I wrote the book on writing your college essay!
Has yours been spit and polished? Is it ready to go?
The sooner you’re done with the main essay, the more quickly you can move on to the supplemental essays. Don’t lag behind.
If you need help, just email me at winningcollegeessay@gmail.com
Your college essay could be the deciding factor in your admission.
This is your opportunity to write the best essay of your life. Reach out for help from someone who knows how to write. Take 36 seconds to watch the video and then email me at WinningCollegeEssay@gmail.com.
Are you ready to buckle down and write your essay? Are you struggling to find a topic? Let me help. Email winningcollegeessay@gmail.com. To learn more, visit www.collegeessayconfidante.com/workshops.
By now, most seniors are well into the process of applying to college with all teacher recommendations in, main essay written and perfected, and supplemental essays in the works.
If you’re lagging behind and need help, email me. I can help you find a topic for your main essay, or if you’ve started to write it, I can help you edit it and move on to the supplemental essays.
It’s time to start wrapping things up.
The supplements take longer than you might imagine, so don’t wait until the last minute.
Be sure to proof your supplemental essays carefully. I’ve seen errors that would not reflect well if not corrected. Often students cut and paste one essay into another school’s application, but inadvertently leave the first school’s name in the content.
That could be a deal breaker., so let’s get started and get it done!
I’m here to help if you need a professional set of eyes on your essays, email me at winningcollegeessay@gmail.com.
If you need help, come to my informational session on Thursday, Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. at the J.V. Fletcher Library, 50 Main St., Westford. Here’s the registration link.
Care to discuss these tips? I’ll be at the J.V. Fletcher Library , 50 Main St., Westford, on Thursday, Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. to answer your questions, help you find a topic, and show you a writing technique that works for the essay. I can be reached at winningcollegeessay@gmail.com.
Your college application essay can be the ticket to the college of your choice. The essay gives you a chance to differentiate yourself and highlight assets that don’t show up elsewhere on your college application. This is your chance to shine so give yourself the necessary time to make it the best it can be. Joyce Pellino Crane is the College Essay Confidantè. If you need help, email her at winningcollegeessay@gmail.com.
1. Focus! You’ve got a total of only 650 words for the essay. That’s the equivalent of slightly less than one single-spaced page. Cut to the chase and keep it simple. Zero in on a specific event or happenstance that illustrates you learned something, gained insight, matured, or progressed in some other way.
2. Avoid chronology. You don’t have the luxury of endless space. Too often, I’ve seen students write beautiful stories that start from some long-ago beginning. The essay grows to 1,200 words and now the writer is in trouble and the heart of the story must be cut. That’s a painful process and the essay inevitably turns into something unrecognizable to the author.
3. Mine your brain and everyone else’s. Finding a story topic that reflects something meaningful takes time and deep thought. The most effective process I’ve found for generating ideas is brainstorming. Bounce ideas off your family members and friends – look for people in your life who are deep thinkers, write for a living, or know you well. Each spring and summer I hold workshops for rising seniors for the sole purpose of getting to know them and helping them to know themselves. We sit around a conference table and share information. You’d be amazed at the stories the students have inside them without realizing it.
4. Use metaphors to depict life lessons. Show your readers what you want them to know about you instead of telling them. One student, who was planning to become a lawyer, started her second draft like this: “The girl on the bus was my best client. Whenever the driver reprimanded her, I would step up to her defense. That’s me, defender of the weak or the clueless.” Her first draft began like this: “In the second grade I decided that I was going to be the first women president of the United States. I wanted to be the President because I wanted to outlaw smoking, and I wanted to make shelters for black cats.” Do you see the difference?
5. Know your truth. This is the essence of all good essay writing. There is the external you and then there’s the internal you from which springs your emotions, beliefs, and philosophies. The most successful essays I’ve written have come from a scene or occurrence that stirred emotion inside me – an event or feeling I can’t forget. When you are compelled to write about a topic you will know you’ve found your truth. It’s the thing that makes you tick. It’s the stuff that makes your friends love you. It’s the engine that motivates you to reach further and try harder. Pay attention to your emotions and you’ll find that elusive topic.
6. Choose a topic that truly interests you. The Common Application has seven essay prompts. Look them over and decide whether you want to write a personal statement or if you’d prefer to make a persuasive argument. A personal story requires less research but more creativity. A persuasive story requires a lot of thought, research, and accuracy. Regardless of which, your story should stir passion or deep commitment in you. If it doesn’t, search for another topic because if your story doesn’t interest you, it won’t interest your readers and you will be forgotten in the pile of applicant rejects.
7. Just do it. There is no substitute for putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Every author will tell you that no book was ever written inside someone’s head. The process of writing helps you reach a deeper level of thinking. This is the area where your subconscious and conscious mind intersect – from where your best ideas gush. Like Dorothy and her red shoes, you have the means for going home, you just need someone to tell you how. Here’s how: write your first paragraph. Then write your second paragraph. Then your third and finally your fourth. Don’t worry about grammar, spelling or typographical mistakes. Don’t try to make it pretty. All of that can come later. For now, just get the story onto the page.
8. Use action verbs. The best writers eschew adjectives. If you do this, you’ll not only present a more vivid picture, but you’ll save space.
9. Revise! The process of revising and editing your essay will almost certainly spur insight that will improve your writing. Pay attention to grammar, syntax, and spelling.
10. Don’t force the ending. Remember when I said you want to find the intersection of your conscious and subconscious mind? That’s where your best conclusions come from, so if you don’t know how to end your story, turn off your brain for a while and let things percolate. Come back to the essay a day or two later and read it through. Sometimes the perfect ending will pop into your head and you’ll know you’ve nailed it.
11. Sculpt your essay. Now that you’ve got it in final format and you think it’s ready to submit, stop. This is when it’s time to see yourself as Michelangelo with the statue of David before you.
Chisel away. Scrutinize every sentence. Are there extra words that can be eliminated without changing the meaning of the sentence? Are you using precise language? Have you chosen the best words? Are there redundancies?
12. Envision your story as a circle. Envision your essay as a story that ends where it starts and travels around the page as it unfolds. A story with a powerful conclusion often refers back to the beginning but shows resolution and growth.
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Joyce Pellino Crane is the College Essay Confidantè. She is the multimedia news director at Westford Community Access Television and the former editor of the Westford Eagle and Littleton Independent, two community newspapers in Massachusetts. Crane was a Boston Globe correspondent for 10 years and her commentaries have appeared on the Pulitzer Prize-winning paper’s opinion page. She is the recipient of numerous journalism awards including recognition for editorial writing.
HIGH SCHOOL SENIORS:
Have you gotten your parking pass at Westford Academy, yet? If not, I might be able to help.
Come to my FREE College Essay presentation at the J.V. Fletcher Library in Westford on Thursday, Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. I may have a surprise guest or two and I can get you started with a topic and opening sentence.
Guest speaker will be Jack Wang, College financial aid strategist, Longhorn Financial.
Don’t leave your essay to the last minute. (This event is for high school seniors only.)
REGISTER HERE: https://www.collegeessayconfidante.com/…/make-your-college…/
Content provided by WalletHub.
A lot of people probably assume that giving credit cards to college kids is a recipe for trouble, and many students are no doubt among them. But if you ask a diverse sample of college students about their understanding and usage of credit cards, as WalletHub did, the results may just surprise you – in a good, reassuring way.
WalletHub conducted a nationally representative survey of college students, asking about everything from how they’d grade their financial know-how to which spending categories they most want bonus credit card rewards for. You can check out the results in the following infographic.
Identifying the best student credit card is only half the battle. You also need to use it responsibly, avoid common money-management mistakes, and build financial literacy for success after graduation.
The best credit card for college students is Discover it® Student chrome because it has a $0 annual fee, gives 1 – 2% Cash Back on purchases, and doubles all the rewards cardholders earn the first year. The Discover it® Student chrome card also offers an introductory APR of 0% for 6 months on new purchases (14.99% – 23.99% (V) APR after) and has a $0 foreign transaction fee. So it’s a great all-around offer, no matter where your studies take you.
But there are plenty of other contenders, some of which may turn out to be better for you, depending on your exact needs. For example, the best credit card for college students who want to travel is the Bank of America® Travel Rewards Credit Card for Students, which offers an initial bonus of 25,000 points and much more. And the best student credit card for low interest rates is the BankAmericard® Credit Card for Students, which gives 0% for 15 months on purchases and balance transfers, with a $0 annual fee and a $0 balance transfer fee.
But even though WalletHub’s editors have done the work to highlight the best student credit cards on the market, you still have to decide which offer is right for your particular needs. And these rules of thumb will help you pinpoint that plastic.
To identify the best credit cards for college students, WalletHub’s editors compare 1,000+ credit card offers based on their approval requirements, rewards, rates and fees. We focus on student-branded credit cards with $0 annual fees because they tend to be the best deals and are relatively easy for college students with limited-to-no credit history to get.
Keeping costs down and establishing responsible habits are key for college students. So we generally recommend getting a credit card with great rewards and paying the bill in full every month. However, our best-card picks typically include options with low interest rates, too.
Although credit card companies typically offer the best limited-credit deals to students, WalletHub’s editors also consider general-purpose credit cards for which some students may be eligible. For example, students who have already made mistakes with credit or are concerned about overspending may want to consider a secured credit card. And students who already have good credit as a result of being an authorized user on a parent’s account may want a higher-level card.
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Content provided by Education Next.
“Drops in foreign-student enrollment are nothing new: between 2003 and 2005 the numbers fell by a little more than 8 percent, but they began to rebound a few years later,” writes Alex Usher of Higher Education Strategy Associates in a new article for Education Next. “If there is greater concern…now than 15 years ago,…it is probably because international-student revenues make up a much larger proportion of most institutions’ budgets now.” Amid a 6.6 percent drop in new international-student enrollments last year, college officials and major media outlets alike have pointed to President Trump’s rhetoric and visa policies as undercutting demand for U.S. higher education among foreign students. The cause of dwindling enrollment, however, is rooted in both global and domestic trends, reports Usher:
For more details read “Has President Trump Scared Away All the Foreign Students? The facts behind fears of a higher-education revenue recession.” To speak with the author, please contact Jackie Kerstetter at jackie.kerstetter@ |
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Content provided by LendEDU.
For the fourth consecutive year, LendEDU is pleased to once again publish our annual Student Loan Debt by School by State Report, an in-depth analysis of student loan debt figures at nearly 1,000 four-year private and public higher education institutions across the United States.
While the figures change each year, the narrative certainly does not; student loan debt continues to be a growing issue in the U.S. and at nearly all schools in the country as the cost of college continues to rise.
Nationally, outstanding student loan debt sits at $1.52 trillion, making it the second largest form of consumer debt trailing only mortgages.
On an individual scale, the average borrower from the Class of 2018 received their diploma and left campus with $28,565 in student loan debt, up from $28,288 that was owed by the average Class of 2017 borrower.
Because of these eye-popping numbers that have now elevated the issue of student loan debt to the national scale as evident by the recent 2020 Democratic debates, LendEDU places tremendous value on the annual Student Loan Debt by School by State Report.
Through licensing data from the annual Peterson’s financial aid survey, we can keep both current and future college students up-to-date on which institutions tend to lead to high levels of student loan debt, and which bring on the opposite, but more welcomed, outcome .
Further, as Congress continues to discuss the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act that could potentially hold certain schools more accountable for egregious student debt levels, this school-specific report could be extremely valuable for lawmakers and administrators alike.
Peterson’s voluntary financial aid survey collects responses from nearly 1,000 four-year public and private institutions of higher education. The subsequent data allows us to provide the following valuable information on each of those schools for our readers:
The LendEDU team has worked diligently to compile this data and organize it in a user-friendly manner. If you have questions about this report, please email brown@lendedu.com.
It is our hope that by reading LendEDU’s fourth annual Student Loan Debt by School by State Report, you are inspired to have productive conversations about student loan debt and the cost of college in the U.S.
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