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Topic Generator #1 For The Problem Essay and The Essay On What You Care About
Many universities use application essay prompts that ask you to write about either a problem of some kind or something you care about. I encourage my clients to try to come up with at least one...
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The University of Chicago Essay Prompts for 2012-2013
The University of Chicago has posted its questions for this year. They are earlier in getting out their prompts than many of their competitors, which is only fair–they will, as usual, have some of the...
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University of Chicago Application Essay Prompt Two: You Wanna Schroedinger’s...
If the title of this post on Chicago’s application essay, prompt two, seems obscure, let’s first take a look at the prompt itself: Essay Option 2. Heisenberg claims that you cannot know both the...
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University of Chicago Application Essay Prompt 3: The Dark Lady
This post will discuss Ms. Sontag and her quote at great length, but I will also focus on the broader problems of responding to quote prompts, particularly the context issues that quotes raise. The...
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University of Chicago Application Essay Prompt 4: A Lesson in Invention and...
This post ranges far and wide as it covers prompt 4 for the University of Chicago for this year. Warning: this is one of my few remaining “freebie” posts for this year. Other posts will be available...
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Yale and Harvard Application Essays for 2012-2013: The Coquette and the Copycat
Note to readers: some of the information linked below is protected and available in full only to clients or subscribers. You may e-mail me to get a subscription, which is only $15 dollars for the...
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The Stanford Supplement for 2012-2013: It’s Deja Vu All Over Again
In this post, after an opening discussion on how to approach any supplement with both short answer and essay responses, including advice on dealing with electronic submissions, I will begin analyzing...
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The Common Application: What’s New For 2013-2014
The Common App folks are set to release Version 4.0 for the 2013-2014 application year. They have promised to make things more user friendly, and they have changed the essay prompts. Most important,...
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Early College Admissions Statistics For 2013-2014: What It Means For You
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...
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Comparative Ivy League (And Other) Admissions Statistics For This Year And...
In my last post, I took a look at trends in admissions–finding, most notably, that admission rates at the most competitive schools are continuing to trend downward in the single digits. This post will...
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College Admissions Data for 2013: A Look at Yield and Some Sympathy for the...
For many years, yield was vital to college rankings. Universities tried not only to attract far more qualified applicants than they could possibly admit, they also tried to get a very high yield....
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What Universities Will Look For This Year In College Applications–A Quick...
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:...
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LADIES AND GENTLEMAN, START YOUR ESSAYS: THE 2013-2014 PROMPTS ARE OUT EARLY
Or at least some of them are out early. This post will introduce some of the essay prompts for Ivy League and elite universities this year. We are off to an earlier than usual start for this year’s...
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What Is Wrong With The New Common Application Essay Prompts and What To Do...
This was my original subtitle for this post: How The Education Wars and Bureaucracy Wrecked a Pretty Good Thing. The Old Common App prompts weren’t perfect, but they did offer a variety of choices,...
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The University of Chicago Application Essay for 2013-2014: The Joke’s on Whom?
Getting Started on Your Chicago Essays: We Begin with the Joke Prompt Before reading this post, you might want to look at my earlier post with all of this year’s U of Chicago prompts–scroll down this...
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Stanford Application Essays for 2013-2014
The Cardinal updated their application essay page on July 16th, 2013, by inserting the new Common Application essays and parameters, but still have the same supplemental essay prompts that they used...
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The University Of Chicago Essay Prompt On The Mantis Shrimp: Seeing Is Believing
This post will focus on another Chicago prompt with both humorous and philosophical potential, yes that one on the mantis shrimp. To refresh your memory, here it is: ESSAY OPTION 4. The mantis shrimp...
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How To Get Into College: Or, How To Write The Essay That Will Get You There,...
Oh, and what not to do. For starters, don’t try to imitate too closely (and definitely do not copy) your older sibling/friend/acquaintance/college essay guidebook’s foolproof example essay. Have a...
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Trouble At The Common Application Website
Problems at the Common App, from Scary to Simply Irritating, With a Few Suggestions on How to Deal With It. For an 11/7/13 update on conditions, read the whole post or just scroll right down to the...
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Back To The University Of Chicago Application Essays: What They Aren’t...
Overview of this Post: I will address the history prompt of the University of Chicago in this post and describe three basic approaches to the prompt, supplemented by a miscellany of ideas and...
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