Tag: Avoiding college essay doom

How to Write the University of California Personal Insight Essays for 2021

How to Write the University of California Personal Insight Essays for 2021

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The first thing to know about writing successful University of California application essays involves the serious time commitment they demand. Early in this decade, the U.C. doubled the number of essays required and established a 350-word limit for each essay. Applicants now face four essays, and the relatively short 350 words is a challenging limit for you applicants–more than a blurb, but not much room for a well-developed essay. I think that because these prompts represent a tough challenge, they also seems to be working for the U.C., which is not changing any of the prompts this year and, according to my sources, is not planning real changes in the coming years. However, you still have a lot of competition for a seat at the U.C.. Though the system overall has seen a leveling of application numbers over the last two cycles, there are still well over 80,000 freshman applications and over 100,000 total freshman and transfer students who applied to UCLA in 2019-2020, while Berkeley racked up over 80,000 freshman and transfer applications. Now, that is a lot of applicants. Planning well and looking for solid evidence in your experiences can help separate you from the crowd.

This post is Part 1 of a two-part discussion of the U.C. Personal Insight Questions. You will find my discussion of how to begin writing successful essays for prompts 1-4 below; I will continue with prompts 5-8 in a post to follow within a few days of uploading this.

Requirements for the U.C. Essays

Here are your guidelines for writing the U.C. Personal Statement essays:

— You will have 8 questions to choose from. 

—You must respond to only 4 of the 8 questions. 

–Each response is limited to a maximum of 350 words.

–Which questions you choose to answer is entirely up to you. All questions are given equal consideration in the application review process.

Two things to consider as you start–the range represented by the prompts you end up writing about, and how convincing your evidence will be for each.

Concrete material that supports your main ideas is key–your principles and ideals are of great importance, but real experiences are more convincing than broad statements of principle that have never been tested or acted upon. It’s noble to believe in equality for all, for example, but if this principle has mostly been an area of discussion in classes and some posts you put up on social media, your personal insight statement about your belief in equality will be not fully convincing. If you started a club or engaged in constructive activity that aimed at creating equality, or at getting people to work toward it, that would be better at supporting a successful essay. And so on with any statement you want to make to the U.C. about yourself. So we start with the evidence from your life and experiences that you’d use for each topic.

Start By Looking for Concrete Experiences To Use for Each Topic

My advice for starting the process is to brainstorm each topic before you settle on the four you will write about, and as you brainstorm, to focus on concrete evidence, on your actual experiences and on actions you have taken that could relate to the prompt question. Even it it seems like some topics should be dismissed out of hand, it is still worth spending time on every topic to see what experiences you have that fit–in the process, you may change your mind about the topic, or you may find material that will be useful in another essay.

So start by copying all of the prompts into a document and start typing below each, with a focus on what you have done or what you have experienced and how you have reacted in a positive way that could be used as evidence in each essay.

Some of the topics focus on a single experience or period in your life, but you should still look for ways to break the experience down into areas that offer concrete material–of course generalizations are important, and abstract concepts like principles that you live by really matter and will help separate you from other applicants, but if you cannot offer solid evidence for your principles and beliefs or interests, all you have is some lofty rhetoric that may end up sounding empty.

If you are one of those who still likes to scribble a bit and handwrite rough material, or if you have limited access to a computer, just put each prompt on a separate sheet of paper and get started.

To help you further, I offer a discussion of the specific essay prompts below, including the U.C.’s guidance and my own commentary. Throughout, I will also use the opportunity to discuss some basic considerations for college application essays in general–things like your writing situation, audience and purpose.

U.C. Personal Insight Essay Prompt 1, and How to Write It

Question 1:

Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time.

Here our first issue is defining a good topic within the range of options suggested by a prompt, and I will also take a look at your audience and purpose for this special kind of essay.

Here’s the U.C. guidance on the prompt:

A leadership role can mean more than just a title. It can mean being a mentor to others, acting as the person in charge of a specific task, or taking the lead role in organizing an event or project. Think about what you accomplished and what you learned from the experience. What were your responsibilities? 

Did you lead a team? How did your experience change your perspective on leading others? Did you help to resolve an important dispute at your school, church, in your community or an organization? And your leadership role doesn’t necessarily have to be limited to school activities. For example, do you help out or take care of your family?

Commentary and Suggestions for Responding to Prompt 1

My commentary: You will notice that U.C. discusses activities both inside and outside of school, and ends their suggestions by pointing out that taking care of your family is also a kind of leadership.

Indeed. So consider the family experiences, especially those of you who are caring for younger siblings and/or older relatives as your parents work. Stepping up to take a job and/or help take care of siblings is an informal form of leadership–you are taking on an adult role when you work to support your family or help care for others–and in its broadest sense, what is leadership about if it is not about taking care of others?

If you do choose this kind of topic, however, Just be sure to avoid what I call the “Woe is me” essay. More on this when I discuss prompt 5.

When defining leadership activities in school, in clubs, or in other organizations and informal groups, look for those things you have done that are above and beyond what was required. Being in one of those school leadership classes that organizes events in school is great, but keep in mind that those activities are required for a grade in a course. The same holds in an academic course–just taking charge of badly organized lab groups would be fine as a minor support in an essay on leadership ability, but when I see a student essay on leadership and all of the action in the essay takes place in a class–well, it does meet the topic requirements, but your leadership was in a pretty limited, academic setting. This essay want you to show more about yourself. And in a class in which your lab group went awry, your primary goal would be to save a grade, really. I’d suggest that you want some more significant leadership accomplishment than that. Of course you could throw in that classroom experience as a bonus-along the lines that you continued to apply the lesson you learned from great leadership experience x when your lab group floundered in class y, and you did z to save the situation.

In general it’s more convincing if you acted as a leader in a way that seems self-motivated and imaginative–this could still happen in a school environment, from starting a group or club and running it to, these days, organizing and activism against violence and oppression. If you are an advocate for social justice, though, do avoid preaching to your audience. They are almost certainly on your side, anyhow. And avoid name-calling and oversimplification, while keeping in mind that this essay is not an arguement about proving your side right–it’s about what motivates you and how you act on those motivations.

While all kinds of school-based activities do fit the bill, I do want to mention that in recent years, a whole lot of DECA essays have crossed my screen, and the same is true of your college app readers. So your DECA essay needs something unique to set it apart.

U.C. Personal Insight Essay Prompt 2, and How To Write It

Question 2:

Every person has a creative side, and it can be expressed in many ways: problem solving, original and innovative thinking, and artistically, to name a few. Describe how you express your creative side.

Let’s start with the U.C. guidance on this prompt:

What does creativity mean to you? Do you have a creative skill that is important to you? What have you been able to do with that skill? If you used creativity to solve a problem, what was your solution? What are the steps you took to solve the problem?

How does your creativity influence your decisions inside or outside the classroom? Does your creativity relate to your major or a future career?

Commentary and Suggestions for Responding to Prompt 2

I start with the U.C guidance for this simple reason: they agree with my approach to the essays. Note the way the U.C. suggestions point you to using specific, concrete evidence.

Also note the way U.C. is framing the range of topics to use on this one–this essay allows you to expand on some academic area in which you excel, but it also opens up an opportunity to move the focus outside of school. The key here is to focus on a creative aspect of yourself that is not defined solely by your GPA and transcript.

If you are an artist or builder, who loves to tinker, this may not be very clear through your coursework, and the creative and personal importance of your art or tinkering is unlikely to appear at all in your formal records, so this is the chance to expand on those less quantifiable aspects of your experiences.

Avoid simply restating activities, but you can take advantage of this prompt to expand on some area that is important to you, showing more about what motivates you, what makes you “tick.”

U.C. Essay Prompt 3 and How to Write It

Question 3-:

What would you say is your greatest talent or skill? How have you developed and demonstrated that talent over time?

Commentary and Suggestions for Responding to Prompt 3

The creativity prompt in #2 does tend to overlap with the talents and skills focus of prompt 3, so look for the opportunity to augment but not repeat material. This specific focus does have some added challenges–specifically, how can you talk about how talented you are without seeming to brag?

Well, one way, again, is to focus on the concrete. If you can show accomplishments or show yourself expanding your intellectual range because of this talent, that can make the difference. Once you consider your talents, you will realize that discovering a talent usually means you begin to challenge yourself more as you pursue that talent.

As Bear Bryant said, “It ain’t bragging if you can do it.” Just be sure you can offer proof, vividly.

If you have a broad sort of skill that you think applies across several areas, again be sure to use some concrete examples. Or if you feel like you have one dominant talent and are going for that “spike” by emphasizing it, I would also recommend that you look for a way to frame it as a passion. A talent for something is often tied to a passion for that activity, and when we write about what we care about, that changes the way the subject is framed. So talk about what you love in the activity where you pursue your talent. Then you need not fear looking unintentionally arrogant. Also look to tie a talent to another trait, like curiosity- creating a sort of essay equation like this: a talent for x and curiosity led to discoveries like y.

U.C. Essay Prompt 4 and How to Write It

Question 4:

Describe how you have taken advantage of a significant educational opportunity or worked to overcome an educational barrier you have faced.

This is the last prompt I will discuss for this post on the University of California Application Essays for 2020-2021. As noted above, I will post on the remaining prompts in a few days. But I’d like to close this discussion with a look at a big issue we have not yet addressed: your application reader.

First, though, here is the guidance U.C. offers on this essay topic:

Things to consider: An educational opportunity can be anything that has added value to your educational experience and better prepared you for college. For example, participation in an honors or academic enrichment program, or enrollment in an academy that’s geared toward an occupation or a major, or taking advanced courses that interest you — just to name a few. 

If you choose to write about educational barriers you’ve faced, how did you overcome or strive to overcome them? What personal characteristics or skills did you call on to overcome this challenge? How did overcoming this barrier help shape who are you today?

Commentary and Suggestions for Responding to Prompt 4

As you start working on ideas for this prompt, keep in mind the writing situation in general, and the purpose of a college application essay. This is much different from anything that you have written for high school. The purpose of any college application essay is not a baring of your soul. The point of a college application essay is to gain admission to the college of your dreams or desires. That’s it. So any deep confessions should be in the service of college admissions. That means choosing carefully what to discuss.

Possibly this seems too obvious to say, but I see many application essays that are more suitable for an English teacher at a high school than they are for a college application reader. In a college application, you become a kind of holograph, a doppelganger of yourself created by your GPA, your transcript, some test scores (though many colleges are dropping those requirements this year) and your essays.

Who you are in a college application comes down to some numbers and the words you put into four essays. And all of your Personal Insight essays are in the deepest sense arguments. Regardless of the autobiographical form, each essay is an attempt to persuade an unknown adult to admit you to a college.

This is unlike anything you have done for a teacher. Your teacher has already seen you in class, has or is developing a feeling for you as a person, and is in a relationaship of growth. A college app reader is more like a bouncer.

I am discussing the college application reader now because of the writing situation and this prompt. We have all had educational barriers and obstacles. Quite often this involves a conflict with a teacher. If you were writing this essay for a high school teacher, they might know who you were talking about and sympathize. But even if you were writing this for a high school teacher, they also might be offended at a perceived attack on another teacher or on the institution, or they might feel you were not accepting responsibility. Tbis is all the more true for a college application reader who only knows you through the material you put in yoru application. So if you had a really bad experience with a teacher, weigh carefully the benefit of talking about that as an educational barrier. Then consider another topic.

After all, an app reader is a school official, too. And the app reader may view the situation in a different way, may see you as blame shifting or complaining, may think you should just deal with it. An app reader is likely to see an essay on a problem teacher in a negative light.

Get Feedback Early on the Optics for Educational Obstacles

So this “academic challenges approach” is a topic focus that I encourage you to get some early feedback on. After you have brainstormed, ask a few other people for their opinion on the material and focus you propose. If you plan to write about a barrier you have overcome, how will that barrier and your material look to an application reader–will it look like you are complaining or trying to pump up your level of hardship to manipulate your reader?

More specifically, if the hardship involves something like a learning difference, is it really necessary to write about? If you have some kind of disability, you do not need to tell any college about it, but when you arrive on campus, they are required to provide you support–so ask yourself if you really need to talk about that specific obstacle.

(I will discuss the risks and benefits of writing about a significant challenge in more depth for prompt 5, in my next post on the U.C., but I raise these issues now because I see essays like these every year.)

Writing About an Educational Opportunity

In contrast to the educational challenges focus, the more obviously positive of the option alternatives is the educational opportunity you took advantage of (or better yet found for yourself or applied for). This could be in school or outside of it and oviously opens up the chance to expand on things like internships and research outside of the classroom–just be sure to add detail that conveys your intrinsic motivation and curiosity, and don’t repeat your activities descriptions directly–this is a chance to expand on an experience you put in your activities, but the point is to show more about yourself, exploring your motivations and goals.

And again, the educational opportunities that work best for this kind of essay are opportunities that were in some way earned–if your parents paid to put you on an international flight to work on an archeological dig, let’s just say that looks like an affluent student’s family looking for ways to pad the resume. (For those of you who are confused by this: Yes, that’s a thing I have seen done by families who can afford it and who are pushing college activities, and application readers are also aware of the college application activities industry. Some internships are in a gray area where this is involved.

I will be turning to U.C. prompts 5-8 in my next post. Contact me if you are seeking world-class essay development and editing.

How to Write the University of Virginia Application Essays in 2019-2020 (That’s You, high school class of 2020). Part 1 of 2 Parts

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2019-2020 First-Year Application Essay Questions– 

1. We are looking for passionate students to join our diverse community of scholars, researchers, and artists. Answer the question that corresponds to the school/program to which you are applying in a half page or roughly 250 words.

  • College of Arts and Sciences – What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised, unsettled, or challenged you, and in what way?
  • School of Engineering and Applied Sciences – If you were given funding for a small engineering project that would make everyday life better for one friend or family member, what would you design?
  • School of Architecture – Describe an instance or place where you have been inspired by architecture or design. 
  • School of Nursing – School of Nursing applicants may have experience shadowing, volunteering, or working in a health care environment. Tell us about a health care-related experience or another significant interaction that deepened your interest in studying Nursing
  • Kinesiology Program – Discuss experiences that led you to choose the kinesiology major. 

2. Answer one of the following questions in a half page or roughly 250 words.

  • What’s your favorite word and why?
  • We are a community with quirks, both in language and in traditions. Describe one of your quirks and why it is part of who you are.
  • Student self-governance, which encourages student investment and initiative, is a hallmark of the UVA culture. In her fourth year at UVA, Laura Nelson was inspired to create Flash Seminars, one-time classes which facilitate high-energy discussion about thought-provoking topics outside of traditional coursework. If you created a Flash Seminar, what idea would you explore and why?
  • UVA students paint messages on Beta Bridge when they want to share information with our community. What would you paint on Beta Bridge and why is this your message
  • UVA students are charged with living honorably and upholding a Community of Trust. Give us an example of a community that is important to you and how you worked to strengthen that community.

This post originally appeared on Notes from Peabody, the UVA admission blog at http://uvaapplication.blogspot.com/ .

I will be back in the next week with more detailed commentary on these essay topics individually. But to start with question one, they are offering a slant on the Why You Want to Go Here/What You Plan to Study and Why essay questions, which are featured in many college apps, from Cornell on the East Side to Harvey Mudd out West—but note that here UV is looking for what you know about their programs and what inspires you rather than for a simple restatement of your activities. This means that you need to start clicking around and doing some research on UV and its specific programs. I have multiple posts on researching colleges for similar questions, under Cornell and Chicago, which can serve as examples for you to check out. Go to the website, click, read, then click some more, before writing about why you want to go to any university. There will be some overlap with activities, but this is your chance to reach out and touch someone with a heartfelt but not cheesy statement about what inspires you as well as showing what you know about them. And what you know about them can include specific classes, professors, research programs and results . . . .Anything you know after researching the essay is useful . . ..

Question two is aimed a range of possibilities in which you can express your ingenuity or integrity. More on those later.

The Georgia Tech Essay Prompt for 2019-2020 is Ready to Fly: Tips For Writing GT’s Supplemental Essay, Some Warnings, and Some Advice About Dealing with Admissions Offices.

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It’s time to look at application shenanigans as well as to analyze GT’s supplemental essay for this year. Below I offer a long opening discussion and some helpful links, and then take a look at how to write this year’s Georgia Tech application essay. Feel free to scroll down if you are feeling impatient, but the early part of this post is worth reading, and its links are worth looking at and listening to, as I open up via an interview with a GT dean and then discuss the use of Turnitin in college admissions.

Let’s begin our look at Georgia Tech for 2019-2020 with an interesting interview featuring GT’s excellent Dean of Admissions, Rick Clark–this is a few years old, but it offers an insider’s view of the process as a whole, from the point of view of the guy who runs GT’s entire admissions office, and the interview discusses applications essays specifically at some length, as well as some of those applications shenanigans I mentioned. . . Note that many of these app faux-pas coming from parents, btw, so for those of you students applying who have family members who are, ah, overly involved, . . . have your mom and dad listen.

This Ira Glass interview of Rick Clark at Georgia Tech is good for laughs and a little perspective on the process as a whole, while offering the personality and perspective of a guy who reads applications for a living: The Old College Try

Lesson One: if you are reusing essays, be sure to do a word/phrase search and replace that other college name you put in for that other application.

Another lesson I want to add that is not discussed with Mr. Clark in this interview: Any schools using Turnitin.com or their own software will pick up that you are reusing essays in whole and in part . . . so do so with judgment. App officers know the pressure of the process, and won’t hold it against you if you recycle ideas in your essays as a rule, but it’s all about context–if you write an essay pledging your undying love and unparalleled passion for, say, Duke, then submit the same essay to a different school, just changing the school names, this will pop up once the essay has been loaded into Turnitin and then has been used again. Reusing college application essays is not cheating, but it definitely undercuts your . . claim for undying love for school B if the same essay pops up for a different college in a plagiarism scan.

Yes, Turnitin and other plagiarism software are in increasing use for college essays. To show you what I mean, below is an excerpt on a recent report on Turnitin’s role in catching “contract essay” cheating. Contract essay cheating involves hiring somebody to write an application or other essay for you. To deal with this, as well as with more run of the mill plagiarism issues in college applications, Turnitin is used increasingly by colleges to screen application essays, and you can expect that to go up in the wake of the Varsity Blues college cheating investigation. Here is an excerpt on a report about this issue–

Staying one step ahead (excerpt):

In the war on contract cheating, some schools see new technology as their best weapon and their best shot to stay one step ahead of unscrupulous students. The company that makes the Turnitin plagiarism detection software has just upped its game with a new program called Authorship Investigate.

The software first inspects a document’s metadata, like when it was created, by whom it was created and how many times it was reopened and re-edited. Turnitin’s vice president for product management, Bill Loller, says sometimes it’s as simple as looking at the document’s name. Essay mills typically name their documents something like “Order Number 123,” and students have been known to actually submit it that way. “You would be amazed at how frequently that happens,” says Loller.

(Thanks to reporter Tovia Smith, and a shout-out to NPR for this excerpt).

Note that one key sign of contract cheating is a doc that has not been opened up much and edited . . . and that shows some odd stuff in its metadata.

So write your stuff, then seek editing help, then revise, revise, revise, and absolutely avoid the temptations of contract essays.

Okay, enough about that stuff. Now let’s look at Georgia Tech’s prompt for 2019-2020, for a single, 250-word supplemental essay:

Additionally, you will be asked to respond to the prompt below. For the 2020 Application, we have decided to ask only one additional prompt. We hope that will save you just a bit of time as you work through our application. 

Why do you want to study your chosen major at Georgia Tech, and how do you think Georgia Tech will prepare you to pursue opportunities in that field after graduation? (max 250 words)

Here is what GT says they are looking for:

Essays are evaluated for both content and writing/grammatical skills. So, before submitting your application, you should take the time to edit and review your essay thoroughly. The traits of a strong essay include ones that:

  • Demonstrate authenticity
  • Brings you to life on paper
  • Are excellent in topic, style, and grammar
  • Demonstrate thoughtfulness

Note that this is the kind of prompt that demands you do some due-diligence research on what the college offers, tailored to your plans. Note also that this suggest that GT was having problems with their other essay from last year, which was based on a set of pretty generic personal questions that probably saw a lot of essay recycling.

GT has solved this problem by asking you to write about them. I have written about this before, so here is a link to a similar prompt that gives you a look at the process: Why Cornell. This kind of “Why Us/What are You going To Do Here question is pretty common, with other examples, like Brown, for a point of comparison: Brown Essays 2019-2020.

To close out this post, I have some final advice, shown via personal experience, on How To Deal With a College Admissions Office:

On 6/19/19, GT Admissions confirmed, during my annual phone call to them, that there will are no significant changes in the application essays planned for this year. Then they dropped one of the two prompts from last year when they officially put them up on their website this week (I write this in mid-July, 2019). I would call dropping an essay a pretty significant change. You?

This is a lesson in dealing with any topic directed to a college admissions office–these are complicated organizations with a several layers of people on campus, and the more popular universities also hire off-campus readers/evaluators of application material who do the evaluations as a seasonal gig, largely at home.

When dealing with an admissions office, before you can get to anybody making executive decisions, you have to pass through a first layer that is often an undergrad working the phones to cover tuition, who may or may not then refer you to a lower-level admissions counselor or officer, and that person may consult one of a set of supervisors or more experienced app officers; and behind them are people you will almost never get to talk to, such as an Assistant Dean for admissions and then, for GT, the boss, otherwise known as the Dean of Admissions, whom maybe 1 in 1,000 applicants will ever talk to directly in any way–for GT, that would be the excellent and funny Rick Clark.

In my case, I talked to a student, then left a message with a counselor I have chatted to over the years, and she returned my call to tell me there would be no changes other than to some wording. Then GT released their prompts–and dropped that second essay. Which tells you how much verbal promise is worth. So: on any call on an important topic, ask for an e-mail follow up and confirmation in writing. Or better yet, e-mail, then follow up with a call when they don’t respond within a day or so (almost always true once the app season starts–busy, busy, busy, so use that) then focus on getting a response to the e-mail rather than a verbal statement.

Again, this is for important information . . .Don’t pursue e-mails for trivial information or information that is clearly stated on their website–do your reading first. And try not to be irritating.

Come back soon, more Ivy League Prompts will confirm this week . ..

Big Changes for the University of California Application: What, Why and What to Do (Part 1)

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Who should read this post: anybody who is now or will be in the near future applying to any University of California campus; any parent of anybody applying to the U.C. anytime soon; anybody interested in what is going on in higher education.

 Our major topics: The U.C. Application Essays for 2016-2017; Some Current Data on U.C. Applications, From Admit Rates to G.P.A.’s; A Brief History of U.C. Admissions

 Our friends at the University of California have finally made their break from the Common Application.

But wait, you say—they never were in the Common App system. And you’d be right.

But the old, two-essay format for the U.C. pretty much guaranteed that a majority of applicants reused their Common App essay; with one thousand words total, you’d upload your very polished Common App essay, then write (or reuse from somewhere else) a shorter essay of about 350 words, after which you could click on as many U.C. campuses as you liked and call it a day. For the last few years, the U.C. has been like a satellite orbiting the Death Star known as The Common Application.

So much for that.

What exactly they want now is four essays, each of 350 words (maximum) and you are to choose from eight prompts to do so. If you are a junior college/transfer applicant, you are required to write about your major, then to choose three of seven remaining prompts. I link the new U.C. prompts for everybody here.

This is the biggest change in years at the U.C. and the biggest change I have seen yet this year in any of the major applications—so why are they doing this, now? And why should you care? Isn’t it enough that you have to write the bloody things?

Well, yes it is, but knowing why can help you understand what they want. And the why has three reasons.

Reason number one: The U.C. is having trouble figuring out who the best applicants are. More on that below.

Reason number two: The U.C. has too many people applying. To a large extent this is due to the fact that it’s easy to apply to all the U.C.’s once you’ve done the app for one: you write the essays, fill in the rest of the application, and then just start clicking to send it to as many U.C.’s as you want. Sure, you pay for each campus you target, but the fee is relatively small against the upside benefit of a seat at a U.C. campus. But you already knew that.

Reason number three: Essay recycling. Clearly this is tied in to the large number or apps, partly because the U.C. was a default backup to a range of super-selective Common App colleges (the Ivies, etc); most U.C. applicants were (and still are) applying to a selection of Common App schools as well—and being able to reuse the Common App essay made it all the more easy to add a set of U.C.’s to your average HYPSM application.

I know I already mentioned that, but it’s an important point because, well, they don’t want to feel like your fallback date for the big dance if your true love turns you down, and you can see how the new application is a direct response to essay recycling when you look at the length and at the number of essays now required for the U.C.: very few universities have a 350-word limit for their essays, and very few require this many essays written specifically for them. Of course, the number and range of questions also require you to do a lot more writing about yourself, and they hope that this will help them do a better job figuring out who to admit.

Think about it: if you are at a typical suburban high school, you probably need two hands and both feet to count the number of people at your school who have a 3.8 or above GPA and a 2100 SAT (or 32 ACT). But would you want to share a dorm with all of them? Are some of them not indistinguishable from robots?  U.C. truly believes in building a “learning community” and, like all schools, want people who themselves really want to attend, and who have more experiences in their lives than were defined by ten years at Kumon and four years of college counseling.  Therefore, the essays, which make it harder to fake it as you show who you are.  Though not impossible.

The takeaway is that it’s become much more difficult to reuse another essay directly on the U.C. application—or to use their essays directly on somebody else’s. Stanford, for example: they want 250-word supplemental essays, and while some clever editing might allow some crossover, a 350 word essay cut down to 250 words is a whole new essay.

On the other hand, a school like Harvard has some overlap through their “optional” extra essay (which is not really optional for most students) because it is so open-ended. And there is a degree of overlap between select UC prompts and prompts for a number of U.C. analogs as well as for some excellent, lesser-known choices across the country. So I will address the opportunities for multi-use essays directly in my next post.

For now let’s leave the essay prompts behind and turn to the details on how this came to pass, and on some current data for the U.C. admissions (3.91 average GPA at the two most popular U.C. campuses, for example) read on.

How We Got Here (And Where We Are)

To get a broader picture of where we are,  let’s start with a quick look at the ancient past: By the middle of the 20th Century, the U.C.’s stated mission was to provide higher education to all California students who qualified. For some perspective on what that meant, prior to 1960, the top 15% of all California students were admitted to the U.C. system, and until 1964 the system admitted all students who met its requirements.  And this without needing an SAT test.   Then, in 1968, a paradigm shift began as Ronald Reagan, governor of California, defined higher education as a privilege that should be defined by the practical and limited to the “deserving” (have a look here for a quick summary of Ronald Reagan’s role in changing the postwar educational paradigm: The Day the Purpose of College Changed).

Flash forward to the early 1980’s and Berkeley was denying admissions to roughly 50% of applicants; by 1990, that number had grown to around 2/3.

 

Some Current Admissions Data for the University of California

That seemed like tough news in 1990, but it seems fantastic compared to last year’s Berkeley admissions: for the incoming class of 2020: 14.8% of all freshman applicants were admitted to U.C. Berkeley, this coming out of 82,558 freshman applicants. And, oh yes, that average Berkeley SAT of 2093 and ACT of 31 for this year’s incoming freshmen, in addition to that 3.91 average GPA (Which was 3.94 for out-of-state and international students—though there are seats set aside for them which might still result in you getting bumped by an out-of-state student, Oh 3.9 GPA Californian).

Of course, you already knew that U.C. Berkeley and U.C.L.A. were both a bear to get into (No, I could not pass up the chance for a bad pun).

But now, even the so-called second tier campuses appear increasingly difficult for admissions, partly because the ease of spamming applications to all campuses, noted above, but also for the very good reason that the education is superb, and the chances of getting into other big-name university brands is even more brutal—just under 5% last year for Stanford, for example, and 6% admit rate for the tougher Ivies—and, well, Mr. Reagan, who attached the idea that education was special and argued that education should take cuts like everybody else when the budget needed to be balanced, and since the early 1970’s, it’s been about balancing budgets more than addign seats—I add only that this is a short summary but fully factual. You can add whatever politics you like to the facts.

But it could be worse–and there is plenty of room for the top 10% of students in California, at the least, if you are flexible in your U.C. target list. So before you panic, consider a wider field, starting with my favorite dark horse, Santa Cruz, which had an average admit GPA of 3.85 and an overall admit rate of 56.9% last year (with a California admit rate close to 80%). This from a university that the Times International survey has ranked in the top two in the world for research influence over the last couple of years (measured by how often U.C. Santa Cruz researchers were cited by others). Yep, U.C. Santa Cruz, at the top of world rankings for research citations.

As for prestige, in ten years, having a degree from U.C. Merced will be gold to a U.C. Berkeley or U.C.L.A. platinum.

It’s true that the pressure is not going to go away, but the new four-essay admissions strategy is likely to have a dampening effect on the total number of applications, and the additional 5,000 or so California students that the U.C. has agreed to add over the next two years will also have an effect on the chances that a California student will be admitted, as well as on the average GPA and test scores. And let’s look past my Dark Horse to a couple of other options.

In fact, let’s look in the San Jouquin Valley, where Merced’s middle-range GPA’s for students arriving this fall ranged from 3.37 (25th percentile admitted) to 3.88 (75th percentile). Which means that Merced looks like Berkeley did when Reagan was governor, in terms of getting in (Historical fact:  1967 was the first year that the SAT was required for U.C. admissions)—though I hasten to add that Merced will also be a large construction site for the next 4-5 years as they build it out into a truly world-class campus.

If construction dust (and valley fever) sound like bad news, have a look further south at U.C. Riverside, which for students enrolling this fall, had a mid-range GPA of 3.52-4.0, a mid-range ACT composite of 27-29 and a mid-range SAT composite of 1490-1915.

And Finally, Back To Those Pesky Application Essays

 So what should you do as you begin your U.C. application? Let’s start with Reason 1 for the change in the application: at the most selective U.C.’s, they are having a tough time figuring out who is a robot as they sort through reams of applications containing the life accomplishments of kids who have had fully programmed lives, going to Kumon since age four and starting college activities in 8th grade.  So view the essay as a chance to show them why you are unique and would be a real addition to whatever campus(es) you are applying to. But before you do that, compare the U.C. prompts to those used by the other schools you are applying to. Or better yet, wait until next week, when I do some of that for you, as well as analyzing prompts.

See you soon.

 

 

 

 

Scoop! The Cornell University Application Essay Prompts for 2015-2016

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If you’ve been waiting to start the Cornell essays, wait no more.  They’re Baaack.

Like many schools,  Cornell has posted a form with the prompts for this year ahead of the official unveiling when the Common App goes live on August 1st.  The “2016” application has been posted for those who will use a paper application with the Universal App.  The essay prompts are the same no matter what format you use, paper or eletronic, Common Application or Universal Application, so you can start writing now.

And the news for this year’s Cornell prompts is good:  only one important change has been made, and that change eases confusion and lessens the pressure on you to write a Swiss-army knife of an essay.  I will post the prompts in full, below my brief explanation here:

Alternate College Option is Gone

The big change for Cornell in 2015-2016 is this:  as I reported earlier this year, Cornell is dropping the alternate college designation on their applications.  Cornell used to offer applicants the option to write one supplemental essay, but to aim it at a primary college and a second, alternate college option.  So in the past you could choose the alternate option and then you wrote an essay for your dream college that was also supposed to work for another college, just in case.  Thus the Swiss-army knife allusion.

However, unlike a Swiss-army knife, which actually works pretty well based on my experience, an essay written for one specific college is not likely to work very well for a second college–this observation also based on my experience.  In writing an essay that might work for a fallback subject of study, you are more likely to hurt your chances of creating a good essay in the first place.  Given the low number of admits to alternate colleges, Cornell has (mercifully) killed this option.  Thanks, Big Red.

Confused by all this talk of colleges when you only want to go to that place called Cornell?  Here’s the gist:  Universities are subdivided into smaller units.  Usually this is done by dividing the university into less broad units called colleges, and then dividing those colleges into more specific schools, which house one or a limited number of majors.  I  talked about this in my earlier post on Cornell as well, and detailed how Cornell specifically divides itself into various colleges, et al, so if you did not click and read above, click and read now:  Cornell’s schools and colleges.  This earlier post also ties into looking at majors, and I link you to some specific example material at Cornell to get you started, so it’s worth a read as a broad introduction to subjects of study (college majors, in other words) and to Cornell specifically.

It’s also a good place to start thinking about the kind of application essay that asks you to explain why you want to attend the university, or how you plan to use your education at the university, or what attracts you to the university, or what about the university engages you intellectually . . . I could go on, but these are all basically the same prompt.  And this prompt will require you do do some research on the university, narrow down the schools of interest, then start digging deeper, into and including looking for research of interest that is going on at the university and within your target college, then into specific people doing the research, as well as looking for facts and video material, up to and including lectures, and anything else that is pertinent–and what is pertinent includes anything that is authentically interesting to you and that might also be useful in an app essay. 

Just avoid that mistake of confusing the options for an undergrad with those for graduate study only.  Some stuff you find online will not be available to you as an undergrad, and it would sound either ignorant or pretentious  to write as if you were going to be a (graduate) assistant for Professor Bigshot–as an incoming freshmen.  T.A.’s and G.A.’s are almost always grad students.

If you are looking at an M.B.A. program page online, for example, you are in the wrong place.   Go back to the undergrad programs (and try the M.B.A. again in four or more years).

I will write again soon about how to research subjects within a university (provided the application editing I do does not turn into a deluge earlier than planned).  In the meantime, Oh Future Big Red, read the prompts below, and start clicking and reading on the Cornell website–and taking notes.  Keep in mind that you should be talking about Cornell as much as yourself.  And in the process, you may make up or change your mind about what it is you want to study. Good luck and e-mail me (soon–space is going) if you need editing help.  Here are the Cornell prompts for 2015-2016–and yes, they are the same as last year, except for dropping the alternate college:

Cornell

College Interest Essays
The primary focus of your college interest essay should be what you intend to study at Cornell. Please respond to the essay question below (maximum of 650 words)  that corresponds to the undergraduate college or school to which you are applying. Be sure to include your full legal name exactly as it appears on passports or other official documents and date of birth, and attach the page to the back of this form. (Special note here:  the Cornell Application pdf linked below states the max words at 500, the Common App site on 8/9/15 stated a max wordcount of 650 for the same essays–as it has since 7/1/15.  Which leads me to question if Cornell is penalizing those who submit a paper app (the pdf with a limit of 500 words) or if this is a bureaucratic snafu–anybody at Cornell or elsewhere can use the comments at the bottom of this prompt to let me and everybody else know.  In the meantime, submit electronically to evade this odd 500 word limit on the paper app–even if you have to walk miles from your cabin in the woods to go online, I guess.  Okay, back to Cornell’s instructions):

College of Agriculture and Life Sciences:

How have your interests and related experiences influenced the major you have selected in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences?

College of Architecture, Art, and Planning:
Why are you excited to pursue your chosen major in AAP? What specifically about AAP and Cornell University will help you fulfill your academic and creative interests and long-term goals?

College of Arts and Sciences:
Describe two or three of your current intellectual interests and why they are exciting to you. Why will Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences be the right environment in which to pursue your interests?

College of Engineering:
Tell us about an engineering idea you have, or about your interest in engineering. Describe how your ideas and interests may be realized by—and linked to—specific resources within the College of Engineering. Finally, explain what a Cornell Engineering education will enable you to accomplish.

School of Hotel Administration:
The global hospitality industry includes hotel and foodservice management, real estate, finance, entrepreneurship, marketing, and law. Describe what has influenced your decision to make the business of hospitality your academic focus. What personal qualities make you a good fit for SHA?

College of Human Ecology:
How have your experiences influenced you to consider the College of Human Ecology and how will your choice of major(s) impact your goals and plans for the future?

School of Industrial and Labor Relations:
Tell us about your intellectual interests, how they sprung from your course, service, work or life experiences, and what makes them exciting to you. Describe how ILR is the right school for you to pursue these interests.

And finally, for those who want it straight from the font, here it is:

Cornell University Supplement for 2016 (UCA version in pdf format)

(Note that Cornell dates their application forms by the year of admission–you will be entering in the fall of 2016, thus this is the 2016 application.  Other colleges use other systems (e.g. the class that enters in 2016 is usually called the class of 2020, and some schools will call you that.  Optimistic, that’s what they are.  Cornell apparently doesn’t look that far down the road.)  Good luck, come back soon, and contact me if you need editing.

Example Post from 2015-2016 Essay Analysis–Yale Application Essay Topics for 2015-2016: A.K.A. Tell Us Something About Yourself That is Not on Your Application

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Keep in Mind that this post was written for the class of 2020 application–if you are graduating high school in 2017, you will be applying for the class of 2021.  While some or even most of the information below may be true when you apply, I won’t know for sure until July or August, 2016, at which time my Yale post will update.

The Yale essay is ready for you.  Are you ready for the Yale essay?

For most of you the answer will be, I am not ready.  The reason is simple:  most of you will need to have a pretty good grip on the rest of your application–and will need to have written a more-or-less decent draft of your Common Application main essay–before you will know what to write for this Yale essay.  For this year’s Common Application Essay Prompts, see   Application Prompts for 2015-2016.

For the Yale topic and more on writing for the Yale prompt this year, including a roughed-out example essay, continue below:

Yale Essay Topic
Please note that the Yale freshman application will be available on the Common Application website sometime in August. (Note from WordGuild:  The Common App goes offline July 23rd and erases all accounts on the site at that time; when it goes live again on or just before August 1st, you can open an account and upload essays.  My advice:  start essays early and upload late, to give yourself plenty of time.)

The Yale-specific questions will include one additional required essay for all applicants, and one optional essay for prospective computer science and engineering majors. The essay prompts for the 2015-2016 Yale Essay Questions are as follows:

Yale’s essay question is required for all freshman applicants:

Please reflect on something you would like us to know about you that we might not learn from the rest of your application, or on something about which you would like to say more. You may write about anything—from personal experiences or goals to interests or intellectual pursuits. (Please answer in 500 words or fewer).

Yale Essay Prompt Analysis and Advice:

As you can see, it’s tough to say what they might not learn from the rest of your application before you have at least roughed out the rest of your application–remember that you are creating a kind of holograph of yourself composed of basic data (G.P.A., SAT/ACT scores), a list of activities and some short descriptions, accompanied by odds and ends like letters of recommendation–and your essays, which can make or break your application.  I talk about this at more length in this post–how college applications are evaluated.

To add a metaphor, you should look at each part of your application as being a chapter or entry in a book about you.  So write your Common App essay, complete your activities list/descriptions, then write this essay with an eye on filling in the blanks and/or pulling things together.  You want to humanize yourself and, if possible, reveal a passion or strong interest that may help your application.  And when you do write this essay, do NOT simply repeat your activities–but also do not assume that you cannot slide them in somewhere.  Think of this essay as  either  . . .

A Network or a Walkabout

There are two basic ways to approach this question–one is The Walkabout, in which you present a stand-alone activity that you think is interesting enough or humanizing enough to merit a solo, one-off focus.  More about that in a few moments.

The other way is to write a Network Essay–use an interesting or important activity to connect disparate parts of your resume, or to remind the reader of some aspects of you that you think are important (or persuasive as admissions factors). Let’s say you are into math and physics in school, with some connected activities including a robotics team, while outside of school, you like to go fishing and camping  (which you likely cannot do too often as you are an oversubscribed high school student trying to get into college, but let’s say for the purposes of an example essay that you go fishing one or two times a year and are into math and physics and the robotics team).

These do not seem to be connected, but this is a matter of focus–that is the key to and the purpose of a Network Essay.  For example:  Fishing involves physics in a number of ways, starting with putting a lure or a fly where you want it, and getting its parameters right (depth of bait, etc).  This is applied physics and the use of empirical knowledge (How to cast to get the lure to point x, how deep the fish are . . .).  So you might start the essay with a focus on fishing and camping, then use it as a network to connect this unknown part of you to the other parts of you that are clear in the application.  The person described above might do the following, for example, to get this Yale essay started:

Network Essay Example–The Fishing Physics Fan

Whenever I can, I like to pack up the car and disappear for a few days.  I like to cut the electronic tether, escape the ping of texts and pong of e-mail, and go to any one of several locations I cannot disclose. 

I cannot disclose these locations specifically because they are the best places to catch fish in the (pick a region).  And fisherman may tell a lot of tall tales about the one that got away, but no real fisherman ever gives away his Secret Spot to Catch Fish.  And I am a true fisherman.

This might seem an odd thing for a person who spends most of his other free time sitting at a computer coding so that an x can do y (examples not included in this example essay intro) or fiddling with a robot’s arm so it manages to do a instead of b (examples not included in this example essay intro)  but in a way it all fits together–fishing is all about physics and trial and error.  Trying to get a lure to that spot by the sunken log across the mouth of the stream is a matter of telemetry, a problem with many factors–the wind, the current, how deep the water there is . . . (You would expand somewhat here, using concrete detail.)

When I am out in nature fishing, I am really living in the moment in a way that I do not in my daily life at home, but nature  is also really a collection of things we call physics.  Take the lightning storm that was approaching Twin Lakes (sorry, can’t tell you which Twin Lakes) the last time I was there . . . . (Again, you would expand here, but notice how I am tying fishing to  your other interests, to physics . . .)

And then you might end the essay by literally and figuratively coming home (refreshed and refocused) to your more formal experiments in applied physics).

Notice how I am introducing other activities or interests beyond fishing, but they are put into this essay as context for the fishing focus, while simultaneously reminding the reader of specifics in terms of interests and knowledge from your activities sheet and from your academic life.  So the essay emphasizes one thing but shows others by connecting them.  This is what I mean by the network essay–it focuses on something new, on an activity that is either not in or only mentioned in the rest of your application but in the essay on this activity, you touch on other things that it does not hurt to remind the reader about.  All your many features are somehow included.

Here’s why this network approach can be useful:  It does not hurt to remind the reader about some other aspects of your resume or activities because, on average, the app reader will spend about 3 minutes reading each of your app essays–sometimes less–and this rapid reading will come after the app reader has scanned your activities, and is meanwhile thinking about your GPA, etc, and figuring out how to boil it all down to a single number, appended by some comments.

And the app reader is doing this at some point in a day in which he or she has read dozens of other applications and multiple dozens of essays if your application comes up late in the day.  So things will tend to get blurry as the app reader takes notes and assesses you, and the artful reminder of things you want them to remember can help your evaluator–and so help you.  Thus, the network essay which uses an interesting aspect of yourself to connect other, known aspects of your application in an interesting way can be an ideal add to your application.

Oh, and if you think something like fishing (or whatever it is that you do) is not an interesting topic, it depends on what you say about it.  And how you say it.  Contact me if you have something you like to do but think it will look boring in your essay, and I will help you develop your words and do so in a way that works with the rest of your app.

The Walkabout Essay

A walkabout was a rite of passage for a young Australian native, a time spent wandering the bush alone and surviving independently–the word has taken on other meanings, but the walkabout was originally a personal journey for the experience to be had on the journey.  It was also seen as something necessary and transformative, shaping the person who experienced it and propelling him into adulthood.

If you have an activity that is like this, a stand-alone that is also an important part of who you are, something that you do for its own sake,  then you can write a Walkabout Essay exploring this activity.

As an example, are you into math, programming and classical Indian Dance?  The closest you could come to a network essay with these would be to say they are all possible areas of creative expression.

But classical dance is embodied, is a way of knowing that is shown by doing in a way that is not true of math and programming, for your physical self is fully engaged, and it might best be explored as such, as a unique activity that humanizes and adds an interesting dimension to you–and that really offers little connection to your other, more purely mental activities.  Though you may still mention some other activities with the excuse of showing how different this activity is (and so reminding the app reader, however briefly, of those other aspects of yourself.)

The Key to the Walkabout Essay:  Become a Knowledgeable and Interesting Guide

So some level of networking/connection is always a good idea, but the Walkabout essay will really focus on the glories of the activity in the essay.  Classical Indian dance, as an example, embodies much of traditional Indian culture: its gestures are symbolic, and it is influenced by or on a continuum with other specifically Indian activities, like what we now call Hatha Yoga, as well as traditional Indian martial arts–if you become a guide, showing things like this in some detail to the app reader, and so showing your passion, you will have a good  essay–you want your app reader to have that look of surprise and interest that comes when someone learns something interesting, as you reveal the philosophy and history of the dance through some well-chosen examples, while inserting close description about the people and dances you have done and perhaps an amusing anecdote or two.    Inform without lecturing, show by examples and close description instead of simply telling.

And finally–if you are “Saying something more” about an activity or concern that is already on your application/activities, my advice here still applies.

That’s it for now. Get started on your Common App essay while thinking about this essay.  And contact me if you would like some professional editing.  N.B:  Sooner is better than later as things really pick up from August 1st on.

How To Write the Princeton Application Essay in 2015-2016

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The post below contains information from the 2015-16 admissions cycle–some of it still applies, some of it does not, depending on which prompt you will use.  For posts on this year’s Princeton application prompts, check these out as well:

Princeton Essay on a Quote (from an essay)

The 2017-2018 Princeton Application Prompts

I have written about several of these prompts before, for the simple reason that the prompts are the same this year (class of 2020) as they were for the class of 2019.  The  Princeton prompts fit into some general categories that I have analyzed, both in posts about more general topics, like Writing About a Quote, or in posts about writing about books as a whole, like How to Write About Books I or in How to Write About Books III, as well as in analysis on the individual prompts–see below for more.
I broke down the Princeton Essays from last year in specific posts, below–and what I said last year applies to the same prompts this year, though some specific references may need updating, like those mentions of the Occupy movement for use on the “disparity” prompt, (Prompt 2).  Last year, Occupy still seemed relevant.  This year, not so much–at least the movement as such.  Of course, the themes and concerns of Occupy are still relevant now, and just wait until the presidential campaign gets out of its warm-up phase–everybody from Hillary Clinton to Jeb Bush claims to be concerned with economic inequality,  largely because  pay has been flat or down in real dollars for going on decades now for most Americans.
Since it’s a hot topic, this also means it’s also an excellent essay choice, so long as you do not come across as preachy, lecturing, etc, et. al. Showing a personal connection to or concern with a problem like this is best, while avoiding bathos, as well as avoiding a patronizing tone.  If you have never taken any interest in inequality, now might not be the best time to start.
On the other hand, a little research might make you genuinely concerned.
Best bets for this topic are those who are majoring in or interested in:  Business and Econ, sociology, psych, politics/government and those who see themselves as innovators with a mission.
For more on the specifics of writing about the Princeton supplements, click below to read my analysis of each prompt:
 I hope this helps you get a good start.  Contact me if you need some editing help–I have a reasonable amount of space as of mid-July, but will my available slots will fill rapidly as the deluge of August 1st application releases approaches.

Scoop! Princeton’s Application Essays for 2015-2016

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Otherwise known as application essays for the class of 2020.

I cannot resist scooping my peers and competitors by getting the Princeton prompts up first, so here they are.

While Princeton has not officially released its prompts, they have updated their pdf’s for those filing paper applications, and here’s the deal:  Nothing has changed.  The PDF is for the class of 2020, but the prompts are unchanged from those for the class of 2019 (That’s last year’s applicants, for you).

To save you the search, here are the prompts, followed by a link to my analysis of how to write about them:

Princeton Essay: Your Voice
In addition to the essay you have written for the Common Application, please write an essay of about 500 words (no more
than 650 words and no less than 250 words). Using one of the themes below as a starting point, write about a person, event or experience that helped you define one of your values or in some way changed how you approach the world. Please do not repeat, in full or in part, the essay you wrote for the Common Application.

1. Tell us about a person who has influenced you in a significant way.

2. “One of the great challenges of our time is that the disparities we face today have more complex causes and point less straightforwardly to solutions.”
Omar Wasow, assistant professor of politics, Princeton University; founder of Blackplanet.com. This quote is taken from Professor Wasow’s January 2014 speech at the Martin Luther King Day celebration at Princeton University

3. Princeton in the Nation’s Service” was the title of a speech given by Woodrow Wilson on the 150thanniversary of the University. It became the unofficial Princeton motto and was expanded for the University’s 250th anniversary to “Princeton in the nation’s service and in the service of all nations.”

Woodrow Wilson, Princeton Class of 1879, served on the faculty and was Princeton’s president from 1902-1910.

4, Culture is what presents us with the kinds of valuable things that can fill a life. And insofar as we can recognize the value in those things and make them part of our lives, our lives are meaningful.”
Gideon Rosen, Stuart Professor of Philosophy, chair of the Council of the Humanities and director of the Program in Humanistic Studies, Princeton University.

5. Using a favorite quotation from an essay or book you have read in the last three years as a starting point, tell us about an event or experience that helped you define one of your values or changed how you approach the world. Please write the quotation, title and author at the beginning of your essay.

July, 2014 Update On College Admissions Essays (With Current Listing of Available Essay Prompts)

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Update and How to Use this Blog

First a caveat: my blog has detailed entries on college admissions going back about five years, at this point.  My current policy is to keep most of my posts up, as a kind of archive of college application information and also because there are only so many essay types that the colleges can offer. Certain kinds of prompts show up every year, and in many cases, I have already written about the prompt type.  This kind of analysis continues to be useful.

I mention all of this because I can see what people are reading on my blog, and there are a number of you, Dear Readers, who are reading last year’s essay prompt from, for example, the University of Chicago, on the mantis shrimp (Note:  unlike the NSA, I do not see your metadata, cannot access your e-mails, am not storing information on you, and can only see the number of people who look at my posts, per day.  So no, I am not spying on you.  I just know, in aggregate, what you are reading.)

I think the mantis shrimp  is a fun prompt, and if I do say so myself, my  post on the mantis shrimp is also informative and high-quality; it just doesn’t have anything to do with this year’s University of Chicago essay prompts.  I have started discussing this year’s Chicago’s essay prompts in the two posts that precede this one, so have a look at those here:

U Chicago Essays 2014-2015: Post One on Essay Prompt Two

U Chicago Essays 2014-2015: Post Two on Essay Prompt Two

We are currently in the 2014-2015 application cycle, so use caution when visiting college admissions websites–at least for the next two weeks (I am writing this on July 21st, 2014; August 1st, 2014 is the date most app sites go live, with this year’s prompts and information).  Only a limited number of universities have so far posted this year’s prompts, or have confirmed that they will be retaining this year’s prompts–look below for more on these.

On the other hand, I have dozens of old posts on topics like writing about books, or on how application essays are evaluated or on how to write essays that don’t look like the typical, boring, five-paragraph essay format taught in high school.  These posts are still useful, so they should be read, by anybody who has to deal with an essay on a book or idea that interests them, or who wants to know how essays were and still are evaluated, or who wants to write a good essay that isn’t a rote exercise.  By all means, read and use posts like these; just don’t send Chicago an essay on the mantis shrimp this year.

Developments in Application Portals–Universal vs. Common App

The 900-Pound Gorilla Tag-Team of College Admissions includes Naviance and the Common Application.  This is due to the large number of colleges using both, and the fact that Naviance currently operates in coordination with the Common Application.  This tandem has become somewhat controversial, partly because it starts to look like a racket when so many students are directed to third-party organizations when they apply to college–organizations that take a cut of application fees–and partly because the Common Application web portal was such a disaster last year.  I hasten to add that I am sure the Common App people have their act at least somewhat better organized this year, but the trouble last year went on, literally, for months, and forced a number of big-name colleges to extend application deadlines.  In a way, this actually benefited some students, who were able to keep working on essays and other information, but at the cost of considerable stress.

One side effect of last year’s Common App fiasco has been an increase in the number of colleges adopting the Universal Application, which has the advantage of being simpler to use and generally easier to navigate.  Unfortunately, Naviance has not yet incorporated the Universal App into its system, and the Universal App does not have as many colleges using it as the Common App does–but many more have signed up in the last year, and I expect Naviance to adopt the Universal App by the 2015-2016 application season.  Here is an example of a college that adopted the Universal App this year:

Published February 18, 2014

uchicagCollege applicants next year will have more application options as the University of Chicago is joining the Universal Application.

“We decided to announce we will join the Universal College Application for the next application year now because we want applicants, families, recommenders, and the Higher Education community to know of our commitment to providing them with an application option that is easy to use, reduces stress, and simplifies the process,” said Jim Nondorf, Vice President for Enrollment at the University of Chicago. “We have been very happy with how easy it has been to work with the Universal College Application team.”

And here is a link to the Universal Application:  Universal Application Portal

Getting Started Now:  Some Application Essay Prompts are Already Available

The Common Application is using the same essay prompts this year as last year, which I will link below; some schools have posted early or are keeping last year’s prompts–University of Chicago has posted new prompts and Penn, for example, will be using last year’s prompts, so there are essays that can be worked on as of right now.  I also e-mailed Berkeley and was told that they will be using the same prompts (though, in a typical bureacratic maneuver, my contact also said that if anything changed,  I should see their website?!  Because this seemed a bit equivocal to me, I will not link the U.C. application portals yet.)

Links to some essay prompts that are already available below:

Common Application Essay Prompts, 2014-2015

Penn Essay Prompts

University of Chicago Essay Prompts

University of Georgia Essay Prompts

Boston College Essay Prompts

These are all prompts for this year, which is the 2014-2015 application cycle–this is your application cycle if you are a rising senior/will be graduating from high school in 2015.

That’s all for now.  I will be back soon with some thoughts on application trends and will be posting on a variety of essay prompts for popular colleges in the coming months.  If you need college advising or essay editing help, I am currently fully booked from roughly August 1st-15th, but will have editing slots open in the second half of August.  Good luck and good writing.

 

 

 

The University of Chicago Application Essays: Prompt 2, Part 2

wordguild

I gave background to U Chicago’s Application Essay Prompt 2 in my last post; in this post, I will provide some more specific suggestions and sources for essay inspiration.  Before I do, here is the prompt, again:

Essay Option 2.

In French, there is no difference between “conscience” and “consciousness”. In Japanese, there is a word that specifically refers to the splittable wooden chopsticks you get at restaurants. The German word “fremdschämen” encapsulates the feeling you get when you’re embarrassed on behalf of someone else. All of these require explanation in order to properly communicate their meaning, and are, to varying degrees, untranslatable. Choose a word, tell us what it means, and then explain why it cannot (or should not) be translated from its original language.

— Inspired by Emily Driscoll, an incoming student in the Class of 2018

Alrighty.  So my first suggestion is not to accept Ms. Driscoll’s argument that some words are untranslatable, because they are all translatable.  However, even once they have been translated, a foreign person still may not really get it.  One reason:  culture, which includes language but also history, philosophy, geography, weather, technology, etc, etc, etc.  A concept like the Chinese idea of Chi is actually pretty easy to translate but not so easy to fully understand–it can best be translated as energy but also can have to do with a person’s temperament and mood, with the weather and time of year and its influence on the person, with the “energy” or nature of food a person eats–and the chi of food alters as well, depending on the way food is cooked.  A fever manifests a disturbance in chi, but is also  a kind of chi in itself, and a martial artist of skill will use a person’s chi against him.

Notice that much of this does not fit the western concept of energy, though electricity is a also a kind of chi.  A nonnative speaker of Mandarin can become fairly fluent in the language but would need to, for example, study some martial arts under a master, maybe do some qi gong and learn about Chinese cookery, architecture and art in order to have a decent grip on Chi, on its meanings and manifestations in Chinese thought and experience.  So looking at language as an expression of culture, and at culture as a kind of closed room that must be entered and explored before many words–many concepts–can be fully understood . . .  is a good way to approach this essay.  There are also personal and familial reasons why a person may not be equipped to understand a word–even a native Mandarin speaker may not have the understanding of Chi that, say, a Taoist master who is also an acupuncturist and painter would have.

My second suggestion is to look at idiomatic expressions.  You might want to start with your own language, Oh Native English Speakers. Of course, given the different varieties of English, it can be argued that we Americans are speaking a foreign tongue to those Brits.  Or vice-versa.  A famous Brit whose name escapes my data banks once claimed that American speech is slang.  Contrasting the Queen’s English and the Colonies’ English is a fun exercise in itself–you can start with those slang and idioms that do translate, pairing them, then find idioms that do not translate at all; for example:

American English/Queens English

a dust up/argy bargy

cock up/snafu

biscuit or bikky/Cookie

bobby/cop

technical expert (or geek, in some uses)/boffin

screwed/buggered

opportunist, schemer or swindler/chancer

chat or gossip/chinwag

reconnoiter or check out/dekko

old man or boss or old and the boss (and dreary and annoying)/gaffer

The next step is not just to look at what the equivalent expression is, but to try to figure out why/from what the term came.  Again, notice that they are translateable, but there is a cultural flavor and flair with many slang expressions.  A good example is dekko, which is not English in origin; it comes from  British military slang and derived from the Hindustani dhek/dekho meaning “to see”. It is also less commonly decco, deccie, deek, deeks.  It is also an example of what I mean about language and culture.  The British Empire ruled over India for well over a century, and in the process of garrisoning India, it brought back more than chutney and curry. It brought back many words and forever altered British culture.   Given that many of British soldiers were also working class, you find quite a bit of this new language entering through more street or slang dialects, like Cockney, which also has a lot of Romany (these people are commonly called gypsy) words.  Like this: Put up your dukes, pal.  Look the last two words up for more.  They are Romany in origin.

Cockney itself would be an excellent place for you to look for inspiration, though you should keep in mind that Cockney has just about died out–the last true Cockney speakers were fading away by the 1990’s, pretty much as the East End of London faded as  a stronghold of working class whites/Cockneys.  Notice how slang evolution is tied into history and slang, as well as “proper” language evolves over time.   So slang and idioms are a great source for an essay like this, and you can use the wonders of the internet to look for ideas,  making lists of words and looking for ways to connect words and concepts that say something larger about culture.

To start working with idioms, try British slang, Cockney, and American slang as search terms and give it some time. There are many sites and posts devoted to this, and quality varies.  Make lists and double-check definitions against other sources and sites–I will provide some good dictionaries and other sources for looking up and crosschecking, below.  What makes you laugh would probably also make your essay reader laugh, which is a good thing (as long as they are not laughing at you.)

To recap and add an example:  the history of language and word meanings, whether they are considered idiomatic or otherwise, is  a great place to look for essay ideas and content–words do change meanings over time, just as words are born and words die.  In the 13th Century, the word gay   meant bright (brightly colored), cheerful, et al.  It had nothing remotely to do with sexual orientation.  Then, in 1890’s America, it gained a slang meaning–a gay lady was a prostitute (I guess somebody was happy.)   Then, in the 20th Century, the term, which already had a double meaning associated with being happy or bright, and with suspect or illicit sex, was assigned to homosexuals, then adopted by the homosexual rights movement; but this change in meaning then led to suburban youth by the 1990’s referring to something suspect or bad as “gay” –a change that illustrates the adolescent fear of being different,  especially sexually, and conversely, of punishing those who are different.  This is an example of a  psycho-sociological effect that is reflected in the change in a word’s meaning.  Words change all the time, but not always this drastically–fear and prejudice are powerful influences, even on words.  When you write your essay, your focus might be on how the history of language is closely tied to sociology and psychology.  Our words say a lot about us.

To close things out, I am going to recommend some source materials, and as part of that paste in a recent article that shows a good way to open an essay like this . . . Hello loyal readers.  This is the second post on this Chicago prompt, and you have to pay a subscription to my private blog to get full access to this post and quite a few other posts, past and future.  You have about half of the post available in this sample.  If this seems unfair, that’s probably because you have been taught to disrespect the value of written work, due to the parasitic nature of most of the big internet companies, which offer creators little compensation while essentially giving the creative work of others away for free.  A subscription for full access to all of my posts is available for the small price of $15.  You send me an e-mail, with the subject heading “subscription, please,” and I will send you an invoice for $15.   After you pay it, I will give you access to my private blog, which has all of my posts available in full, including the rest of this post.

One more thing–a caveat emptor–I do not delete old posts from other application years, partly as a matter of historical record, but also because many universities repeat the same prompts, or use prompts that are similar to prompts used in the past.  If you see that a post was put up during the last application season, you need to double-check to be sure about the prompts for this year’s applications at your specific universities–we are currently in the 2014-2015 application season.  The software of this site will link “related” posts, but they are sometimes from previous years.  Be sure to visit the university website to check on application requirements and timelines for this year.

Speaking of which, I am still accepting some college advising and application essay editing clients.  E-mail me soon to inquire and to secure a spot.  As of this writing, July 10, 2014, I am fully booked in early August, but can accept college application editing business in July and from the latter part of August on.  This will change in the coming weeks, of course,  as new clients take up existing space in my schedule, so it’s better not to wait too long.  I only have so much time. . . See you soon.

P.S.  The ads you sometimes see below some of my posts are inserted by the WordPress people.  Allowing them to advertise allows me to save expenses on this platform, and by keeping my fixed costs down, I am able to offer not only the most effective editing service you are likely to find, I am also cheaper than all those big operations you may have heard of.  I myself do not see the ads unless I access my own site via an outside search.  If you do dislike one of the ads, please let me know at the e-mail above, and I will have a look and contact WordPress, if necessary.  Thanks.