college issues) by dropping their requirement that students submit two SAT Subject tests.  But, as this article confirms, many, many schools still recommend subject tests, which can and do make a difference in your application.  First of all, most of the applicants to any given college have GPAs in the same range with similar test scores and similar activities.  If 95% of those applicants submit subject test scores and you don’t, the college can’t help but conclude that either you’re too lazy to take the test or you did take the test, but your scores were very low.  The colleges seldom use the tests to make admission decisions (except as I said when you don’t submit them), but they are used to verify your school grades.  Is an A at your school the same as an A in a private boarding school in Boston?  Is an A at your school the same as an A in an inner city school?  An SAT Subject Test allows the college to compare levels of achievement on an objective basis.

You may have heard that if you take the ACTs instead of the SATs, you don’t have to submit Subject Tests.  For many schools, that’s true.  But for many schools, it’s not true — they still prefer you submit subject tests, as this article confirms.  So take them!  Each is only an hour.  If you’re not sure whether you’d do well on a given test, I STRONGLY recommend you take a sample test at home a few months before the actual test.  (There’s only one book I would recommend for your practice:  The Official SAT Study Guide for ALL Subject Tests by the College Board.  It has one of each test they offer.)  That way, if there are questions you get wrong, you can evaluate:  Did I get them wrong because I never learned that information?  Did I get them wrong because the test asked the question in an unfamiliar way but now I see how to understand that question?  Did I get them wrong because I forgot that information?

After you take the sample test, you’ll know whether you are prepared to take the test, whether you should NOT take the test because there’s too much content that’s unfamiliar to you, or whether you should go to your teacher and say, “I didn’t get these questions right about World War II.  Will we be covering that material before I take this test?”  Then you can either not take the test, wait for the teacher to cover the material, or learn it on your own.

WHICH SUBJECT TESTS SHOULD I TAKE — AND WHEN?

Some students mistakenly think that if they aren’t taking an honors-level or AP-level class, they won’t do well on the SAT subject test.  That’s not necessarily true.  Some students don’t even consider taking a subject test because their teacher didn’t mention it.  I haven’t found a high school yet (and I know quite a few) where teachers have a strong sense of who should take which tests, so you can’t rely on your high school teacher, or even your guidance counselor, to tell you to take SAT subject tests.

Colleges that require or recommend SAT subject tests usually want two.  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take more than two.  If all of your subject tests are great, send them all.  If not, send your two best scores.

In general, if an area of study is completed after one year of high school, take the appropriate test in June of that year when your knowledge of that subject is fresh.  For example if you are taking chemistry this year and you are doing well, in April, take a practice subject test in chemistry.  Ask your chemistry teacher to explain the questions that seem unfamiliar — or ask him to confirm that you’ll be learning that material in class.  If you think you’ll do fairly well, take the Chemistry Subject Test the first Saturday in June.  Of course, you won’t be able to take an SAT in June since the SATs and SAT Subject Tests are given at the same place at the same time.  So you should then plan to take your spring SAT in May (if you plan on taking one — many students take ACTs only).

If an area of study is ongoing, like math or often foreign language, you can wait until October of your senior year to take those Subject Tests.  You are permitted by the College Board to take up to three tests in one sitting — but DON’T!  Every one of my students who tried it said, “I should have listened to you.  By the time I took the third test, I couldn’t see straight.”  You can, however, safely take two subject tests on the same day.

THIS IS THE PITFALL:

Many students take biology in 9th grade and chemistry in 10th grade, well before they are thinking about testing or colleges.  It doesn’t occur to them – or their teachers – that they should take an SAT Subject Test at the end of 9th grade.  They should!  If you are taking a science in 9th  or 10th grade and doing well, I STRONGLY suggest you take the SAT Subject Test for that science in June of that year, even if that year is 9th or 10th grade.  You may never take biology again, and by the time you’re in 11th grade, you’ve forgotten most of the details of the content.  Especially if you think you might want to major in math, science, pre-med, engineering, or another STEM subject, you should take your science subject tests as soon as you finish that subject.  Some schools that don’t require SAT Subject tests in general DO require them for STEM majors!

 

ADVICE FOR JUNIORS:

Check on the College Board website to see when the tests you’re interested in will take place.  (Language tests especially are not necessarily given more than once or twice a year.)  If you want to take more than two subject tests, in June take science or history or any subject that’s not repeating next year.  You can take foreign language, literature, or math in the fall if necessary.  You only have until May 9th to sign up, so hurry! Sign up for the June SAT Subject tests on the College Board website.

ADVICE FOR 9TH and 10TH GRADERS:

Don’t wait for your guidance counselor or teacher to recommend that you take an SAT Subject test.  Get the College Board book listed above.  The Subject tests don’t change much from year to year, so that book should last until you graduate from high school.  In the early spring, take a sample science test.  If you do well, take that Subject Test in June.  You’ll thank me!

WARNING:

Don’t forget that the subject tests follow the OLD SAT scoring policy.  You get points for correct answers, and you lose points for incorrect answers.  If you can make an educated guess, you ahead and try it.  But if you have no idea, you’re much better off skipping the question entirely.

If you have any questions about the SAT Subject Tests, feel free to send me a message on my website.

Wendy Segal

http://www.wendysegaltutoring.com

6 Ways NOT To Choose a College

Choosing a college is a lot like choosing a husband or wife — there’s no single right way to find the perfect spouse, but there are a lot of wrong ways to go about it.  And the ideal mate (or college) for your best friend might be completely wrong for you.

Ideally, each student should attend a college that offers that student an excellent education in a field that interests him or her in a place that feels just right among people whom that student can feel challenged by but comfortable with and taught by professors who are knowledgeable, on top of their field but approachable and interested in each student’s progress.  How hard can that be?

To accomplish such an “easy” task, there are dozens of books, too many articles, and several ranking sites about how to choose a college.

Since I wouldn’t give the same advice to two different people, I’m not going to tell you how to pick the college that would be perfect for you.

But I can tell you some really awful ways to choose a college.  So please DON’T do any of these:

Only look at colleges you’ve heard of.  You probably have heard of about 20 colleges.  Your parents have probably heard of about 20 colleges.  Even if your lists don’t overlap, that’s 40 colleges out of the thousands in the United States.  Just because you haven’t heard of a school doesn’t mean it doesn’t have a stellar reputation among those in your field.  And just because you have heard of a college doesn’t mean it deserves its notoriety or that it’s necessarily a better fit for you.

Decide you want a really big college (or a really small college) without looking at one first.  Some big schools feel really big.  Kids generally feel lost, disconnected, not focused.  But some really big schools do a great job of making kids within a certain major or within a certain housing unit feel like they belong, like the faculty cares about their progress, like they have pride in their school.  The same with small schools.  Some have limited choices.  Others are creative and open to designing the perfect curriculum for you.  You don’t have to visit every school you apply to, but you shouldn’t make a blanket decision about a type of college without visiting a school of that type and a school of the opposite type.

Pick a school based on the dorms or the cafeteria or the weather.  If the freshman dorms are cramped,  remember that you won’t be a freshman forever.  If the senior housing is nothing special, you might be living off campus by then anyway. Don’t decide whether you like a school based on the unimportant externals.  Don’t decide you don’t want to go to school in Connecticut or Massachusetts because it’s colder there.  It’s not.  Don’t decide you want to go further south because you like the warm weather.  You’ll be in classrooms, your dorm, and the library most of the time anyway.  If your campus is lovely but you can never take the classes you like because seniors get priority and the classes are filled before you can register, you’ve picked a pleasant vacation spot but a crummy school.

Expect your guidance counselor or parents to help you choose a school.  As well as your parents know you, they aren’t you.  You’re the one who has to live at that school for four years (at least).  You’re the one who has to take those classes, interact with those students, learn from those professors.  Don’t be lazy.  Do some work yourself as you build a list of colleges to apply to.  Visit colleges when you can.  Look carefully at dozens of college websites.  (They all look good initially.  You can only differentiate between them when you’ve seen many.) Don’t stop at the admissions page of the college websites.  Poke around on the “majors” pages.  See what research the professors are doing.  See what sub-majors each school offers within your general area of interest. Count how many professors each college has in your major.  Look at the online course catalog to see whether you’d really like to take the required classes in your field.  Email the admissions office if your questions can’t be answered by the website — or email a department or professor directly.  By all means show your list to your guidance counselor; guidance counselors have excellent resources at their disposal and know which schools are well liked by previous students. But they may not know you well enough to know whether you like to get friendly with your professors or would prefer to talk to a teaching assistant, or whether you’d prefer a school where the university provides a lot of entertainment or you’re expected to explore the surrounding town or city on your own. Do your own background research as best you can.  Parents are (sorry, moms and dads) a bit less reliable, especially when it comes to advising their oldest child.  A school that was up-and-coming and quite selective 30 years ago might be much less prestigious now (or more to the point, may not be right for their child), and a school that was no great shakes 30 years ago might be truly amazing now.  (I remember when I was in college that Syracuse was a safety school for many solid B students.  Colleges change over time – for better or worse.)

Rely on the ranking reports.  As this New York Times article explains, there are many college ranking lists, most from prestigious institutions.  Each emphasizes different aspects of college statistics from future earnings of students to student satisfaction to peer review to percentage of applicants who are accepted and more.  And the lists disagree with each other quite a bit.  There really aren’t any indisputably “top schools,” even within a particular field.  If you check several lists, you’ll get an idea of whether a particular school generally is toward the top, middle, or bottom of the list of similar schools, but choosing a school because it’s ranked #10 over a school ranked #12 is like ordering vanilla ice cream because it’s more popular when you really love pistachio.

Wait until senior year in high school to start thinking seriously about which colleges you’d like to know more about.  To return to my previous analogy,  you wouldn’t plan a wedding and then a month before the wedding start looking for a potential mate, would you?  Then why plan to go to college but not concern yourself with which colleges might be a good fit until just a month or two before you need to submit applications?

Choosing the place you’ll spend four very important years takes a bit of time, planning, and work.  It’s not crazy to start gathering information at the end of 10th grade.  Think about it:  If you want to apply in the beginning of senior year, you’ll have to be looking at colleges by the end of junior year.  And to look at colleges in the spring of junior year, you need to have a reasonable list by the winter of junior year.  And to have a reasonable list by the winter of junior year, you need to start doing some serious thinking and research — NOW.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please send me a message through my website (which has plenty of good information including a link to schedule time with me): www.wendysegaltutoring.com  .

When the Admissions Department Comes To You: College Visits at Your High School

Every fall and spring, most students miss the greatest opportunity they have to impress the admissions department of dozens of colleges that might be a perfect fit for them.  To take advantage of this opportunity, you don’t have to travel or write an essay.  You don’t have to study for it and it doesn’t require you to get up early.  In fact, it comes to you.  Yet year after year, when I ask my students whether they’ve availed themselves of this free, easy, potent tool for getting into college, they look at me with blank stares.

When colleges come to visit our local high school, very often only a handful of students show up out of a combined junior and senior class of over a thousand.  All of the other students are wasting a huge potential advantage.

Here’s what THE COLLEGES do:

College admissions departments make appointments with high schools all over the country.  They schedule a visit of about 45 minutes to an hour on a particular day, and a list of these visits is usually kept in your high school guidance department.  (In my local high school, you can even have these visits synced with your google calendar, but in other schools, the appointment list is either online or available in guidance.)  At the appointed time, the admission counselor gives a brief presentation and asks if there are any questions.  Very often, he or she asks the students present to complete an interest form or merely to list their names and contact information on an index card.  Students have an opportunity to chat with this admissions counselor in an informal way.

After the appointment, the admissions counselor makes notes about his or her impression of the students who attended for later follow-up. Very often, that admissions person is in charge of a certain region in the country and will be making admission decisions for those same students.  They often think of the students they meet as “their” students and look forward to getting and considering their applications.  As you can imagine, it’s a significant advantage to have an admissions representative look out for your application and give it personal and careful attention.

Here’s what YOU should do:

Check your guidance department for the list of which colleges come and when.  You often have to sign up for these visits with your guidance counselor in advance.  When the day and time comes for the college admissions visit, you’ll have to leave whatever class you’re in, often mid-class, but if you’ve signed up in advance, the teacher will excuse you.  (Different schools have different procedures, but usually the visits are during the school day, and teachers are instructed to allow students to attend even if there’s a test scheduled.)  Arrive promptly at the designated room.  Listen politely, take notes where appropriate, smile and look engaged.  Most importantly, ask questions.  Since you’ve signed up in advance for this visit, you’ll be able to do a bit of research online about each college.  Ask questions that you could not find the answer to online.  Some appropriate questions might be:

• How popular is my major at your school?
• Is there help finding employment after I graduate?
• Tell me about freshman housing.
• What weight does your school place on AP courses / SAT or ACT results / grades?
• If I’m not sure what I want to major in, should I guess or apply undecided?
• Will there be a faculty adviser available to help me choose classes?

At the end of the talk, shake hand with the admissions person, thank him or her for coming, and get a contact name and/or email address for further questions (and use that info to write a quick thank-you email that afternoon).

What if you’re not sure you want to apply to a certain school?  Should you still go to the college visit?  

Absolutely!  You might find a school you weren’t even considering is a better fit for you than you thought.  Even if you decide a certain school isn’t right for you, you might hear another student ask a question you hadn’t even thought to ask.  And every time you speak to an admissions person, you’ll become more at ease and polished.  So don’t hesitate to go to as many of these appointments as you can.

Nearly all students who apply to the colleges that interest you will have about the same GPA, about the same SAT and ACT scores, very similar activities, and glowing teacher recommendations.  How can you stand out?  Be your most charming self with the person who is going to make your admission decision!  They can’t make it any easier for you to make a good impression.

If you have any questions, please contact me or your guidance counselor.

Wendy Segal

http://www.wendysegaltutoring.com

 

 

 

Applying to College: Common App Tips That Make a Difference

For the last several years – and for the foreseeable future – most students apply to college using the Common App.

When I was a student back in the days of Plato, if I wanted to apply to a college, I wrote to get their application, when I received it I filled it out in blue or black ink, I attached all my documentation in the order requested including my parents’ check, I mailed it back to the college, and I waited.

When I first started helping students with the application process over 25 years ago, the student would request an application online, receive a link to that application, print it out at home, fill it out, and mail it in.

Now nearly everyone uses the Common App.  You complete one application, enter a dozen or more college names, and click send. Within a day or two, you get a confirmation from each college that your application has been received, and you get periodic updates with invitations to visit, notices about parts of the application received, and, when the spring comes, a link to find out whether you got in or not.  The “fat envelope” or “thin envelope” metaphor is an anachronism.

Beware!  Don’t let the deceptively simple format fool you into believing you can just dash off the application without much effort required.  Each part of the Common App requires a deft hand and a certain technique.

Here are some of my best tips:

1. Buy manilla folders and plenty of printer paper before you begin.  You’ll save the trees next year.  This year, you’ll be doing a ton of printing.  BEST TIP:  Print out every page you do, every essay you write, every confirmation you get.  Use one folder for your Common App copy, and a different folder for each college you apply to.  On the outside of each folder, list the name of the college, your user name, and your password.  (No one is going to break into your bedroom to find out your college application password.)  Each school asks for (or assigns) a different user name, and each has different rules about length of password and what it has to include.  You’ll never remember in May which one required a symbol and which one required a capital letter.  Write it down now.  Believe me.  You’ll thank me.
2. Be honest.  If you lie about any part of the application, someone is bound to find out — and colleges talk to each other.  It’s not worth it to lie on the Common App.  If you can’t get into a certain school without stretching the truth, you probably don’t belong there.
3. Wait until August 15 before Senior year to begin completing the Common App.  The new class’ application is online each year on August 1st, but very often there are corrections and glitches to be fixed so wait a week or two to prevent having to enter everything again. The Common App now allows students to “roll over” basic information from year to year, but your life might change and you could forget to update that piece.  Why not wait until the application is available for the year you intend to apply?
4. Enter your name the way it is on your passport or school records.  If you’re James on your school records but you enter Jimmy, colleges won’t be able to match up your application with your transcript.  Stay consistent.
5. After you enter your name, collect the information you need before you enter anything else.  The Common App website will time you out if you’re not careful.  While you’re texting your mother to find out what her college degree was in, you’ve been timed out of the website.  Collect this info before you begin:
   • Name of address of place where each parent works
   • What your parents’ job titles are
   • What college (if any) your parent graduated from (if he/she didn’t graduate, you can leave that blank on the Common App — it will boost your chances of getting into college if neither of your parents graduated from college)
   • When each parent graduated, what degree he or she received (AA/BA/BS/MBA and so on), and in what year
   • The name of your guidance counselor (correct spelling), his or her phone number with extension, and email address
   • Your SAT and ACT and Subject Test scores so far – and the dates you took each (if you forgot your user name or password, NOW is the time to get a new one)
6. Next, select all of the colleges you might apply to.  Go ahead and choose way more than you think you might eventually apply to.  When you add a college name, that college gets notified of your interest, which helps if you decide you do want to apply to that school.  (See my blog post last month on demonstrated interest.)
7.  Make a resume before you enter any activities on the Common App.  It’s a good idea to make a formal resume.  You  might need it when you get called into a college interview.  The teachers whom you’ve asked to write a recommendation for you might ask for it.  You can use it for summer jobs while you’re in college.  But most of all, writing a resume helps you to collect and organize your activities.  I usually prefer three categories in reverse chronological order (most recent to oldest — but nothing older than 9th grade).  Categories might be:  academic honors, extra-curricular activities, volunteer activities, athletics.  If you get stuck writing a resume, there are lots of samples online.  Google “student resumes” and you’ll have plenty to choose from.
8. Have an honest conversation with your parents about financial aid.  Will they be applying for loans or financial aid?  You’ve got a better chance of getting into nearly every college if you click “no” for the “are you going to apply for financial aid” question (there are many articles that say so, like this one), but if you need help, you need help — and you won’t be alone.  Most families need some financial assistance to send their children to college.  On the one hand, if you don’t think you’ll get any aid, you might want to put “no aid” to boost your chances of getting in.  On the other hand, don’t decide you wouldn’t qualify because you live in a nice house or because your parents both work.  If you need financial aid, ask for it.
9. Print out all of the supplementary essays of all of the schools you might apply to before you begin writing.  Of course you’ve heard of the Common App essay.  But many schools also ask for a supplementary essay or two.  They’re not throw-away statements.  They count.  Spend time on them.  But very often, you can make one essay work for several schools with a bit of tweaking, so print out all of the topics before you begin.  You’ll see which ones ask “Why do you want to go here,” “Why do you want the major you want,” “What can you add to our school,” and which are quirkier.
10. Begin your Common App essay.  Try a few of the topics to see which is easiest to write.  It’s perfectly okay – even recommended – to start one, put it aside, come back to it in a week, then start a different one.  While the maximum number of words is 650 (about half as long as this blog post is so far), you should aim at 500 – 600.  It’s fine to write a much longer essay initially as long as you edit it down to 500 – 600 words.  I’ve helped dozens, maybe scores of kids write college essays, and I always find the more I edit them down, the better they get.  They’re less repetitive, they highlight important information, they choose words more wisely.

You should aim to complete the Common App including the essay by October 15th at the latest, whether you’ll be applying to any schools early decision, early action, or just regular decision.  An application sent in October shows the college you’re eager, organized, and serious, and it gives your guidance department time to make sure all of the parts have been submitted well before the deadline.

Good luck, and you know where to find me if you have questions!

 

Wendy Segal

http://www.wendysegaltutoring.com

 

 

 

What Do Colleges Want From Applicants Like Me – Part 2

As I wrote in Part 1 of this “What Do Colleges Want” essay, colleges want you to be bright, engaged, a leader, talented — and they want you to score well on standardized tests, too (and if you play an unusual sport, that’s a big bonus)!

So what can you do if you’re just a regular student who does pretty well in school, participates in a few activities, has SAT or ACT scores that aren’t too bad — just like all of your friends?  If a college has two or three or 10 or 100 students like you, how does it choose whom to admit?

One factor that colleges use to influence admission decisions (and this factor has become increasingly important in the last 3 – 4 years) is demonstrated interest, which means how much you, the student, really care about going to that school.

How do they know if you really care?  How do colleges judge demonstrated interest?  Well, you’ve got to DEMONSTRATE interest (clever, right?).  That means you have to do some or all of these:

• visit the school in person
• go on a guided tour of the school
• visit the school’s admission building
• have an interview, either on or off campus, with an admissions person or alumnus
• attend an information session at your school (usually through the guidance department) – this one is crucial
• fill out a card at that school’s booth at a college fair
• call or email the school to ask a question (must be done by the student, not the parent) – DON’T ask something that’s on the website
• add that school to your Common App list as soon as possible after August 1st going into senior year (the Common App reports to the school when a student adds its name to their list)
• join and “like” that school’s Facebook page
• follow that school on Twitter
• ask a question about that school on its Facebook page or tweet a question on its Twitter feed
• attend an Open House or Information Session by that school if it’s within an hour or so of your house (that means you have to check out when and where these sessions are – check the school’s website)
• go to that school’s website and submit a “send me more info” request
• open the school’s emails (yes, they can tell if you’ve opened the email)
• respond to the school’s emails or click on a link they send you (yes, they can track that, too)
• if the school offers a way to begin your application online or has a way for you to set up a user name and password, so do
• apply early action if available

Just applying early action alone isn’t sufficient to demonstrate interest.  The school needs to know you’ve spent time checking it out.  The school needs to know you’re applying not just because it’s easy to click “submit” on the Common App, but because you think you’d be a really good fit for that school for reasons other than it looks like it fits your criteria on paper.

One of the statistics colleges report is “yield,” which means how many of the kids who apply and get accepted actually do attend that school.  Your local average college probably has a mediocre yield.  Harvard and MIT have yields over 95%, meaning nearly everyone who gets in does go.  By accepting students who have demonstrated interest, colleges are more likely to increase their yield.  The more effort you put into investigating and engaging with a school, the more likely – the school believes – that you’ll say yes to the school if it says yes to you.  And all schools want a high yield.

So if you want to differentiate yourself from others with your same GPA, your same SAT/ACT scores, your same demographic, your same hobbies, exert yourself, get out there, and demonstrate your interest.  It might well make the difference between “Sorry, we had so many qualified candidates” and “Welcome, you’re accepted”!

Wendy Segal

http://www.wendysegaltutoring.com