Get Started on Your Common App College Essay Prompts

Hello (soon-to-be) New Seniors in High School! Well, it’s June, you’ve made it past AP tests, and school is almost out for the summer.  You know what that means!  Time to start college essays!  (sweet)   We can make this less painful and more palatable with just a few short tips.  First let’s look at […]

Key Points in College Essays [VLOG]

Wondering about what the heck you should be writing about in your personal statement? In today’s Vlog Susanna explains the fundamental points that you should cover in your college essays and gives ideas for topics you could address.  

Should I Use A Creative Writing Piece For My Main Essay?

By: Susanna Cerasuolo, M.Ed.   Should your main essay for college be along the lines of a dialogue-filled short story, a cryptic poem, or a lengthy stream of consciousness?  In a word, no. While there are always exceptions, in general, admissions officers are reading college essays at light speed–speed reading, really–and creative writing is not […]

How To Write The "Why Our College" Essay

By: Susanna Cerasuolo, M.Ed.   You, Seniors, are busy writing college essays, and many of you are realizing that there is one beast in the mix that you have no choice but to face down: the perennial evil question, “Why are you applying to our school?”   Many colleges ask this application question, and rightly […]

The Common App 500 Word Limit: 21 MORE Colleges Weigh In

  If you’re stressed about how strict or lenient the new 500-word limit is on the Common Application, read on!   Welcome to our second installment of colleges’ responses to the new 500 word limit for the main essay on the Common Application. For those of you just joining us, the Common App implemented this […]

Write Your College Essays In Summer [VLOG]

The Common App is live now and, Seniors, you can write most of your essays!  Start an application for each of your colleges and before you fill in the data, just get the prompts and paste them into your Essays organizer.  Start all of your rough drafts before school starts, and use our Essay organizer […]

The Best College Admissions Essays I Have Ever Read

By: Susanna Cerasuolo, M.Ed.   In 20 years of reading college essays and giving students advice on this monumental teenage rite of passage, I do have some standout favorite essays of all time.  These are essays that I would go back and read today.  But why?  What was it about these essays that made them […]