College Planning Checklist For Students And Parents

College Planning Checklist For Students And Parents If a student is on the fence, not an early admit or deny, essays will probably be read multiple times by multiple people while an applicant is being discussed. If you were to take bets on the percentage of essays read by college admissions personnel, I’d guess that it would be in the high 90’s. She was able to respond to his rough draft essays with gentle insights and suggestions that helped him rewrite and polish them to perfection. My son goes to a large and lousy public high school and received zero advice on writing college essays. He was floundering blindly through them until we connected with Ariel. One general insight is that students who take risks with the content and the structure of their college essays tend to be more successful across the board. Students should familiarize themselves with the campuses to which they are applying , understand the prompt, and answer from the heart. When parents get involved in the nitty gritty of a college application, some families find conflict arises. If your situation is one where parents can offer opinions that are helpful and if you are the kind of student who is open to listening to suggestions, then surely parents can be good editors. Further, if you have parents who know grammar and writing conventions and can recognize flaws, go ahead and ask parents to help. You might wonder how a huge school would manage reading thousands of essays, but you can trust that they hire extra staff, if necessary, to make sure the entire application gets a close look. The number of readers depends on how “borderline” the applicant is, and the number of applicants being processed. Even colleges who say their essay is “optional,” you shoulod definitely write one. Many of the anecdotes revolve around silly or even comical things students do during the course of the college admissions process. The majority of these anecdotes are drawn from ridiculous mistakes college applicants make in their college essays. Essays give admission officers real insight into the applicant. In any case, what YOU can control is how well your essay describes who you are and gives the admissions person a chance to see things in you that will be an asset to the school. There is no doubt in my mind that Ariel's working with him to edit and clarify the focus of his essays, is what helped put his application 'over the top' into that tiny 'acceptance' pile. An essay is an important part of sharing who you are with a school. With increased competition for admission, the essay has become an important factor in consideration of your admissibility to a school. So if a school requires an essay it is VERY likely to be read. Whereas many highly selective colleges and universities have done away with the essay requirement, the UCs have notably stood firm in their decision. There is a funny article in “The Daily Beast” by Kristina Dell that shares the anecdotes of college admissions counselors from this year’s record batch of applications. It can make all the difference in your admission decision. Different colleges have varying review processes. At almost all selective colleges however, every college essay will be read by multiple people. For many students, finding an objective evaluator who is not a relative to help edit the essay is the best bet. Having a degree in English and being a published writer of college planning articles, and having edited hundreds of essays for students, I would be happy to help you too. Schools that do require the essay feel that strong writing is a good indicator of college readiness and that more information allows them to better evaluate applicants. The University of California is known for valuing as much information as students can fit into their applications, so it’s no surprise that the UCs haven’t dropped the SAT essay requirement. If a school has a writing section in their supplement to the Common Application you can rest assured that ALL of that writing is evaluated by admissions officers. Do your best and assume that it WILL be read and that it WILL have a bearing on your admission chances. There is no way to determine a typical scenario regarding a college’s method for reviewing applications. In all cases at least one admissions officer will look at your essay. If a school uses an admissions committee the number could jump to three or more.