Meet Stephanie!

Our newest essay coach, Stephanie, is guest blogging with an introduction today!

She started a while back, so many of you have already met her in essay coaching meetings. We hope this post helps you get to know her a little better.

Greetings! I'm Stephanie Leow, a new essay coach at DC College Counseling. 

College essays have fascinated me since high school. As a Northern Virginia native with huge college dreams, I felt the admissions process looming over my head. Dedicated mentors guided me through drafting an essay about goofing multiple piano recitals, but still maintaining my love for playing when no one was watching. That essay is still one of my favorite pieces I've ever written--a feeling that I hope to foster in other writers.

With that essay, I applied to three schools--Georgetown University, University of Pennsylvania, and University of Virginia--and was grateful to be accepted to all of them. I chose Georgetown because of the community I had found at the admitted students weekend. Although I entered college undecided, leaving the remnants of my pre-med ambitions in high school, I ended up studying a trifecta of language: a double major in Linguistics and English and a minor in Spanish. 

I've always aspired to be a professor, but was unsure of my area of study until I began working at the writing center as a sophomore. I felt an affinity to the center, even becoming the Teaching Assistant for the training course. As much as I loved learning about literature or second language acquisition, I had a stronger passion. At my core, I geek out for writing.

I graduated from Georgetown in the top 5% of my class, and now I am pursuing a PhD in English (Writing, Rhetorics, and Literacies) and teaching first year writing at Arizona State University. I have researched students' cognitive processes while writing essays and their representations of identity in personal essays, as I strive to incorporate my takeaways into my coaching practices.

Beneath all of my work is my love for storytelling. I engage with creative writing communities and literacy magazines, as well as cook, garden, and travel. But any interest is even better when I can share it, so I hope I can share my passion for storytelling with you! I'm looking forward to learning about your adventures, adorations, awkward moments, and aspirations. For these reasons, I'm thrilled to be working with DC College Counseling.

Want to meet with Stephanie?

You can book a session right here!

Wondering who our other essay coaches are?

• Here’s Alan, with Top Tips for Success as a College Freshman (a.k.a. Read the Syllabus)

• Here’s McClain, with Maximizing the High School Experience: A Teacher’s Perspective

• Here’s Staci, our student success coach!

Interview Series 3 - Make a Good Impression

If you’ve read our previous interview series posts, you’ve signed up for the interview and prepared some questions to ask your interviewer. Now the day is here, and while you know you’ve got the content prepared, you’re worried about making an impression. Well, you’ve come to the right place! Read on for our tips to put your best foot forward during your interview - before you even say a word.

Lay out your outfit the night before.

Choosing what to wear (and making sure it’s clean!) the day before your interview will eliminate a lot of stress for you in the morning. Sometimes, the school will provide guidelines about attire in your interview invitation or confirmation email, so make sure to read those carefully. If you’re still not sure, err on the side of dressing more formally: a shirt and jacket for boys and a nice blouse and skirt or slacks for girls are usually appropriate! Business casual should be your default, even in a more informal informational interview - remember, every time you interact with the admissions office, you’re making an impression. 

(Note - If you’re wondering what to wear for a campus visit that does NOT involve an interview, check out our blog post on the subject here).

Avoid fidgeting!

Especially when you’re nervous, it’s natural to get a bit fidgety. You might not even notice you’re doing it! So eliminating anything that you’re tempted to play with is a good idea. That means avoiding necklaces, bracelets, watches, or earrings that you’ll be tempted to toy with, and even pinning or slicking back the front of your hair so that you don’t feel the need to push it out of your face. And if you are interviewing on Zoom, avoid sitting in an office chair that spins - that spinning will be very tempting during the interview!

Pay attention to your introduction.

Some research shows that it takes as little as a tenth of a second for someone to make an impression of who you are - so it definitely doesn’t hurt to make sure those first few seconds of the interview leave a positive impression on the interviewer. When you meet them, introduce yourself warmly, smile, and make eye contact. If you need to wait for the interviewer in a waiting room or Zoom room, sit and look around or read brochures about the school if they are provided - you don’t want the interviewer to walk in/log on and see you looking at your phone.

Arriving ten minutes early is a great way to calm your nerves. You could even find a private place to take some deep breaths or even strike a power pose, and walk into the interview feeling confident. 

But don’t arrive too early - when I worked in admissions, it would always drive me a little crazy when kids showed up 30-60+ minutes in advance - and a huge number actually did this. I’m sure they thought that showing up earlier would make them look better, but this was not the case at all.

Instead, I would feel unspoken pressure in these situations to start before our scheduled time if I wasn’t in a different meeting. This would in turn disrupt my schedule and often meant that I had to cut my lunch short! And you don’t want your interviewer to start off the interview annoyed and hungry, trust me :)

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Interviews can be nerve-wracking, but this is really an exciting opportunity - you get to show the admissions office who you are and help them put a face and a personality to the words on your application! You are meeting with someone who wants you to be successful, because that’s how they’ll get to know you better.

Follow these tips and walk into the interview with confidence, and you’ll be ready for a valuable conversation! If you need more help, though, you can always book an interview preparation session to work on these tips with one of our coaches. 

Want more about essays and interviews? Check out these posts!

Meet Sarah!

Our newest essay coach, Sarah, is guest blogging with an introduction today!

Many of you have already met her in essay coaching meetings, and we hope this post helps you get to know her a little better.

Hi, everyone! My name is Sarah Zentner and I am so excited to be joining the DC College Counseling team as a new essay coach.  

My own common app essay consisted of the life lessons I’d learned from the scraps that I was always appalled to find under the lunch tables in first grade -- and while it has yet to be required reading for any college philosophy class (I’m still holding out hope!), it was a blast to write. 

With that essay, I applied to a number of small (primarily West Coast) liberal arts colleges and ultimately decided on the University of San Diego. Only a six hour drive down I-15 from my childhood home in Las Vegas, and decked out in gorgeous Spanish-Renaissance-style architecture, the setting was ideal. But the small class sizes, strong sense of campus community, and proximity to the Pacific (with ocean views from campus!) sealed the deal.

I declared an English major during my sophomore year, thanks to an incredible Intro to Shakespeare class and my new job in the campus writing center. Both of these experiences showed me how much I love working with words and writers, and that’s a passion that has energized me to this day! After graduating from USD, I went on to pursue my M.A. in English at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, and now I’m here in D.C., earning my Ph.D. in English at Catholic University. When I’m not studying, you can find me scoping out the best chai latte in D.C., wandering in a bookstore or museum, or indulging in all things “hygge.” 

I connected with DC College Counseling earlier this spring, and I am so grateful to be a part of a team that’s committed to de-mystifying the college applications process and making it as stress-free as possible. Essay writing can be an intimidating part of that process, but I want you to feel encouraged and supported every step of the way.

There’s something deeply fulfilling to me about helping others write clear and engaging content -- especially when it’s serving a goal as important and defining as helping you attend the college of your dreams! As we work together in the coming months, I’m looking forward to hearing more about your experiences and interests, your college plans, and your long-term hopes for the future. I’m excited to meet you!

Want to meet with Sarah?

You can book a session right here!

Wondering who our other essay coaches are?

• Here’s Alan, with Top Tips for Success as a College Freshman (a.k.a. Read the Syllabus)

• Here’s McClain, with Maximizing the High School Experience: A Teacher’s Perspective

• Here’s Staci, our student success coach!

Interview Series 2 - Ask the Right Questions

In our blog post last week, we talked about signing up for interviews and how to find out if the colleges on your list are offering interview opportunities in the summer, before you apply. 

This week, we’re continuing the conversation by discussing some of the different types of interviews that you may encounter during the college process!

Interview with an Admissions Officer

At some schools, you will be interviewed by an admissions officer - someone who works for the school reviewing applications and making admissions decisions. So naturally, you want to put your best foot forward - if you impress this person, they will be able to advocate for you to the rest of the admissions committee! 

If you are interviewing after you’ve applied for admission, the interviewer will likely have access to your application, so they may have been able to review the materials you’ve submitted. In this case, it is possible that the person will have specific questions for you about activities or experiences that you mentioned in your application. 

(PRO TIP: We all know that the hours per week/ weeks per year approximations in the activity section of your application can involve extensive calculations, since you can’t vary the time commitment from season to season or year to year.

Since you may not be able to just think back on the spot and remember the final calculation you put in your application, please re-review your activities list and familiarize yourself with this information before your interview.

Worst case, if the interviewer asks you about your time commitment and you freeze up, just explain that you don’t have the math in front of you and you can’t remember the final number, but explain your general thought process -> “Before Covid, I danced for 15 hours per week during spring and fall, but..”

Whatever you do, do not make a number up! One of the things I remember most about my time giving admissions interviews was that so many kids mentioned time estimates for activities that didn’t line up with what they put down on their applications, and discrepancies always set off red flags about possible deception.)

The other type of interview that admissions officers may offer is an “informational interview.” This is an interview that does not have a formal impact on your application - meaning that the interviewer probably will not fill out a report that is added to your file. However, do not assume this means that you do not need to prepare! You definitely do not want to make a negative impression on an admissions officer, even in a more informal, informational setting. And just think about human nature - if they like you, they might go to bat for you. If they don’t, well..

For either type of interview, make sure that you prepare questions for the interviewer. These shouldn’t be questions that you can easily find on the school’s website - you want at least one or two questions that show that you’ve done some research. Here are some good questions to ask an admissions officer:

1. I was [Insert Emotion Here] to read about [Insert Story Here] in the campus newspaper online. Can you tell me [Insert Follow-Up Question Here]? (For example: I was very impressed to read about the new alumni mentoring initiative in the campus newspaper online. Can you tell me if this will be available to all students or just upperclassmen?)

2. What do you think is the most important quality for a [Insert Name of College] student to have?

3. I really loved learning about [Insert Cool Thing Here]. Does [Insert Name of College] have any other unique offerings that you wish were available to you at the college you attended? (For example: I really loved learning about how students laminate their notes during exams so they can study in the amazing leisure pool! Does Miami have any other unique offerings that you wish were available to you at the college you attended? 

Interview with an Alumnus or Alumna

Many schools have an alumni interview program through which graduates of the college can volunteer to interview students in their area (or, increasingly during COVID, virtually). Unlike an admissions officer, the alumni interviewer will likely not have access to your application. They may have a list of your activities or request a copy of your resume, or they may not know anything about you at all! In this type of interview, you can draw on the stories that you told in your application to represent your positive qualities and experiences. You may need to do a bit more “explaining” of your classes and activities, as this person probably does not have the context of your grades or activity list that an admissions officer might. 

But don’t think that this is an informal interview just because you are not meeting directly with an admissions representative! These types of interviews can vary widely depending on the school and personality of the individual interviewer, so be prepared for a formal interview and be flexible when it comes to engaging in conversation with the interviewer. 

Alumni interviewers are usually passionate about their alma mater, so you can ask questions that draw on their experience as a student! Here are some ideas: 

1. What did you like best about being in [Insert Location Here] and how did you take advantage of what the city has to offer?

2. What quality did you develop as a result of your time at [Insert Name of College]? How did this quality help you after graduation? 

3. What is one thing you wish you had done while at [Insert Name of College], but didn’t have time?

Interview with a Current Student

Finally, you may be offered an interview with a current student - typically an upperclassman. These students may be volunteers with the admissions office, but like alumni interviewers, they probably won’t have access to your transcript or application materials, so you can help them get to know you by providing more context when you talk about your experiences. 

While an interview with a current student may seem less formal than an interview with an alumnus or admissions officer, keep in mind that this person is still evaluating you! You want to be personable and comfortable while still making a positive impression. And while this person may only be a few years older than you, please keep romance out of the equation (yes, this actually happens)!

Don’t forget - an interview with a student can be just as beneficial to you as it is to the school. You want to take advantage of the opportunity to ask the interviewer questions that only a current student could answer!

Here are some ideas for questions to ask a current student: 

1. What advice would you give to an incoming freshman? What would you encourage them to do or join to help integrate them into the school community?

2. What are your favorite courses you have taken at [Insert Name of College]? Are there any classes that are unique to the school?

3. I’ve been to an info session with an admissions officer, but I’m really interested in the student perspective as well. What’s something about [Insert Name of College] that I wouldn’t know from the info session and tour?

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No matter where you are interviewing or who you’re talking to, you can have a successful experience if you come prepared! Practice asking and answering questions at home with your parents or a trusted friend, or set up an interview session with us for extra help. Vault Members and current clients can also see a list of interview questions and best practices by referring to the “Interview Guide” in the Membership Vault. 

Good luck on those interviews!

It's Time To Talk About Interviews - Yes, Really!

We always try to make sure that our blog posts are useful to you at the point in the cycle that you are at now - so why are we posting about interviews in July??

Many schools actually begin offering interviews to prospective students over the summer before they apply, and often this opportunity is not very well-publicized. But we highly recommend that students take advantage of interviews where possible! This is a great way to demonstrate your interest in the school as well as help admissions officers put a face to a name this fall when they are considering your application. 

If you already have your interviews scheduled, make sure that you check out our earlier blog posts with some key tips for interviews and some info on virtual interviewing. But if you are reading this and thinking, Interviews?? What interviews?? Oh my gosh, I’m so far behind! - take a deep breath and read on for some key questions to research and get ahead on interviews now!

Which of my schools offer interviews?

For our ongoing clients, we contact each and every school on their lists to determine their interview policy. Some schools require interviews for admission, and others do not offer them at all. Then, there are all those in the middle - interviews may be “optional,” “highly recommended,” “informational,” even required for certain programs and not others. 

 Your first step toward handling interviews like a pro is to search up the policies for each school on your list. There is no shame in contacting the main admissions office email, either, to ask about their interview policy - this just shows that you are proactive and interested in the school! Just make sure that before you do so, you put in the work of scouring the website for the information (as a general rule, don’t email the admissions office for any information that is easily accessible on their site, but do email with thoughtful questions!).

How are interviews arranged?

Among the schools that do offer interviews, there are many different ways that they work. The two most important questions to ask are:

1. Do students or the school initiate the interview?

2. Can I interview before I apply?

Some schools do not allow students to sign up to interview - the school will contact applicants with interview offers after applicants click submit. Offers may be extended to students that they want to admit, or those that they are not sure would be a good fit and want to learn more about.

That said, don’t read into it. What’s more common is that the school offers the opportunity to every single applicant, or every applicant from certain geographic areas where alumni are present to handle the interviews. If the school is invitation-only and you are in contact with the admissions office, you can always express your interest in being asked to interview. If you do so early enough, some schools will take this preference into account!

At other schools, you will need to be the one to initiate the interview, whether through an applicant portal or other forms of online sign-ups. This is where you need to be very clear about each school’s policy - you don’t want to miss your opportunity!

Regarding the timeline, some schools require students to wait for interviews after applying, but others allow interviews as early as the summer before senior year. Yes, if you’re a member of the Class of 2022, that means right now!

If the school does offer interviews to students before applying, it is very possible that they will run out of interview slots quickly. Make sure that you sign up as soon as you can, in these circumstances, to take advantage of the opportunity (William & Mary, for example, is a school where it is very beneficial to interview over the summer). Wake Forest is a school that has historically encouraged students to self-initiate an interview before applying, but they have changed their policy beginning this application cycle.

So, should I interview?

This is the question that we hear most often - so, this school offers interviews, should I sign up? Nine times out of ten, the answer is yes! An interview lets you demonstrate your interest in the school, helps the admissions office get to know you, and helps you get to ask questions and get to know the school a bit better. Generally, it is a win-win for everyone, provided that you have time to prepare and put your best foot forward. 

That said, there are definite caveats to this rule of thumb. If you are particularly shy or have real trouble speaking to strangers, or know that there is no way you’d present well in an interview setting (and would not be able to do so no matter how much you practice) an interview may not be the best choice. Be honest with yourself, and ask a parent, family member, or trustworthy advisor if you need help deciding whether an interview is the right choice. 

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Still not sure you’re ready to tackle an interview? Current clients and Vault Members can book interview prep sessions with us now!

Keep an eye out for next week’s post, where we’ll cover different types of interviews that you may be offered and some frequently asked questions!

Supplemental Essay Secrets Revealed!

Are you hoping to write some amazing supplemental essays during the 2021-2022 admissions cycle? You’re in the right place.. because we are the supplemental essay gurus!

Here at DC College Counseling, nearly all of our Class of 2022 students have already begun work on their 2021-2022 supplemental essays. In fact, most of them started this work before any schools had released their supplemental essay prompts!

Our process allows our students to finish their (amazing) essays with the least amount of stress, and we are definitely not submitting anything the night before the deadline. Students who begin working with us before the end of their junior year complete and submit their college applications by September - yes, 2-4 months in advance!

If you’re wondering why we submit so early, there are a few reasons:

• Students are able to do their best work when they are not rushed and stressed

• The home environment is much more pleasant when parents don’t need to nag

• Even before opening their files, admissions officers will jump to lots of conclusions about the types of 17-year-olds that turn their application materials in far before the deadlines. Spoiler alert: they are good conclusions :) That may not be fair, but it’s human nature and we’ll take it!

Keep reading for a sneak peek into our process and how we get it done:

1. Common App ® comes first.

Even though some of our students start their supplemental essays as early as April, we make sure that every student completes their main essay for the Common Application ® first. That way, when we approach the supplemental essays, we know what the college will already know from the student’s main essay - and where the gaps are! This order is essential, because the Common App ® essay will go to nearly every school on the student’s list, and we need to avoid overlap with the supplemental essays in order to show as many different aspects of the student’s background and personality as possible. 

2. Getting a head start.

Before our students even look at the school-specific supplemental essay prompts, they complete four different “generic supplemental essays,” as we call them. Even though no school will see these exact essays, they still put in 4-6 hours of work with our essay coaches to make sure every line is perfect. Why? Because we’ve identified four themes that come up again and again in the supplemental essay process, and it makes sense to start there. Once the generic essays are complete, students have a strong base of options and can repurpose language they’ve already written - considerably speeding up the essay writing process!

3. Moving to school-specific essay prompts. 

Yes, schools have until August 1 to release their supplemental essay prompts for the coming year. However, many schools do release prompts early, and others do not publicly release the prompts, but are able to confirm them over the phone. We do the work of sifting through to ensure that our students begin the prompts soon after they are released over the summer, freeing up their time in August to tackle those later essays. Want to get the same head start? Check out our listing of supplemental essay prompts for the class of 2022, which we update every week as new prompts come out! 

4. Revision, revision, revision.

A college essay will typically have at least two readers, if not more, who bring different perspectives and biases to the process. We try our best to mimic that process, ensuring that every single essay is not only approved by a coach, but also by Colleen or Shannon as the secondary reader, to make sure we catch any potential issues! The essays are also reviewed by the parents and family, and then Colleen and Shannon again, before they are added to the application. 

5. Finish by September

Senior fall grades can be vitally important in the college admissions process, especially for students who are deferred from their dream school during the early rounds and need to provide grades at the end of the semester. Plus, often students are taking their most challenging high school courses this year! Thanks to our process, they can often put the supplemental essays behind them as early as September and spend the rest of the fall focusing on their grades and excelling in their last year of high school. 

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Questions about the supplemental essay process? Comment below and we’ll answer in a future blog post! Want some more help moving through the process outlined above? All of our materials, as well as our generic supplemental essay prompts and method, are laid out for you in our DIY Membership Vault! 

2021-2022 Common Application ® Essay Prompts Released for the Class of 2022

It’s about time!

This year’s Common Application ® essay prompts were released much later than in years past, and it sounds like a lot of thought went into them- two committees were involved, and experts in psychology and gratitude were consulted.

That said, there were ultimately only two shifts from last year:

Shift #1: The long-standing “problem-solving” prompt was phased out.

Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma—anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

Shift #2: A new prompt, meant to “validate the importance of gratitude and kindness,” was added.

Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

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I think the new prompt is adorable… for a social media post, conversation with friends, or maybe a therapy session. But not a college essay!

It’s cute, and would be fun to write - especially during such a depressing year.

Our friends at the Common App ® wrote that the experts who helped develop the new prompt “believe the new choice will generate stories that students are inspired to write and that colleges are excited to read.”

They continued: “An essay prompt can’t erase the loss and anxiety of the last 12 months, but it can validate the importance of gratitude and kindness. We hope students see the new prompt for what it is intended to be: an invitation to bring some joy into their application experience.”

Totally fair. In fact, I actually could not agree more.

An essay on this topic would be inspiring to write and exciting to read, and who wouldn’t feel a little more positive after spending time brainstorming examples of nice things that other people have done to make them happy or thankful?! I certainly agree that writing this essay would be enjoyable.

I think that the gratitude experts may have missed a critical piece of information here, though - we don’t write college essays for the enjoyment. We write them for a purpose.

That’s not to say that we don’t want the experience to be enjoyable, too; we definitely do. We make it as fun as we can - but the two don’t need to be mutually exclusive. And let’s be honest, people don’t come to us for entertainment purposes.

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Revisiting the Purpose of a College Essay

The first thing our juniors do in the essay writing process is learn about the purpose of a college essay, which I covered at length last year in a blog post on the topic:

Focus on the message, not the story. The #1 concern I hear from students and parents is that they just don’t know what to write about. This is especially the case from students in Northern Virginia, who have often just lived a normal, suburban lifestyle - no huge tragedies or adversity to overcome. The good news is that with a few exceptions (we’ll get to those), it honestly doesn’t matter what you write about. I swear. An amazing topic is not what makes an amazing essay.

What will make an amazing essay will be an authentic snapshot into your personality - a characteristic that you can share about yourself that really captures who you are. Maybe it’s a cool way you think, an odd quirk, or an interesting habit you have. If you are working on this alone without our help, talk to your parents, siblings, friends, and teachers about characteristics that make you unique. What are you “known for”? It doesn’t have to be fancy or impressive!

Once you have something in mind, back into a story that clearly showcases the characteristic. Again, it’s not really about the story itself (caveat to come!); instead, it’s about how well the story showcases the characteristic… how authentic it sounds!

That said, try as hard as you can to try to avoid cliche, overused, and/or inappropriate topics. If you feel like you HAVE to write about a cliche story, write about one that is loosely related to it (so you are able to reference or mention whatever it is without having your whole essay revolve around it).

End by considering how you will be able to apply that characteristic in the short-term and/or long-term future, to be able to make a difference in a positive way.

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Revisiting What the Purpose of a College Essay is NOT

• A way to bring joy into a student’s application experience

• A way to validate gratitude and kindness from others

• A way to appreciate what may have been overlooked in a student’s life

• A way to inspire students to write

Don’t get me wrong. These are all great things, and they’d make great journal entries, conversations with friends, or topics to cover in therapy. And if a student can emerge from the application process as a more joyful or grateful person (or feel more validated), no one would be happier than me. Truly.

But we’ve got to keep our priorities straight here! Even if the essay turns out to be very exciting for an admissions officer to read, that doesn’t mean that the admissions officer learned anything new about the candidate or that the candidate is more likely to be accepted.

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With that said, here’s the full list of 2021-2022 Common Application ® Essay prompts

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

4. Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

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Pro Tips on Prompt Selection

• As I keep reiterating, the purpose of the essay is to share a message. Go with the prompt that offers the best way to get that message across - whether it’s the new prompt or an old prompt! That being said, I’ve been doing this for a while and I don’t think it’s going to be easy to accomplish this goal with the new prompt, even if it provides a more enjoyable essay writing experience.

• I actually found the “retired” prompt about problem solving to be a great way to demonstrate some very positive characteristics - critical thinking skills, creativity, and so forth. That was probably my second-favorite prompt and I’m pretty bummed that it’s not going to be an option anymore.

• The prompt that is my all-time favorite, though, is still here: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. Remember, what’s right for one student is not going to be right for another, so I’m not suggesting that this is a good choice for everyone. But for most students, this prompt offers the easiest way to share a unique characteristic in the context of an interesting story while also looking forward to the future by showing growth.

• I also really like this one: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? That said, you need to be careful. Writing about overcoming a “failure” that shows persistence, creativity, or out-of-the box thinking is awesome - but writing about what you learned from the time you got in trouble for smoking pot in the parking lot of your high school? Not so much.

• My least favorite is the last one: Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design. Never say never, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a response to this one that I liked. Essays that respond to this prompt are typically sort of direction-less and don’t share a clear message.

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Our Class of 2022 students will begin their essay writing process later this week or next week, and almost all of them will wrap up right around spring break. Like we always say, it’s going to feel so amazing to have that done and out of the way with very little stress. Our juniors will then be able to shift their focus to working with us to prepare information for their teacher and counselor recommendations, along with writing supplemental essay material.

If your family isn’t working with us yet, sign up for a no-obligation Meet & Greet to learn how we can help your student - and why an amazing college essay and an enjoyable writing experience do not have to be mutually exclusive! We make the process as easy as possible for our families while still keeping the right priorities at the forefront!

Zoom College Interview Tips and Tricks

Now that we are approaching interview season for many of our Class of 2021 seniors (interviews for early applicants often start in November), it seems like a good time to provide you with some tips and tricks for interviewing via Zoom. Our new digital world has given us a whole host of potential issues that can crop up during interviews, and the process is stressful enough for students as it is! Follow our tips for a smooth, stress-free interviewing experience. For our current clients, you can also book an Interview Prep session with us to hone your skills and make sure your Zoom presence is as strong as possible. 

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1. Pay attention to your background. 

This may seem like an obvious suggestion, but it is important to point out: before your interview, make sure that your space is clean and clutter-free. Your background should be neutral and professional. A bookshelf, a few understated decorations, or a plain wall are all good options. Please, please do NOT have your bed behind you during the interview - I know that it can be a struggle to find a space when everyone is working and learning from home, but if you absolutely must conduct the interview in your bedroom, angle the camera away from your bed or use a Zoom background. 

Check out the angle of my monitor - it is set up that way intentionally so that the bookcase is in the background instead of the windows behind me.

Also, make sure that you set up your space in a less-trafficked area of your household, and put a sign on the door to warn family members and other people in the house to steer clear. You don’t want the interviewer to hear dogs barking or siblings and other family members moving and talking in the background, and the noise may interrupt your concentration as well. 

Finally, don’t forget to put your phone on silent in advance of the meeting!

2. Set up your lighting in advance.

It is easy not to think about your lighting until the day of the interview, but please make sure your space is set up ahead of time, and use your webcam to check exactly what the interviewer will see during your Zoom session. One good option is to do the interview while facing a window, or to move a lamp just behind your computer or webcam, to ensure your face is lit evenly. Check the lighting around the same time of day as you will have your eventual interview - a room that is bright with morning sun at 8:00 am may be dark and shadowy by the afternoon! 

3. Work your angles.

If you are using a laptop placed on a desk in front of you for the interview, the webcam will be lower than your face, creating an awkward angle for the interviewer. In order to present yourself head-on, use books, boxes, or a lap desk underneath your laptop, so that your webcam is at eye level and you can speak into the camera. 

The Container Store offers some inexpensive options for monitor stands, if you’d like to up your game a little bit. This is the one I bought for myself and I like this one too.

I know it is hard to resist, but try not to watch yourself during the interview. If you’ve followed these tips, you’ve already tested your camera and lighting, so you know what you look like! Pin the interviewer’s video to your screen, and look into or just below your webcam when speaking, so the interviewer can see that you are focused and engaged in the conversation. 

4. Keep parents out of it.

No, not out of the interview process entirely - parents are a great resource to help you plan an appropriate background, test your camera and sound system, and even help you with a practice interview. But once you are in front of the interviewer, it is time for parents to step away. It is obvious to interviewers when a parent is in the room with you, even if they are offscreen. You want the interviewer to know that you can be independent and self-reliant in college, so politely ask parents to wait outside. 

A similar point about notes: it is great to be prepared with interview notes and questions. I recommend pulling them up on your computer screen ahead of time, so you can refer to them without looking away from the interviewer, if necessary. That said, you want to spend most of your interview time focused on your conversation, so make sure to spend time getting familiar with the school and going over your materials in advance.

5. Troubleshoot your tech.

Well before your interview (no, not five minutes before),  check your camera, speakers, and microphone. Make sure that your internet connection is strong, and your image and sound quality are clear. You should also check that you have your Zoom or Skype password and login information readily available, so you don’t keep the interviewer waiting with any account issues. You should do these checks in the same space you intend to conduct the interview if at all possible. 

You will also want to make sure that you have downloaded the Zoom or Skype apps to your computer; both programs will run more efficiently that way. While both Zoom and Skype can technically be accessed through your browser, they will not run at optimal speeds and your screen may freeze as a result.

Of course, even if you do all of these checks, tech issues may occur during an interview. Don’t panic! Your interviewer likely has experience working over Zoom and knows that these types of problems arise. If you can’t resolve the issue, try asking the interviewer if you can hang up and restart the call. Once you are back online, apologize quickly and move on with the interview - don’t spend valuable time over-apologizing when you want to be talking about your interest in their school! 

6. Sit still.

Fidgeting can be a challenge for many students during interviews, but during virtual interviews in particular, fidgeting can be a real issue. If you move your hands or touch your face and hair, these gestures are ultra-visible on-screen. Try to eliminate the potential for fidgeting by sitting in a chair that does not swivel, so you’re not tempted to move back and forth during the interview. Keep your hair away from your face and don’t wear jewelry or other clothing items that you may play with unconsciously. 

7. Rules still apply.

All of the normal rules for interviewing still apply over Zoom. You should dress in appropriate business casual attire, just as if you are interviewing on-campus - yes, even though the interviewer won’t see your legs. Not only will this make you feel more confident during the interview, it will also be important should you need to stand up or move around at any time while you are online. 

You should also be early. With virtual appointments, it can be easy to get caught up in other things and lose track of time. Aim to be online 5-10 minutes early, if possible, and waiting in the Zoom room for your interviewer. This plan will also give you some padding if you have any issues logging on or connecting to the video, and enable you to test your technology again if necessary. 

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Whether you are a Class of 2021 student about to begin interviewing, or you’re an underclassman just starting to attend information sessions and meet with counselors to learn more about your college choices, you can use these tips to put your best (virtual) foot forward. Good luck to all of our students with November interviews - we can’t wait for the admissions officers and alumni interviewers to meet you! 

Have topics or questions that you’d like to see us address in a future blog post? Comment and let us know! 

The optional COVID-19 essay that's likely better left unwritten

As you all know, the college admissions landscape has experienced some major changes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Standardized testing policies are less stable than the stock market, college visits are (mostly) not happening, and I could write this entire post about the challenges that recruited athletes are facing right now!

Interestingly enough, though, the one development that I’ve gotten the most questions about is the one that is probably the least relevant to my client base. But as I always say, “you don’t know what you don’t know,” and this is definitely an area where a seemingly innocent misstep could result in major problems down the line.

In May, the Common Application® recently announced that it would provide students with “a dedicated space to elaborate on the impact of the pandemic, both personally and academically.” This prompt is completely optional and will appear in the additional information section of the application.

Here’s the prompt:

Community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces.

• Do you wish to share anything on this topic? Y/N

• Please use this space to describe how these events have impacted you (250 words). 

I know how terrible this time has been. Believe me. I get it.

One day when I have recovered enough from the experience, I might tell you how I ended up in our office parking lot in the middle of the strictest part of lockdown, wearing yoga pants. I’ll give you a hint: it has to do with the amazing pediatricians upstairs, my crazy children, and an injury for the record books!

This is one of those areas where you have to tread really lightly and sort of check your privilege, as much as I don’t enjoy that phrase.

This essay is NOT asking what you did during the pandemic at home or how you hated being stuck inside for four months. Rather, it is intended for students who have had substantial, distinct challenges. Although we have all had to adapt to the new realities of this pandemic, these realities have been undoubtedly harder for certain people than for others.

Here is a list of substantial challenges that are worthwhile to mention:

• A parent’s unemployment or underemployment (even if temporary) that caused financial stress

• A student’s need to contribute to family finances that resulted in missing class/less time for homework

• A student’s obligation to homeschool siblings during the school day instead of focusing on their own academic progress

• A death or serious illness of a friend or family member due to the coronavirus

• An immediate family member’s work in a front-line setting (this could range from the hospital to the grocery store and anything in between) that caused stress and fear in the household

I recently listened to an episode of The Daily (a podcast from The New York Times) that provided a great example of a substantial challenge in a student’s life during the pandemic. While this story offers a more extreme example, it does highlight the nature and purpose of this new essay - here’s the episode.

To put this in context, I’m only suggesting that TWO of our rising seniors write this essay. So, while it may be tempting to use this space to explain some challenges of living during a pandemic (because we all know - this is new and scary and not easy for any of us), I urge students to really consider whether or not their challenges fall under the category of “substantial.”

If you were upset about being stuck inside or disappointed with the way your high school managed online classes, I hear you and absolutely sympathize, but this is not a substantial or unique challenge. And believe me - I want students to share what they did during the pandemic, but this essay is certainly not the place for that - it should go in the activities section or in the context of a supplemental essay (if appropriate).

In fact, if a student who did not experience substantial challenges used this essay to talk about their difficulties, it would probably be perceived quite poorly. So, let’s not use this as a place to complain. Save that for friends and family (or anyone in our office - we’ll swap war stories with you ANY day of the week!).

Final Junior Year Meetings & Class of 2021 Supplemental Essays

We have been so busy this week with final junior year meetings!

Our goal is to have our students finished with the following by the end of 11th grade:

• Common Application

• Common Application Main Essay

• Teacher Recommendation Information #1

• Teacher Recommendation Information #2

• Counselor Recommendation Information (some schools have not released this yet)

• Generic Supplemental Essay Work (we prepare four separate pieces of writing to repurpose later)

We are obviously checking up on any outstanding tasks multiple times per week, but the final meeting of the year serves as a good checkpoint to measure what has been accomplished against our initial goals. I am happy to report that most of our students have been done with them for a while!

The main purpose of the meeting is to finalize the student’s college list based on final junior year grades, final test scores (not this year, haha) and all of the research that has been completed up to this point.

Once we finalize, we are able to jump right in and work on school-specific supplemental essays (as well as the Coalition Application, if needed). I do not like to begin any school-specific tasks until we know for sure what the list will look like because I don’t want to waste our time working on something that isn’t needed down the line.

We have developed a method that categories every supplemental prompt into one of the following categories:

• Why This School?

• Why This Field?

• Why This School and Field?

• Quirky Topic

• Meaningful Activity

We then work with our students to help them re-purpose material from the already-prepared pieces of generic supplemental writing to fit each school-specific prompt, but our approach to doing this differs depending on the category.

If you are interested, you can see some of this year’s supplemental topics here:

University of Georgia 2021 Supplement - DC College Counseling

University of Michigan 2021 Supplement - DC College Counseling

University of North Carolina 2021 Supplement - DC College Counseling

Villanova University 2021 Supplement - DC College Counseling

Our current clients will start to see these pop up in their google drive folders over this week and next. As soon as a topic is released, we like to start working on it to get it out of the way!

Last year, we did a ton of detective work and identified an incredible number of Class of 2020 essay topics in advance of the formal release date of August 1. This year, we’re going to stick most of this content into the membership vault (and of course our individual student folders, as always) - along with our guides and activities to help with each of the supplemental prompts above.

2020-2021 Common Application® Essay Prompts Released for the Class of 2021

Yay! I have been waiting for this day in eager anticipation for a while!

The Common Application® organization performed a study to determine whether the current essay prompt choices were effective, and I am VERY happy to report that they just announced the decision to stick with last year’s prompts for the Class of 2021!

If it’s not broke, don’t fix it, right?

Here are the 2020-2021 Common App® Prompts:

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, please share your story.

2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

4. Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma — anything of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

A few pieces of advice to all HS Class of 2021 students beginning this process:

Focus on the message, not the story. The #1 concern I hear from students and parents is that they just don’t know what to write about. This is especially the case from students in Northern Virginia, who have often just lived a normal, suburban lifestyle - no huge tragedies or adversity to overcome. The good news is that with a few exceptions (we’ll get to those), it honestly doesn’t matter what you write about. I swear. An amazing topic is not what makes an amazing essay.

What will make an amazing essay will be an authentic snapshot into your personality - a characteristic that you can share about yourself that really captures who you are. Maybe it’s a cool way you think, an odd quirk, or an interesting habit you have. If you are working on this alone without our help, talk to your parents, siblings, friends, and teachers about characteristics that make you unique. What are you “known for”? It doesn’t have to be fancy or impressive!

Once you have something in mind, back into a story that clearly showcases the characteristic. Again, it’s not really about the story itself (caveat to come!); instead, it’s about how well the story showcases the characteristic… how authentic it sounds!

That said, try as hard as you can to try to avoid cliche, overused, and/or inappropriate topics. If you feel like you HAVE to write about a cliche story, write about one that is loosely related to it (so you are able to reference or mention whatever it is without having your whole essay revolve around it).

End by considering how you will be able to apply that characteristic in the short-term and/or long-term future, to be able to make a difference in a positive way.

What does the prompt release mean for DC College Counseling students in the Class of 2021?

All Class of 2021 students will receive their WOW Writing Workshop login information at some point in the next week, and then our essay writing process will officially begin! Every student and parent will also receive an email containing instructions and next steps from me (Colleen). Get excited!!!

Since all of our work is individualized and customizable, we have set alternate schedules with some students for various reasons; however, most of our students will have their main essay 100% complete by/around spring break. Yep, you read that right! And it is going to feel AWESOME to have this done so early. Bonus: Juniors enrolled in AP English Language typically have to write their “college essay” as an end-of-year assignment. So you can cross that off the to-do list as well. You’re welcome :)

Most of you have heard us rave about the WOW system already: this is now our third season as WOW partners and we use a slightly modified version of their approach, so that we can incorporate our in-person meetings and high-touch project management work. All students will have three assigned meetings at pre-determined stages and ongoing coaching and editing work in between. They will conclude the process with a fourth “meeting,” a final polish from our self-described “Rumpelstiltskin of editing” who specializes in performing the best final edits you’ll ever see! Then, of course, I will weigh in one last time.

If you’re not a DC College Counseling student (yet) but are interested in working together:

It’s not too late to sign up for an ongoing package; we just started with two new Class of 2021 students this week alone! Start with a no-obligation Meet & Greet to learn about how my fabulous team and I can help a student achieve their goals with very little stress along the way.

For students who need less help overall and are primarily concerned with the main essay, we have the new hybrid Strategy & Planning Plus option.

Last but not least - a cool opportunity! If you’re not a DC College Counseling student (yet) and aren’t able to contract for services:

We’re expensive - I get it! This spring, we have three pro bono (yes - free!) spots available for high school juniors who would like to complete their Common Application® Essay before April 1. The students must have parental permission and the ability to attend in-person sessions, and must also allow us to publicly chronicle their experiences throughout the writing process. To be clear, no actual essay material will be shared, just more about the process itself.

We’d prefer to extend this opportunity to students with demonstrated financial need or are underserved in some way, although it’s not a hard and fast requirement. If you are this student, please shoot me an email with a little bit about yourself and why you’d like to be considered! And if you are a third party who knows of a deserving student that might be able to benefit from this, let us know.

Meet Staci!

Our newest essay coach, Staci, is guest blogging with an introduction today! It is hard to believe she has only been with us for two months as she is such an integral part of the team already; she has been my right-hand man with our “late start seniors” this year and has worked a schedule so crazy it rivals mine!

Parents and students love her approachable style and the way she can help even the most reluctant writer craft an outstanding essay!

Thanks to the power of LinkedIn, I was fortunate enough to ‘link’ with DC College Counseling in August--just in time for the busy college application season. You may have seen me in the office, probably sipping on my venti iced coffee, or have spent sessions with me as we’ve brainstormed your essay prompts. I’ve had the opportunity to learn a great deal about all of you, so it’s only fair that you now get to learn a bit about me. 

I entered Franklin and Marshall College with every intention of becoming a lawyer. However, a year abroad changed my life (that’s a story for another time) and left me wanting to pursue a Ph.D. in English instead.  When I delved into my graduate work, first at Lehigh University and then University of Delaware, I began to realize that I enjoyed teaching English classes much more than conducting my own research. So after several years of graduate school, I abandoned my Ph.D. and started doing the thing I swore I would never do--teaching high school English. 

Fast forward over a decade, and I’ve literally been around the world teaching, traveling, and growing my career. I’ve settled in Northern Virginia, where I now train international teachers; develop courses and curriculum frameworks; work individually with students who have special needs or those who need extra reading/writing support; and teach dance and fitness classes for fun. 

I know I’ve worked with many of you as you’ve filled out these supplemental short answers, so I’ll practice what I preach and fill them out as well. Trust me when I say, I know how hard these questions can be! 

DESCRIBE YOURSELF IN THREE WORDS (25 CHARACTERS):

Gregarious; driven; creative

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SNACK?

Hummus and veggies

FAVORITE APP/WEBSITE:

Canva and Marco Polo

BEST MOVIE OF ALL TIME:

The Goonies

HASHTAG TO DESCRIBE YOURSELF:

#doesntsleep

DREAM JOB:

What I am doing now...but it’s my dream to add ‘published author’ to my resume. 

WHAT IS YOUR THEME SONG?

Three Little Birds- Bob Marley 

DREAM TRIP:

Hiking the Camino de Santiago trail in Spain

WHAT TV SHOW WILL YOU BINGE WATCH NEXT?

The Great British Baking Show, Season 7

PLACE YOU ARE MOST CONTENT?

The Swiss Alps

I can’t promise the Swiss Alps, but if you’re a current client hoping to spend some time with Staci in the editing office, you can book one of her essay coaching or interview prep sessions here :)

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

It will not come as a surprise to anyone that our essay coach Jennifer will be taking some time off this fall! We are going to be so sad not to have her around for a while but are thrilled for her to be welcoming her baby girl! McClain will also be taking some time off during the school year and we will miss her a ton too, but she’ll be back next summer!

Some of our students have already met Megan, one of our newest additions to the team! Megan is a Vienna native and a graduate of the Potomac School. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Elon, she was awarded an ultra-prestigious Fulbright Scholarship and taught English in Spain in this capacity. She is currently pursuing her doctorate at George Washington University.

Since we’re all about supplements these days, I asked Megan to answer the fun “getting to know you” questions at the end of the University of Southern California supplement.

Describe yourself in three words (25 characters):

Thoughtful, curious, and empathetic

What is your favorite snack?

RX bars or bananas

Favorite app/website:

Duolingo

Best movie of all time:

Shrek

Hashtag to describe yourself:

#alwaystraveling

Dream job:

Child clinical psychologist working with children with autism (and speaking Spanish daily!)

What is your theme song?

Run the world (girls) -Beyoncé

Dream trip:

Tibet and hiking part of the Himalayas

What TV show will you binge watch next?

Money Heist (Casa de Papel)

Place you are most content?

In the mountains or at the beach in Tenerife, Spain

Current clients can book an essay coaching meeting with Megan here!

Smarter Supplements: Digging Deeper

Last week, I shared our approach to supplemental essays and discussed a specific example of the way that one general answer could be modified to fit four separate schools’ prompts. Today, I’m going to dig a little deeper to model the DC College Counseling approach to the entire supplemental essay writing process.

Let’s pretend I’m the student.

STEP ONE: Outline a plan of attack during an essay coaching meeting.

My essay coach would work with me to complete the tasks in the last post, mapping out common themes between supplements and helping me select an appropriate text. This may involve needing to read a new book if I hadn’t read anything appropriate (but we try to avoid extra work as much as we can!).

If students want (or need!) to start fresh with a new book, we often recommend the New York Times bestseller list to choose something that’s not too fluffy (but that also sounds like a piece of fiction they might actually read in their spare time). It’s better to pick something recent because it sounds like the student reads on a regular basis and isn’t digging up the one book he read on vacation three years ago.

For the purposes of this post, I’m going to have to use a book from 2016 because… I’m digging up the one novel I read on vacation three years ago :) Don’t judge - I read a lot, but it’s all non-fiction! I am choosing to write about “Eligible: A modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice” by Curtis Sittenfeld. I was an English major in college so this isn’t too out of left field for me. An admissions officer would see that it fits with the rest of my imaginary profile. It was also a New York Times bestseller as well as a “Best Book of the Year” from NPR, so it’s not quite as random as it seems.

STEP TWO: Free-write some general thoughts on the book without responding to any of the specific prompts.

Note: I wrote these as myself as if I was actually completing the assignment. So, if this sounds like the voice of a 35-year-old instead of a high school student - that’s why! As we have covered before, we work very hard to help our students maintain their own unique voices.

Here’s my stream-of-consciousness free-write: In addition to being a fun book for me to read, this book also pushed me to think critically about myself as a reader. I chose to major in English in college because I really enjoyed writing (and I knew that I was good at it). I also absolutely loved to read, but not obscure texts from centuries ago. What I didn’t realize at the time is that English majors don’t read or write any more than other humanities majors - they just stick to English literature rather than history, politics, or other subjects. Eventually, I got really sick of analyzing decades or centuries-old literature that actually didn’t interest me all that much. I spent a lot of time skimming and reading Spark Notes (are Spark Notes still a thing?).

Eligible showed me that a “boring” or “outdated” read can actually be exciting if one gives it a chance. I was able to step back and think about how centuries-old language can mask relevant themes, and I wondered about how much I had missed over the years because I was turned off to various texts for superficial reasons.

I also thought about how our struggles as individuals persist over the generations. Pride and Prejudice was written more than 200 years ago, but women are still thinking about the same kinds of social and economic issues - just in a different context.

STEP THREE: Use information from the free-write to craft a RESPONSE TO EACH PROMPT.

NOTE: I’m not going to write out a full essay for each prompt in this blog post the way a student would, but I’ll give a general idea of the approach I’d take.

Boston College Supplement Essay #1 (400 w): Great art evokes a sense of wonder. It nourishes the mind and spirit. Is there a particular song, poem, speech, or novel from which you have drawn insight or inspiration?

I have always been an avid reader, but Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible gave me important insight into the value of broadening my literary horizons to include classic works of literature. I used to avoid these books, believing them to be outdated and difficult to read; yet, as I tore through the pages of this re-imagined version of Pride and Prejudice and acknowledged the present-day relevance of Austen’s original themes from the 19th century, I realized that social and political issues are often timeless, persisting from generation to generation. Moreover, I recognized that I had likely missed important lessons by always reaching for the latest best-sellers. With Eligible in mind, I felt inspired to read some of the texts that I had avoided over the years: 1984, Animal Farm, and Fahrenheit 451.

UVA College of Arts and Sciences Supplemental Essay (250 w): What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised, unsettled, or challenged you, and in what way?

Curtis Sittenfeld’s Eligible challenged me to push beyond my natural inclination for modern literature. As I tore through the pages of this re-imagined version of Pride and Prejudice and acknowledged the present-day relevance of Austen’s original themes from the 19th century, I realized that social and political issues are often timeless, persisting from generation to generation. Moreover, I recognized that I was likely missing important lessons by always reaching for the latest best-sellers. With Eligible in mind, I resolved to read some of the texts that had intimidated me over the years: 1984, Animal Farm, and Fahrenheit 451.

Dartmouth College Supplemental Essay D (250 w): “Yes, books are dangerous,” young people’s novelist Pete Hautman proclaimed. “They should be dangerous—they contain ideas.” What book or story captured your imagination through the ideas it revealed to you? Share how those ideas influenced you.

Through Eligible, her re-imagined adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, Curtis Sittenfeld helped provide new meaning to the old adage: “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Eligible captured my imagination with the idea that the core challenges of modern life are not so different from those with which Jane Austen’s 19th-century characters also struggled. I realized that social and political themes are often timeless, persisting from generation to generation, and that I was likely missing important lessons by always reaching for the latest best-sellers over classic works of literature. As I tore through Sittenfeld’s pages, I resolved to use her influence to choose to read some of the texts that had intimidated me over the years: 1984, Animal Farm, and Fahrenheit 451.

Emory University “Tell Us About You” Essay 1 (150 w): Which book, character, song, or piece of work (fiction or non-fiction) represents you, and why?

Reading has always been my guilty pleasure. For as long as I can remember, I got my fix wherever I could: under the covers with a flashlight as a child, slipped between textbooks in high school math class, or by the dim light of my iPad while feeding my newborns more than a decade later. Eligible, Curtis Sittenfeld’s re-imagined modern-day version of Pride and Prejudice, represents me in that it mirrors my long-standing ability to find relevant meaning in text, regardless of setting. My love for reading has always aligned with my ability to grasp themes and connect them to my own experiences, hopes, and dreams, despite superficial differences.

Points to notice:

• Even though my responses didn’t require me to be all that specific, this would have been really difficult to write if I hadn’t read the book.

• I was able to cut and paste a lot between the first three answers, giving myself a solid base from which to approach each of these prompts.

• None of these answers are exactly the same: I had to modify each individual answer to bring language from the prompt into my response. In order to do this, I had to constantly ask myself: are you answering each question that the prompt asks?

• The last response was ultimately very different and I had to take some creative liberties with the actual content: that’s fine. Remember, colleges will only see the essays submitted to their own school: they won’t see what is sent elsewhere. It’s okay if the various answers don’t perfectly align with one another when they are all on the same page together.

STEP FOUR: Bring drafts to essay coach meeting.

After receiving TONS of reminders about completing the step three drafts in a timely manner, I would then bring my drafts to my next scheduled essay coach meeting. During the session, essay coaches would help me to further develop and edit these initial pieces.

STEP FIVE: Look for follow-up edits from Colleen.

Okay, this is getting confusing now with “Colleen-as-student” and “Colleen-as-Colleen,” but hang in there with me. If I were a student, I would wait a day or so for the actual Colleen (me!) to follow up with an additional level of edits above and beyond those completed at the essay coaching meeting. I do this for all of our students without charging them for any additional time beyond their essay coaching appointment, because I think that it’s helpful to have another layer of review.

STEP SIX: Finalize edits at home before next essay coaching meeting.

After “Colleen-as-student” receives her additional edits and suggestions from “Colleen-as-Colleen,” “Colleen-as-student” would then finalize them at home before bringing them back to the essay coach meeting for final approval.

STEP SEVEN: Make additional changes with essay coach during the meeting and begin to plan out the next round of essays.

I would go back to meet with the essay coach to put the finishing touches on everything and we’d begin Step One again with our next round of essays.

STEP EIGHT: Approve any additional post-meeting “finishing touch” edits from colleen, confirm with Rebeccah that the essays are considered complete, and write the second round of drafts for the new essays.

As of mid-July, we have extremely limited availability for ongoing work with seniors in the Class of 2020. If you’re interested in grabbing one of the very last first-round slots or having first priority for the second-round waitlist, don’t wait to book your Meet & Greet session.

Work smarter, not harder (but don’t take it too far!)

In our work tracking the pre-release of the HS Class of 2020 / College Class of 2024 supplemental essay prompts, we have begun to link similar prompts together. This allows students to reuse as much material as possible while making modifications to existing essays, rather than reinventing the wheel for each school.

We share this information with our students to try to make things as easy as possible for them as we help them outline their essays.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The key to success with this method is making sure that students ACTUALLY ANSWER THE QUESTION ASKED IN EACH PROMPT. Most of these can’t be copied verbatim- they need some adjustment.

Here’s an example:

Boston College Supplement Essay #1 (400 w): Great art evokes a sense of wonder. It nourishes the mind and spirit. Is there a particular song, poem, speech, or novel from which you have drawn insight or inspiration?

UVA College of Arts and Sciences Supplemental Essay (250 w): What work of art, music, science, mathematics, or literature has surprised, unsettled, or challenged you, and in what way?

Dartmouth College Supplemental Essay D (250 w): “Yes, books are dangerous,” young people’s novelist Pete Hautman proclaimed. “They should be dangerous—they contain ideas.” What book or story captured your imagination through the ideas it revealed to you? Share how those ideas influenced you.

Emory University “Tell Us About You” Essay 1 (150 w): Which book, character, song, or piece of work (fiction or non-fiction) represents you, and why?

By choosing to write about a novel, a student could theoretically write about one work while meeting the requirements for each prompt:

• A “novel” for BC

• A “work of literature” for UVA

• A“book or story” for Dartmouth

• A “book” for Emory.

This is SO much easier than writing about a song for Emory, a story for Dartmouth, a work of science for UVA and a speech for BC.

However, the prompts aren’t all the same: the student would need to modify the response for each school to varying degrees.

BC and UVA are pretty similar - drawing insight and inspiration from a book can be discussed in a way that = feeling challenged from a book. On the other hand, Emory’s approach about how the book represents the student would require substantially more tailoring. The reason I keep emphasizing the modification is because a lot of students miss this step, for some reason. They see a similar prompt and just copy verbatim and call it a day. I’m all about shortcuts but that will NOT work!!

To recap:

1. Look for themes across prompts.

2. Adjust the responses to fit the exact questions asked.

Database of 2019-2020 Supplemental Essays

We are knee deep in supplemental essay work over here (for schools both on and off The Common Application®), and it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon!

Rather than continuing to compile various blog posts with updated essay topics, I decided to create a separate page that I will continue to update as the season continues. Click here for the latest, and don’t forget to bookmark the page for future reference!

Since the last time I posted, we have a number of new essays, including University of Richmond, Tufts, and more. We also have confirmation that Villanova will not be reusing the same essays that they used last year, so don’t start on those!

Supplemental Essays 2019-2020: First Round

And they begin!

In the past week, three schools have released supplemental essay topics:

University of Georgia

University of Chicago - boy are these rough, as per usual!

University of Texas - Austin - scroll down to “essay” and “short answers”

These join the personal insight questions (otherwise known as essays) from the University of California system, which have been out for a little while now.

In our office, all of our clients are either finished or nearly-finished with their main essays, so we try to knock these supplemental essays out when we can to avoid scrambling during the month of August after they are officially released. To do this, we stay on top of everything in advance to make sure we have the most up-to-date information on which essays are released and when. This way, we can plug away at them with our students a little bit at a time, all summer long.

We have family meetings in June or July, after we have final junior year grades and all standardized test scores are in. At that point, we try to finalize the college list. We keep a very large master list with each student’s name on the x-axis and every college you can imagine on the y-axis. As schools begin to release their prompts, Rebeccah keeps track everything on the master list and will notify students accordingly.

Some more recent news: there will be a variety of updates to The Common Application® that will be rolled out in July. I’m a little nervous about what this will mean for the activity section, because it sounds like that part has the potential to result in substantive changes. This part of the application hasn’t been updated in any meaningful way for a very, very long time, and I’m crossing my fingers that the changes won’t be too dramatic!

Happy writing!

Reader Questions: Voice

Today, we are back with the last post of our “Reader Questions” series! Have a burning question about school, college, or graduate admissions, or even high school in general? Please shoot us an email and we will add it to the queue for the next round!

Q: After attending information sessions with my daughter, I noticed that admissions officers at all types of schools recommend that students write an essay that shows their “ voice.” I am not sure that I understand what voice is and how to show it? How will they actually know whether it is her voice or not?

A: In writing, the concept of voice generally refers to the author’s style - their unique tone, characteristics, and personality. Basically, it’s what makes the piece “sound” like the author. You are right that admissions officers discuss this a lot! This is because many parents (and college counselors) try to take over the essay process. Admissions officers WILL KNOW if an essay is written in your daughter’s voice. Keep reading for an example at the end of this post.

It is natural for parents to want to do everything in their power to make sure their children are offered the best college opportunities possible. As a result, it can be very tempting for parents to exert too much control over their children’s college essays, both in terms of topic selection and the manner in which the essay is written. Sometimes, parents may even think about writing the entire college essay for their kids. Either way, the result is usually the same. The college admission officer will see that a parent or other adult became overly involved in the writing process, and most likely, this will also make them wonder what other aspects of a student’s academic career a parent has influenced, leading the child’s integrity to be questioned.  

Colleges value the personal statement as an opportunity to get to know students “off paper.” It is one of the few opportunities students have to distinguish themselves from the thousands of otherwise similar applicants with straight As and high test scores. By the time students begin considering their college essays, it’s one of the only part of the application that they can still fully control (if only we could go back to repeat ninth grade math class for a better grade...). This is why it is so important for students to maintain control of their essay--it is their opportunity to share what matters to them, which is typically something that is not reflected in the rest of the application. When parents become too involved in this part of the process, the essay will often be riddled with clichés and thesaurized vocabulary. And when “sounding smart” and writing about what one thinks an adult wants to hear becomes the focus, the authentic voice of the student becomes lost.

Does this mean that you shouldn’t read your child’s essay? Not at all. But know where to draw the line. It’s very, very hard to get this right - even for professionals - so I can completely commiserate. I think it’s actually harder for parents who write a lot in their “day jobs,” because they usually have a professionally-trained written voice that is about as far off as you can get from teenage creative writing. No one struggles with this more than attorneys! After years of trying to achieve the perfect balance ourselves, we adopted the WOW Writing Workshop method and have never looked back.

Aside from limiting parental involvement in the college essay, there are several other steps that students can take to make sure their essays provide a clear understanding of their personalities. Essays with voice are essays that sound natural. This does not mean that they should be written in the way that a student speaks or texts, but it does mean that it must sound like a teenager wrote it. The essay should tackle a topic that matters to the student. Sometimes, the best essays are about everyday, ordinary situations that reveal something meaningful about the writer. Strong college essays are descriptive, precise, and perhaps most importantly, honest. And while the essay should not be over-edited by an adult, it should be clean, or error-free with regard to grammar, punctuation, and spelling. This will allow the student’s ideas, and thus their distinct point-of-view, to be the focus.

Let’s take a look at a few opening sentences of an essay written from an adult’s perspective, and then from a student’s:

Adult’s Perspective

When I consider the aspects of my childhood that have most influenced my identity as a soon-to-be college student, the many traditions and rituals my family has built over time immediately come to mind. Our Christmas traditions, which include wearing matching Christmas pajamas and eating a fondue feast every Christmas Eve, have been especially monumental in teaching me the importance of valuing the little moments in life.

Student’s Perspective

By the time one enters high school, wearing matching outfits officially becomes uncool. But every year, for just one day, my brothers and I enthusiastically commit this form of social self-slaughter. Clad in our red and white, tight-in-all-the-wrong-places PJs, every member of my family of six squeezes onto our living room couch for our annual Christmas photo--perhaps the only time that my teenage brothers and I agree to be photographed without objection.

Be honest...which essay would you rather read? Which one sounds like it was written by a student? Which one seems like it will tell an interesting story, rather than simply answer a question? The second one is better because it is written in student-friendly language that is still “clean.” It also reveals an important part of the student’s life--one that an admission officer definitely wouldn’t know about otherwise--in a vivid, unique way.

If you do feel like you need some extra help, please reach out. Most of the 11th grade students working with us on an ongoing basis are either finished with their main essay or just about there! Set up an appointment today for a “Meet & Greet” to discuss how we can support your family.

Reader Questions: Resumes

Today, we are continuing our “Reader Questions” series! Have a burning question about school, college, or graduate admissions, or even high school in general? Please shoot us an email and we will make sure to address it in a future post!

Q: When [my son] applied to college, you helped him create a resume. Now it’s my daughter’s turn, and I have heard from some people that resumes are no longer required but others say that we still need to send one. Can you clarify? If she does need to do it, what kind of resume do we send?

A: Students used to be able to include their resume as part of the main Common Application, in the writing section. This option was removed and students were not able to submit them at all for a few years. Some resorted to mailing it into the admissions offices as a work-around. This was not helpful and flooded the admissions offices with extra documents that were not anticipated. Because of this, the Common App changed its policy again to allow colleges to choose whether or not they would like to receive resumes in the college-specific supplement. We recommend that our students keep a resume on file for use in these supplements, summer program applications, scholarship applications or even as a template for their first internship resume in college. At some point, this will be used, and it’s better to have it ready than to scramble down the line.

Perhaps you’re applying for a scholarship and a resume is required, or maybe your colleges of choice allow you to attach yours as an additional document in the supplement section. Regardless of the motivation, it is evident that presenting a well-written resume gives the admissions office - or a future employer - a few more reasons to place your application in the “Yes” pile.

Besides the obvious (proofreading!), let’s outline a few key strategies to use while crafting a strong resume:

1.  KNOW YOUR STRENGTHS

Before you start typing, jot down your greatest accomplishments on a piece of paper. Categorize those achievements under “Education,” “Leadership,” “Professional Experience,” “Extracurricular Activities,” “Skills” and “Honors or Awards.” You may not use every section within your resume, but this is a good place to start.

2.  SHOW, DON’T TELL

Transfer the information you wrote down above into your computer. Under each heading, describe how you actively engaged in the organization, made improvements, sought out challenges, exceeded expectations, etc. Do this using action verbs and quantifiable phrases, such as “under my leadership the club surpassed all years previous in donations, raising $15,000 for our annual giving campaign.”

3.  KEEP IT SIMPLE

Once you’ve populated your resume with the most pertinent information, it’s time to go back and format. At DC College Counseling, we advise our students to keep their resumes to one page, using a legible font without additional frills. The point of this resume isn’t necessarily to show your creative capabilities, but to display everything you bring to the table.

4.  FOLLOW DIRECTIONS

Yes - you now have an amazing resume and it’s natural that you want to share it with everyone! However, it’s important to follow directions. If a college wants your resume, they will offer you the upload option in their supplement or will request it another specific way. Do not mail the resume in as a work-around when a college does not ask for it or offer the option to upload it. It will appear that you are not following directions and do not respect the process.

To receive a full step-by-step resume template, or to schedule a coaching appointment with one of our resume experts, please book a session here.

Interview Like a Pro

The colleges are interested.  They’re requesting interviews with you.  Whether you’re sitting down with an alumnus, a current student or an admissions counselor, our interview prep at DC College Counseling ensures students are poised, confident and ready to showcase themselves in any interview scenario.

An interview, whether in person or on a video call, is another opportunity for students to sell themselves while allowing their passions and personalities to shine.  Here are three key tips to ace your next college interview!

1.  PRETEND YOU’RE THE INTERVIEWER

Put yourself in the shoes of the interviewer.  What would they want to know about you and your plans for the future?  Once you’ve brainstormed 5-10 questions they may ask, generate answers to those questions.

2.  WHAT DO YOU NEED FROM THEM?

Are you seeking clarification from something you read online?  Are you interested in how you can build your own curriculum?  Do you want to know if you can start your own organization on campus?  Come up with 3-5 solid questions that could not be answered through online research.  Dig deep and get creative, show your interviewer that while they may have done their homework on you, you also did your homework on the school.

3.  PRACTICE, AND THEN KEEP PRACTICING

Again, and again, and again.  Nerves are natural, but you want to put yourself in a position of strength, where you know you will succeed.  Rehearsing is how you do this.  Whether you’re driving home from school or standing in front of your mirror, make time in the days leading up to your interview to practice both asking and answering the questions you’ve formulated above.

For further support and guidance on how to master the art of an interview, contact our office to schedule an appointment!