The College Essay Confidantè tells you why writing a well-composed, compelling essay can make a difference in the college acceptance process.

A new workshop is scheduled for Wednesday, June 27, 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Westford. REGISTER HERE.

High School juniors, are you panicking as junior year ends and you face the prospect of having a college essay to write and college applications to complete?

Attend my college prep night on Thursday, June 28, 7 to 9 p.m. in the Chelmsford Public Library, 25 Boston Road, Chelmsford. We’ll tell you everything you need to know about applying for college and answer all your questions.

The event is free-of-charge and open to rising seniors and their parents.

REGISTER HERE: https://www.collegeessayconfidante.com/events/

Panelists: 

Andrew N. Carter, Senior Associate Director, Office of Admissions, College of the Holy Cross;

Julie Shields-Rutyna, Director of College Planning at the Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority.

Joyce Pellino Crane, the College Essay Confidante, specializing in help with brainstorming college essay topics.

Questions? Email winningcollegeessay@gmail.com.

The College Essay Confidantè is holding a workshop to help rising seniors brainstorm topics for their college essays. 

The three-hour workshop is limited to 6 students. It meets on Wednesday, June 27 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. The workshop will take place at a Westford location. The address will be provided to registrants.

Students will leave with a solid topic and the opening paragraph for their essay. The College Essay Confidantè will review a finished draft if the essay is completed by a mutually determined deadline.

We’ll do brainstorming exercises to help you know yourself better and think deeply about a topic that will help an admissions officer know you better.

SEATS WILL SELL! PURCHASE NOW; collegeessayconfidante.com/workshops.

The New York Times has just released this year’s standout essays by graduating seniors.

The essays are a testimony to how the simplest or most mundane thing about your life could become a compelling story. I often tell my students that I could write an essay about brushing my teeth and make you want to read it. [Email me if you’d like assistance with writing your essay: winningcollegeessay@gmail.com.]

Each of these essays has something in common. Notice how each one begins in the middle of an action or a thought. That’s an important aspect of the college essay because space is limited. Knowing how to begin is the key to your success.

Here are the opening paragraphs of each of the essays published in the NY Times on May 11 [Click here to read the complete essays]:

“My grandmother hovers over the stove flame, fanning it as she melodically hums Kikuyu spirituals. She kneads the dough and places it on the stove, her veins throbbing with every movement: a living masterpiece painted by a life of poverty and motherhood. The air becomes thick with smoke and I am soon forced out of the walls of the mud-brick house while she laughs.” —  Eric Ngugi Muthondu

“I always assumed my father wished I had been born a boy.” — Alison Hess

“Not all sons of doctors raise baby ducks and chickens in their kitchen. But I do. My dad taught me.” — Jeffrey C. Yu

“’Nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.’ Not only do Benjamin Franklin’s words still resonate today, but, if you are like most, filing income taxes is simply unpleasant.”     – Caroline S. Beit

Seniors, if you’d like to share the essay you wrote for college admission, send it to winningcollegeessay@gmail.com and, if it’s a standout, I’ll post it here. [The editor reserves the right to reject essays deemed inappropriate in any way — including language, content, and grammar .] 

I often talk to my students about their “true essence.” What I mean by this is that I want them to truly understand who they are for all their talents, skills, assets, foibles, and insecurities. That’s not easy to do. It takes courage to face our less attractive traits and admit them to ourselves. But once we’re able to do this, we start to get a clearer picture of ourselves.

LET’S PLAY A GAME

Here’s a quick game to help you get started. Come up with one word to describe yourself for each letter of the alphabet, A through Z. Are you alert, aware, agile, awesome?

Would you describe yourself as zany, zen-like, zealous? (Z words are not so easy to come up with!) This game is designed to make you think about yourself in a detailed way as you begin the process of getting to know yourself intimately. Understanding yourself and skimming over your daily life will help you find an essay topic that engages you.

If you’d like some help, sign up for my upcoming workshop here.

[Chestnut Hill, MA, March 12, 2018] The Commission on Institutions of Higher Education voted to maintain accreditation for Pine Manor College, following an intensive review process, positioning the College to continue to capitalize on the many opportunities to better serve its students. Pine Manor College has been a continuously accredited college since 1939. 

“We are succeeding on all fronts,” says College President Thomas M. O’Reilly. “The graduation rate is up. Enrollment is up. The College is generating operating surpluses. Our graduates are going on to advanced studies or full-time employment. This fall and winter, we also won athletic conference championships in soccer and basketball. We have experienced overwhelming support from our alumnae/i and mission-aligned friends, and our fundraising efforts have been strong. We are proud of these achievements and pleased that the regional accreditation organization has taken note of these accomplishments.” 

This turning point builds on a history of meeting the needs of a traditionally underserved population. Roughly 85 percent of Pine Manor College’s student body is represented by students of color. Eighty-four percent of students are the first in their families to attend college. Eighty percent are low-income, and 50 percent multi-lingual. Pine Manor College’s graduation rate for this demographic is roughly 4X’s the national average with 100 percent of its graduates securing employment or going on to pursue advanced learning within six months of graduation. 

The accreditation review consisted of an extensive 200+ page report detailing financial performance and stability, organization and governance, student support and outcomes, mission and purpose, as well as an audit by a five-person on-site visiting committee, and a twenty-one-person commission review of all findings. A key to earning this vote of confidence was the College’s remarkable financial performance. The College has built a strong, sustainable financial model that generated operating surpluses in each of the last two fiscal years, following more than fifteen years of operating losses. The college is targeted to generate an operating surplus again this current fiscal year (ending June 30, 2018), and will provide financial reporting as it heads to that goal and beyond. 

With the support of many in our community, and despite a national trend against small liberal arts colleges, Pine Manor College has found a pathway forward both academically and financially. Part of the solution was to recognize non-tuition opportunities to create revenue. “With 40 percent of our revenue coming from a consistent flow of non-tuition-based sources, we operate in the black and deliver superior services to our students,” says O’Reilly. 

O’Reilly credits a strategic repositioning of program implementation to ensure the College continues to meet the needs of its students. The president also credits the work of the board of trustees and the faculty and staff in this change. “What happened? We got really intentional about what we believe in and are committed to doing,” O’Reilly says. “We are serving an incredibly important group of young people and we are succeeding. We meet our students where they are and make sure that everything we do is about them. We call it Educating with Purpose.”