In his book, Angle of Repose, Wallace Stegner writes, regarding a woman frying eggs, “She saw them solidify in the pan like golden-hearted, frilly edged flowers.” The line knocked me out – the visual accuracy, the alliteration (“frilly edged flowers”), the way he artfully captured something so familiar and mundane. And, because I take my job as an essay tutor seriously, I began to think about where this level of writing belongs in the college

WRITING THE COLLEGE ADMISSIONS ESSAY – RESIST THE URGE TO SELL YOURSELF When writing your college admissions essay, keep in mind that you are not “selling yourself” in the traditional sense. Of course, that’s the underlying goal – “Can I interest you in an outstanding student for your freshman class?” But if you come on too strong or obviously in this regard, you do risk a bit of “push back” from the Admissions Committee. Everyone

Would a builder build a house without blueprints? Would a traveler set out on a cross country trip without a map or GPS? Would a chef bake a cake for the first time without using a recipe? Okay… enough analogies! The point (finally!) is, outlining is essential to writing an effective college application essay. Here’s why: It helps organizes your thoughts and concepts. Moving things around in outline form, experimenting with what works best, is

August 6th, 2013 First draft of my Common App essay…. Check! Finished it last night and feel really terrible about it, which is supposedly a good thing. Ms. Gaetano (AP English like I could ever forget) always said that whenever a student told her he thought he did a great job on a paper it turned out to be awful. The students who weren’t sure… solid A’s. Without fail! So I guess a little insecurity

An old joke about actors goes like this: An actor meets a man at a party and before the man can get a word in edgewise, or escape, goes on and on about every play, television show, movie and commercial the actor has ever appeared in. Finally, after about an hour, the actor winds down. “Well, that’s enough about me,” he tells his new friend. “What do you think about my work?” It’s a cute

July 31th Am I weird? I love doing outlines! And not just bullet points which is not an official outline no matter what some people might say. Roman numerals, points A., B., C., then the subpoints 1,2,3, and if I’m really on a roll, sub subpoints, a, b, etc. Something about the way it looks on the page, the way it pushes you to think and plan ahead… I enjoy that whole process. So then,

It’s tough to write a strong essay on a weak topic. That’s why, when preparing to write your college admissions essay, you need to be absolutely exhaustive in exploring potential essay topics. Often, although there are exceptions, your first or second topic choice is the same one that many other students have chosen. So you need to keep digging in and reaching out, exploring and probing. One way to do that… interview yourself! That’s right,

July 27th, 2013 I am so proud of myself! Starting my admissions essay early was pure genius because once I realized that my original topic was not what I wanted to say, there was no problem throwing it out. I still had plenty of time to come up with another one! Oh, first let me back up… The more I thought about my “canceling my FB account” essay, the more I realized it wasn’t right.

July 8, 2013 Well, the first draft of my college admissions essay is done!  It meant saying no to Dina and Bree about shoe shopping, and telling Michael to go to see The Lone Ranger with his friend Nick (no interest anyway, that story is from a million years ago) but it was definitely worth it. So now I am right on schedule.  I will do three more drafts of the Common App essay, then