the college app jungle
College Advising, Superb Application Essay Development
recent posts
- College App Jungle College Advising and Essay Editing is on Hiatus for 2025-26
- More Ivy League Schools Drop SAT/ACT Requirement; Princeton Drops Early Admissions
- How to Write the University of California Personal Insight Essays in 2020-2021
- How to Write the University of California Personal Insight Essays for 2021
- How to Write a Successful Cornell University Essay for 2020-2021
about
Category: applying to college
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What universities are looking for starts with what kind of university you are applying to. In the most basic sense, universities can be divided into two categories when it comes to applications: holistic or objective universities. In the first case, holistic universities take a “whole person” approach, looking at grades and (usually) test scores, but also looking…
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College admissions results this year show that competition for spots at selective and super selective universities is, once again, increasing. With yet again a lower ratio of admits to applications at most of the selective schools, it’s a good time to broaden your list of college application options. To be more specific, I have…
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Who should read this post: Anyone who will use the Common Application; anyone who wants to apply to an Ivy League school or to any other elite school; anyone who wants to understand how college applications are evaluated; anyone who needs to write a college application essay; in fact, anyone applying to any college in…
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Update on this post for 2018–A lot has changed, but my basic stance remains the same–you can save a lot of money by looking to public, western universities. I will write soon about foreign options-and not just in Canada–but if you are out West, take a look below. And if you are not, look nearby. …
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Who should read this post: anyone who needs to write about a social, environmental or just big problem. This post was originally written when the Common App asked that applicants write an essay about a problem they would like to solve–a question that is no longer on the Common App, but the advice here is…
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2013-2014 update: A common approach on application essays is the Problem question, which asks you to discuss some issue of importance. Because it sets up a discussion of a problem it also begs for a solution. Here is how it was worded in recent years in the Common Application, Prompt Two: Discuss some issue of personal,…
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The big news for the Common Application of 2012 is: no news. The application itself is essentially the same application used last year. The essay prompts are identical. For those of you eager to get started, the Common Application site will be closed from July 15, 2011 to August 1st, 2011, for maintenance. Currently a…
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In recent posts I discussed college essay cliches, focusing on a set of common essay types defined by former admissions officer and current admissions and college app essay guru Harry Bauld. I concluded that series of posts with a suggestion for an exercise with one of the so-called cliche essays, The Trip Essay. I asked…
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In my previous post, I discussed one of the gurus of college admissions and the college essay, Harry Bauld. Mr. Bauld described a set of essay types which he believes are “a noose” with which a college applicant can “hang” herself. Scary. What Bauld is after is a set of essay types which are commonly…
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Before I get to the gist, a short preface: I hope that you followed my advice in the last prompt and did a considerable amount of writing before you arrived at this post. I say this because I think that it is important to write without having that inner, critical voice whispering negative asides to…
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