Parents of rising high school seniors typically are proud, excited, and anxious in the summer before submitting college applications. Commonly, parents worry about quality of their teen’s college essays, as their teens do everything else BUT work on the college essay. Some tips to frame any fears and support teens through this important transition: Quality…
The rules of grammar can be annoying, especially when an English paper is “bleeding” with red ink marks, noting every single punctuation and grammar error. However, the purpose for grammar, which is to articulate the author’s ideas clearly to the reader, can get lost in trying to follow the rules of grammar. To help all the college…
Choose an essay topic wisely. Cartoon courtesy of The New Yorker.
When beginning to write college application essays, students often worry about having lived an “ordinary” life, under the assumption that a dramatic event is a compelling topic to persuade college admissions officers. A few years back, a stressed-out Senior, with tears welling in her eyes, exclaimed to her dad, “Why couldn’t you have died?!? Then,…
Being in the trenches over the last month or so of the college admissions process and more specifically, the writing portion of the application process–a process I have experienced again and again without tiring (this is my 18th season working with students on the writing of the autobiographical college essay), playing the role of editor…
