College Admissions

We found 126 articles

How to prepare for college interviews: what works and what doesn’t
You’re finally done with your personal statement and have turned in your supplemental essays – a sigh of relief washes over you until the interview invites start rolling in. Suddenly, the stress ramps up as you aren’t sure where to even start preparing for the interview stage of college application season. It can be daunting and difficult to know ...
What fiction teaches us about writing application essays
While writing fiction and writing application essays may seem, at first, like two fundamentally different skills, the two have more in common than you’d think. Both are, in essence, a story: one of growth and transformation. As such, narrative strategies from fiction are essential in writing a personal statement that stands apart from the pack and ...
3 tips for a successful college interview
So, you’ve completed your essays, sent in all of your test scores, gathered all of your letters of recommendation and clicked the “submit” button on your application. Now it seems that all you have to do is sit back and wait for a decision letter from the college you just applied to. But hold on! A few days later you check your email and spot a ...
Avoiding clichés in your Common App essay
The Common App essay is a near-universal hurdle for American high schoolers. Millions of essays from the same seven prompts are written each year for admissions teams to read. As a result, a handful of clichés have emerged about the Common App essay: the school community service trip, the death of a grandparent, the sports injury—I could go on…
Tips for crafting art portfolios for Art & Design schools
It’s been a little over ten years now since I applied for design school, and in the time since, I’ve gone from student to teacher in my own right. As a lecturer at the Rhode Island School of Design, I’ve learned firsthand how effective a portfolio can be for your creativity, skills, and unique perspective. More so than your application essays, art ...
Understanding Demonstrated Interest
At some point in your college application journey, you may have heard the term “demonstrated interest.” But what does it mean? And does it matter?
How to make the most of your college visits
College visits are an important process of the application process, whether they are in-person or virtual tours. Here's how you can make the most of these visits:
How to make the college admissions process less stressful and more rewarding
Let’s put it bluntly: the college admissions process can be taxing. Between standardized tests, constant deadlines, and the dreaded personal essay, there are myriad sources of stress facing every college applicant. But while studying for any particular exam might provoke some degree of automatic anxiety, the process itself can be rewarding. ...
How to apply to Brown University
Brown University requires three specific essay questions for first year and transfer applications. Each of these questions provides an opportunity to demonstrate how you might benefit from and contribute to the Brown community.
How to write the Common App essay
It may seem overwhelming to write a college essay for the first time. Especially when that college essay is for the Common Application and will be sent to every school that you apply to. In this post, I’ll go over some tips for writing the Common App essay, and what steps you can take to make your essay as compelling as it can be.
Avoiding the “Tragedy of the Commons" or the key to a killer Common App essay
For every rising senior, the infamous Common Application Essay is a bright spotlight. Some fear it, some relish in it, and many grapple with exactly how they can use it to shine in sea of strategic and significant applicants. Initiated as a movement to streamline the process of presenting yourself to a large assortment of schools, the Common App ...
Befriend your admissions anxiety
So, you’re applying to the school of your dreams! How does that feel? It’s probably a much more complex answer than you would have initially anticipated. Perhaps you feel a burst of elation, followed by a flood of fear, combatted with justifications, affirmations, strategizing and eventually a settling down into acceptance. Perhaps you just feel ...
A college application guide for rising seniors
The time has come for you to make your college application list. You have worked for this moment your entire high school career. While going to college seems exciting, the application process might seem daunting or exhausting. But I believe the application process can be fun! If you follow these easy steps, you will be good to go in no time.
Stuck on your common app essay? Forget the prompts!
If you’re anything like many of the students I have tutored (or like me), you opened the Common App essay questions and became very overwhelmed very quickly. There are so many options! And how are they both so vague and so specific? You read:
How to write Stanford's Roommate Letter
Of all the creative college application supplements out there, perhaps the most deceptively simple is this infamous prompt from Stanford University:
How to answer the Georgetown supplement
All universities value applicants who have thought through their reasons for applying. Georgetown takes it to the next level: more than a decade after all other major universities made the switch to the Common App, Georgetown remains the lone holdout. “We’re encouraging students to express themselves to us, rather than to a common process,” says ...
How to tackle the Bowdoin supplement 
Ok, so we all recognize that the phrase “college is the best four years of your life” sounds absolutely ridiculous… it is. In fact, everyone at Bowdoin laughs at this phrase; however, don’t let this discourage you from using Bowdoin's unique supplement prompt to showcase your thoughtfulness and your ability to reflect, synthesize and EMBRACE the ...
How to answer Columbia's lists
Columbia University is one of the world’s most diverse institutions. Their school-specific application questions help create a class of students with different interests and backgrounds. The Columbia admissions officers want to picture how you will interact with your classmates and contribute to campus life. The questions below will help ...
How to answer Yale's supplemental essays
School-specific supplementary essays provide an opportunity for you to share additional insight about yourself that may not have been captured in the main Common App essay. In this post, I will present approaches to Yale University’s supplementary questions. Ideally, these strategies can be applicable for a range of supplementary questions beyond ...
How to answer the University of Virginia's supplemental essays
School-specific supplements are an opportunity to share an intellectual interest, or an element of your life story, that might be missing from your main Common App essay. In this post, I will describe strategies for answering two supplement questions from the University of Virginia. Although my advice is tailored to these two prompts, my hope is ...
How to write the community service essay
Whether in an interview or an essay, all college applicants should be prepared to talk about the ways they have worked to improve their schools and communities. No college wants to admit a passive recipient of community, they would all much prefer to admit an active and engaged citizen who understands that community requires contribution. Use this ...
The “Why College X” Supplement
Perhaps the most straightforward type of supplement question, many schools simply want to know “Why Us?” The word count for this type of response will vary significantly based on the school – from 50 to 500 words.
How to write an essay about leadership
Leadership essays, or essays where you are asked about your work as a leader in your school or community, are not as common as you might imagine. Given all of the emphasis schools and clubs put on leadership roles and titles, essays asking students to dive deeply into this work are actually pretty rare in college applications. That said, it is ...
JOY! Not just a character in Inside Out, but a supplement essay too!
Increasingly, schools are asking students to reflect on things that bring them joy, satisfaction, or happiness. These can be difficult to write as often the college application process is the opposite of joyful... but these joy essays are here to stay!
Who… are…you? How to write the identity supplement.
In Alice in Wonderland, when the Caterpillar persists in asking “Who… Are…. You?,” Alice stumbles and cannot reply. It’s a good thing that Alice isn’t applying to college, because some form of an essay asking about you (and your identity and/or perspective) is an ever-more-popular supplement question. These are hard! It is important to tackle ...
How to write a college supplement about community
You do not exist in a vacuum and colleges know this! The very common “community essay” is an opportunity for you to tell a story about one community that matters to you and what you have gained from its membership. This is your chance to talk about people you care about (and why!) in a much tighter and more focused way than you can in your Common ...
The combo essay: not a lunch order!
Increasingly, schools are crafting a single supplement question that combines two “tried and true” supplements into one big question. Consider the “combo essay” the way for you to talk about the best aspects of why you want to attend College X combined with the ways you get to talk about your academic interests and passions as specific to that ...
How to answer a challenge question for college supplements
The challenge question is a rare written supplement but is actually a very common interview question. Every college applicant should be prepared to discuss a failure (or something that did not go as they had intended) whether that discussion comes in the application itself or in an interview situation. While, on the surface, challenge questions ...
How to tackle the academic interest supplement
Why are you going to college? Hopefully to learn more about something that inspires you! While you might have many and varied reasons for attending college (someone told you that you had to, you are excited to watch a college basketball game live, you cannot wait to move to a new city), at the root of your college application is the presumption ...
10 steps to completing your college essay before school starts
It’s that time of year: you’re probably working on your college essay. You might even have a first draft. Great job! Take a breather and enjoy some of your favorite summer activities. When you’re ready to confront your document again, take a look at these revision tips that I’ve put together over years of helping students make their essays into ...
Where to begin on the personal essay
You’re nearing the end of eleventh grade, and you’re approaching that daunting but thrilling task that you’ve been imagining for years: you’re applying to college! Even before you make a College Board account or begin narrowing down your college choices, you probably already know about that one super critical piece of the puzzle: the personal ...
Application essays: the power of story
The blank page can be a daunting place for even the most experienced writers, and application essays can be particularly stressful. How do I encapsulate myself in something like six hundred words? What do I need to come across about myself to the reader? And how do I best convey it? It can feel like a tall order, I know.
How to write an effective transfer application essay
After completing a semester or more at one university, you’ve decided to apply elsewhere as a transfer student. Maybe you earned an associate’s degree at a community college, and now you’re ready for more. Or maybe the university you chose for your freshman year didn’t live up to your expectations. Regardless of your motivations, you’ll probably ...
How to choose the best college for you
The college admissions process can be really stressful—there are exams to take, essays to write, recommendations to request... our to-do lists seem never-ending. But the vast majority of our concerns with this process circle around the same question: What do I need to do to get into this school? This is, of course, an important question—and there ...
A comprehensive college admissions timeline
This is not your average college admissions timeline. Rather, this is an outline of a thoughtful and purposeful college process, one that begins your freshman year because it's a journey of discovery, reflection, and articulation. Read on to see Cambridge Coaching's suggestions for how to structure your high school career with respect to your ...
What to do for college applications as a rising senior (in August)
After what was hopefully a restful and relaxing summer, you are ready to start school again this month (or next, depending on where you go to school)! You are officially a senior now. Much about your college process will come into clarity in the next few months. All of the work you have already done will be such an advantage to you in the weeks ...
Your college admissions reading list
Love college admissions? Want to learn more? Here are a few places to go:
Breaking down the common app personal statement
The common app personal essay can seem like a daunting task to tackle. Not only that, misconceptions abound about how to write this "all-important" essay and what to put in it. Not to worry - Cambridge Coaching is here to dispel these common misconceptions and give you some tools to start your writing on the right foot!
An international student’s guide to US college applications
International students (who typically require an F-1 visa to study in the United States) account for an increasing percentage of matriculated undergraduate and graduate students each year. I was an international undergraduate student myself, and I remember that the process of applying to colleges in the US seemed so intimidating and overwhelming ...
What to do over the summer as a rising senior in high school
Happy summer, rising seniors! I hope you are taking some time to enjoy yourselves. I'm here to tell you that you do not need to work on your college applications each day to have a successful college process. This is a great time to continue the slow and steady work you have already begun, but it is also important that you find time to rest and ...
What is demonstrated interest? How do I show it? Why should I care?
Colleges increasingly rely on calculations of a student’s “demonstrated interest” (or "DI") to make decisions about admission and offers for various merit scholarships. It is important that students and families have a true understanding of DI to see how it can support an application.
College Alumni Interview do’s (and a few don’ts)
First, the do’s: 1. Be on time and look professional. Log into the Zoom link early and wait. Be sure your “Zoom shirt” is appropriate.
How to get to know a college when COVID means you can’t visit
As COVID was canceling proms and making graduations “drive-through” last spring, it was also causing a major shift in how colleges and admissions offices were introducing themselves to students and families. Students and families began to wonder, “How can I get to know if X College is right for me if I can’t visit and see it for myself?” Just ...
Making your personal statement stand out in just the first two lines
A personal statement is the best (and sometimes only) chance you have to make your application jump off the page. Even if you have outstanding test scores, those scores alone do not guarantee you admission. Which brings us to the personal statement, your chance to show your readers how engaging you are, how you are a future leader in your field, ...
How to choose the right college essay topic
Choosing the right topic for your college application essay can feel daunting. How are you supposed to make yourself stand out from the crowd? What are you supposed to do if you’re just “normal”? How can you say anything meaningful about yourself in only 650 words?
How to “find your voice”
You will often hear writers talk about “finding their voice.” It sounds like a simple task, but honing one’s voice can take years of practice, study, and trial and error. When you are putting together your applications for college or graduate school, you are likely facing a fast-approaching deadline—so time is a luxury you don’t have.
5 tips for authentic interviewing
There’s something comical about reading articles that coach you on how to be yourself. If you Google “authentic interview tips,” you’ll find articles titled “How to Sound Authentic” and “How to Be Yourself,” which evoke truisms like Oscar Wilde’s “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” and Shakespeare’s “To thine own self be true.” But what ...
The best way to approach your college application essay
Few high school assignments are more difficult than the college application essay, especially given the immense amount of stress and pressure surrounding it. Here’s a secret about writing and stress: creativity requires freedom, and freedom requires security. Pressure makes it hard to create something great. So, the very nature of the college ...
How to fit you into your personal statement
The question “what do you like to do for fun?” has always stressed me out. As someone who preaches work-life balance and champions new experiences, I like to imagine myself as the type of person who would quickly rattle off an impressive and well-rounded list of hobbies and activities. The truth of the matter is that each time I am confronted with ...
How to approach your personal statement
No genre of writing is simultaneously as fun to read and as taxing to write as is the personal statement. I say that the personal statement is fun to read because a good one gives the reader a sense that he or she has really met and come to know someone else, even (and perhaps especially) a complete stranger. I say that the personal statement is ...
Two common grammatical mistakes to avoid in polished writing
There are no hard and fast rules in writing. But even if an experimental poet or an avant-garde novelist has dispensed with capitalization or written an entire novel without the letter E (yes, a novel like this really exists!), this does not mean that you need to follow suit. Your personal statement, for example, is not the place to defy the ...
Authentic and vulnerable reflection in your college personal statement
The personal statement is one of the most important factors in your application. But in the end, it’s your story. Here’s the secret: it doesn’t matter what you write about; what matters is how you write it. If you write astutely and creatively, and if the story is yours, your essay will be unique and unforgettable.
Tackling unfamiliar problems on the SAT math sections
Let's face it: there's no way to control exactly what math questions will pop up on test day. Questions at the beginning of each section tend to be simple and straightforward--you might be asked to isolate a variable, determine the slope between two points, or solve a system of equations--but later questions can often feel like they've come out of ...
Top 5 pitfalls to avoid when writing the supplemental “Why college X?” essay
Many colleges require students to write school-specific supplemental essays. These are usually some variation of what I call the “Why Us?” prompt. For instance, Yale asks, “What is it about Yale that has led you to apply?” and Columbia requires 300 words on, “Please tell us what you value most about Columbia and why.”
4 ways to beat writing anxiety on the personal statement
Writing is a daunting task. To transform your nebulous thoughts into a linear string of words requires a special kind of concentration. And when it comes to writing personal essays, like those required for most undergraduate and graduate applications, you are asked to not only concentrate but also be introspective. It’s no wonder that many of us ...
Letter of recommendation: 2 great books to help you in your college search
Thank you for checking in to the final post in my 3-part series on resources for creating your college list! So far, I have written about my top podcast and website suggestions that can help you on your college search . If this is your first time coming across my blog, you may want to go back and read up on those suggestions, as each resource is ...
Letter of recommendation: best websites for college research
Welcome back! If you are keeping up with my series on finding your perfect college fit, you’ll remember that my last post covered my favorite podcasts on this topic. If you are just now tuning in, I highly recommend that you check out the previous post, especially if you are app savvy. The podcasts I mentioned are great for the whole family to ...
Letter of recommendation: two podcasts to help you find your best fit college
Following up on my previous post, I'm going to post a 3-part series on what resources you can use to help find your perfect college fit. Are you ready? Get excited. And, if you are not excited, go back to my first post and remind yourself to stop stressing and breathe. Go back in time and remember when you were a tiny human, eyeballing the toys at ...
How to Pick a College for the First (or Second) Time: Advice on Selecting a School for First-Time Applicants or Transfers
Well-meaning parents and older friends will probably tell you that college will be “the time of your life.” “You will find your people,” they might say. As a rising high school senior, I found this exciting and disconcerting: Would my peak be in college? And, how would I find my people anyway? I remember feeling both thrilled to graduate high ...
Summer is the time to start your college application process
In between junior and senior year? Here’s what you need to focus on. Junior year of high school can be very demanding. Not only are your grades and GPA incredibly important to the college admissions process, but you’re also balancing AP classes, SAT and ACT tests, extracurriculars, a social life, and (for many) part-time jobs. It’s a lot. So ...
How to build a smart, non-crazy-making college list
The college application process can seem totally daunting. No surprises there. The standardized test date that looms in the distance as you study into the nights, combing the recesses of your mind trying to remember the difference between a conjunctive adverb and a subordinating conjunction from that one grammar lecture in third grade. The deep ...
How to spend the summer before your senior year of high school
If you’re a high-school student at the end of the spring semester, you’ve likely got two things on the brain: passing your finals and summer vacation. Hopefully, in that order. But summer vacation is no longer all fun and games. These days, there’s the expectation to fill June, July, and August with resume-building activities. Family vacations get ...
Cracking the College Admissions Process, Part II: Stats, Scores, and Paperwork, Oh My!
Tackling the College Application Beast You already know that applying to college involves a bunch of moving parts, and it can be a scary process to undertake (let alone hit “submit” on!). To make it feel a bit more attainable, let’s go through it piece by piece. In this post I’ll provide an overview of decision timelines, the logistics of ...
Cracking the College Admissions Process, Part I: The Search and the Setup
Everyone and their mother seems to have advice about college… ...but well-meaning uncles and even teachers sometimes forget how much work it is to apply to college. People talk about how exciting it is and how you’ll be taking the next step towards your future, but they don’t always mention that the process is stressful, too. Not only do you have ...
College interviews: dos, don'ts, and common questions
Remember that the college interview is as much an opportunity for the school to learn about you as if is for you to learn about the school. There is no right answer during an interview (it should be thought of more as a conversation); though there are some helpful things to remember when you step into your first interview.
Writing a thesis and topic sentences in your personal statement
Every applicant who needs to write a personal statement struggles with structuring their personal statement. It is hard enough to muster the courage to brainstorm your most salient life experiences on paper; now, the most important part is structuring your personal statement with your thesis and topic sentences.
To write a memorable college essay, tell a story
Essays Without Concrete Information Are Quickly Forgotten As I regularly tell students in my AP English classes, essays full of generalizations aren’t worth the paper they are written on. An essay that fails to include concrete examples of the concept under discussion is forgotten the moment the reader reaches the end—if, indeed, the reader gets ...
What to talk about in your college admissions alumni interview
In my last post, I laid out four reasons why you should schedule that “optional” alumni interview advertised on universities’ pages for prospective students. In today’s post, I’ll describe how to hold a conversation that is valuable for you, and for your alumni interviewer, as they draft their report for the admissions committee.
Why you should opt-in to the (optional) alumni interview
You’ve labored over the first draft of your personal statement, requested letters of recommendation, and taken the SAT one last time— and, finally, winter break arrives. With it comes ample free time to commit to the “optional” elements of the college admissions process, such as college visits and what I’ll discuss today: the voluntary “alumni ...
Have You Finished Your College Application Essay? (Part Two)
If you’ve already read Part One of this post, you’ll have ensured that your college application essay has a consistent main point, that its ideas flow in a logical order, and that it represents your own writerly voice. In Part Two, we’ll address more local concerns: although the questions below might seem limited to “smaller” editing or ...
Have You Finished Your College Application Essay? (Part One)
One of the toughest parts of applying to college is actually hitting that “Submit” button at the end of the application and sending it off to admissions readers. Even if you want to be done, application nerves can make it difficult to commit to being done. In this two-part post, I’ll give you a list of things to look for in your college ...
How to draft a college personal statement in 4 easy steps
There is no use beating around the bush: drafting your personal statement is one of the most challenging components of the college application. Even the most confident writers struggle to distill their identity within the bounds of a word count. The personal statement requires serious introspection about your life and long-term goals, and thus can ...
6 ways to manage your time during your senior year
Applying to college in the fall of your senior year of high school is like adding on an extra class: between the Common App, secondary applications, and any remaining test prep, your college application doesn’t just reflect your academic abilities—it requires you to really show them off. However, along with demonstrating your writing and ...
The key to selecting the right answer on the SAT & ACT: part 2
Welcome to part 2 of my post on English strategies for the SAT and ACT! If you didn’t read part 1, you can check it out here. Picture it now: you’re breezing through the ACT English Language Arts or SAT Writing and Language section. Every question come easily to you, as you follow what your ear tells you is right. You didn’t need to learn grammar ...
Where Else Could you Go to College? Your Top Four Choices Beyond the Ivies
When high school juniors and seniors are putting their lists of schools together for college applications, they sometimes run into a paradox: on the one hand, there are so many colleges and universities they could apply to. On the other hand, everyone seems to be talking about just eight of them—the Ivy League (or maybe a few more if they’re ...
How to address weak areas of your college application
Although it may feel like you have to have the perfect application to get into college, with acceptance rates at some top-tier schools dropping below five percent, there is no perfect formula for being accepted to college. Your goal instead should be to present any “problem areas”—a dip in your GPA, lower test scores than you wanted, or other ...
4 Key Tricks for Brainstorming Your College List
If you’re a rising high school senior looking toward college application season, one of your most important first steps is putting together a list of colleges you want to apply to. This list will help you plan college visits and make a schedule of application deadlines; it’s also an important time to check in about which schools’ admissions ...
A Quick Review Of Early Decision Schools And How To Plan For Them
Many sophomores and juniors—along with their parents—are thinking about college right now. Though so many have whittled down a balanced list of schools, many applicants and their families have difficulty deciding when to apply.
Your College Admissions Timeline
Looking ahead to the college application process, it is imperative to have a roadmap to follow. The most successful applicants begin to plan for their college application during the sophomore year of high school. By beginning to plan for the college admissions process early, applicants can better position themselves and significantly reduce the ...
Tips to Rock the College Admissions Interview
source: Randy Glasbergen You’ve picked the college, started to submit materials, and began writing draft #239 of your personal statement. Then you get the invitation to interview. Having now been on both sides of the table, I can say that being the interviewee can be really stressful, and I sympathize with you. Here are a few tips for rocking it:
Do colleges consider campus visits in their admissions decision?
In this blog post, we ask four of our New York and Cambridge college admissions coaches a simple question:
How to Use Your ACT Scores to Bucket Your College List
Yes, you can apply to 50+ schools and every year, there are students that do. However, if you build a strong college list there is no need to exhaust yourself by applying to too many schools. I always recommend students prepare a list of nine to twelve schools. Personally, I think nine is plenty but I understand the security that comes with ...
How To Tackle Common App Essays
Stephen King at his desk, writing away! While the Common App has streamlined the college application process significantly, the fact that the essays go to the majority of schools you are applying to gives them that much more importance. You don’t get another chance to refine an essay or make it better for another school, so your essays need to be ...
The SAT essay dissected: a step-by step guide
For many students, the SAT essay is one of the most challenging parts of the exam. The short length of time means that you don't have the ability to develop a strong, well thought-out, complex essay. Fortunately, similar to other sections on the SAT, you can succeed by taking a methodical approach, and after some practice, this will come naturally.
Tackling the “Why Do You Want to Apply to This College” Admissions Essay
The Common App has taken a huge amount of work off of your shoulders. Gone are the days of separate, specific essay questions and endlessly different applications. But, that also means that any opportunity to get more in-depth, specialized knowledge about your interests is going to be very valuable for admissions teams. It makes the “Why Do You ...
What essays should I read to help me write a personal statement?
Who said writing your personal statement had to be boring? When you’re writing your personal statement, you want to write in your own voice as honestly and clearly as possible. Of course you want to write a personal statement that will stand out from the pack, but you don’t want it to stand out for the wrong reasons: you still need to follow the ...
What books can I read to help me write my college personal statement?
What is a personal essay? What does a college personal statement sound like? You’ve looked at tons of sample personal statements, but none of them are particularly inspiring. How do you find your voice as a writer?
Break Through Writer’s Block! Tips for Your College Admissions Essay
Not sure how to go about writing your college adissions essay? Fear not! We've all been there. The college admissions essay is daunting. The possibility of writing about anything, and with the essay being such a central part of your application, can reduce even the most confident writer to a procrastinator of distinction. Regardless of the prompt ...
Choosing Colleges to Apply to: The Perfect List Is Not What You'd Expect
Follow our tips and you're sure to learn something about yourself! When my brother and I were choosing colleges to apply to, we were similar candidates in many ways––comparable test scores, grades, and extracurriculars––but our college lists were starting to look very different. My brother’s schools skewed towards the larger end: he wanted a large ...
Planning College Visits (Part 3 - On Campus Checklist)
Fingers crossed for good weather. [Image source: Columbia University, where Andrew spends most of his time] This post is part of a 3 part series. Check out Part 1 on Getting Started, and Part 2 on Traveling Efficently. Once you’re finally on campus for the visit and information session, you may feel like the battle has already been won. I see kids ...
How to Plan Your College Visits: Getting Started
Rory from Gilmore Girls visits Yale. Most of us aren't lucky enough to have a grandpa alumni. For all rising juniors and seniors, this is the season to take the first step in the college application process – planning your college visits. Remember, this is your first opportunity to examine a range of colleges and their first chance to get a look ...
What Should I Write My College Essay About?
Yes, let’s. I’ve met all kinds of students over my years as a college essay tutor in NYC, but there has been one thing that almost all of them had in common: the hardest part of writing their college admissions essay was picking a topic. And there’s nothing wrong with that! Staring at a blinking cursor wondering how on earth you should represent ...
Admissions: 5 Things to Know About Getting Into Oxford and Cambridge
Watch the Jeremy Irons Brideshead Revisited and tell us you don’t want to go to Oxford. Oxford and Cambridge (affectionately known to many as “Oxbridge”) are amongst the world’s oldest and most prestigious universities. Hundreds of leading figures from virtually every sector of society have passed through the Ivory towers of Oxford and Cambridge, ...
College Admissions Coach: How Juniors & Seniors Can Take Action Today!
Applying to college can feel like this sometimes--but it doesn't have to! After spending five days on five separate college admissions tours and information sessions with my younger sister last week, I couldn’t be more excited to coach my Class of 2015 and Class of 2016 students as they begin the college admissions process! I’m here to help you ...
Application Consultant: How Lists Can Jumpstart the Personal Statement
Lists: The Solution to, But Not Cause of, All of Life's Problems. Early applications for colleges are due in just one week! Whether you're among the many students nationwide who are still struggling to figure out their common app essay, or you're applying regular decision and don't even know how to start, read on! Today, Adrienne, one of our top ...
Do College Admissions Officers Look at Facebook Profiles? You Bet!
Today, Cambridge Coaching presents a guest post from our friends at Cornerstone Reputation, a company which teaches students to use social media in a healthy and powerful way and helps them develop strategies for building a positive online presence that will be an asset to them in the future, such as during the college admissions process.
The benefits of studying ancient Greek in high school
Today, we offer the second of two guest posts from our good friends at Calder Classics on why learning a "dead language" might be the very thing that gives you the edge you need in college admissions (see the first one here). Based in New York, Calder Classics is an elite educational company committed to helping students prosper by giving them the ...
The benefits of taking Latin in high school
Today, we offer the first of two guest posts from our good friends at Calder Classics on why learning a "dead language" might be the very thing that gives you the edge you need in college admissions. Based in New York, Calder Classics is an elite educational company committed to helping students prosper by giving them the chance to learn the ...
SAT Tutor: why you should wear a bathrobe on test day
What to wear on Test Day? What kind of question is that? What on earth could clothing have to do with taking standardized tests?
College Admissions: What Do I Do if I End Up on the Wait List?
Samuel Beckett knew what it was like to wind up on the waitlist.
College Admissions Guidance: What Does "Leadership" Actually Mean?
Now is the time that seniors in high school should start moving into leadership positions in clubs...but what does "leadership" mean? Today Sam, one of our expert online college application consultants, explains.
How to write a compelling personal statement
Hello, dear readers! Today, I will be talking about college admissions essays, and sharing with you some ways to help maintain perspective during the writing process. At first blush, the college admissions essay seems a very particular piece of writing—it is a hybrid form of personal narrative, argumentative prose, epic poem, and impassioned plea. ...
Do Top Colleges Care If Students Take Both the ACT and SAT?
Do top colleges care if students take both the ACT/SAT? Do colleges have a preference for one of the tests over the other (i.e. Do some schools prefer the ACT, while others prefer the SAT?) Will an applicant who has taken both the ACT and SAT be favored over one who has only taken one of the exams? Different answers and opinions were revealed to ...
College Admissions Guide: The Art of Making the Reader Happy
Consider the college application reader. She might be an admissions officer, but she might also be a well-meaning, well-trained volunteer who teaches for the college. On November 2, she is delivered a towering, wobbly stack of colored folders containing the collected dreams of hundreds of applicants. Over the next month or two she will spend ...
The 'why do you want to apply to our college?' admissions essay
One of the great (and few) advantages that applicants today have over their predecessors is the near-universal acceptance of the Common Application. Instead of having to grimly grind out a dozen colelge essays on a multitude of head-numbing topics, applicants can now take the time to polish their main essay to a high shine. The unacknowledged side ...
College Admissions: Why Bad Things Happen To Good College Applicants
College admissions committees work in mysterious ways, and sometimes, even the most qualified applicants are the victims of bad luck. Here's how to cope.
College Corner: Counting Down to College Admissions
For students starting to think about (or in the midst of!) the college application process, it’s helpful to be aware of all the possible components of a strong college application, as well as how to best leverage the high school years towards your candidacy.
College Admissions Process: College Interview Guide
With regular decision applications in for most college-bound seniors, congratulations on completing the college admissions process! The waiting period begins, interspersed with alumni and on-campus college interviews. Remember that the college interview is as much an opportunity for the school to learn about you as it is for you to learn about the ...
Standardized Test Math Mechanic: SAT geometry prep
I thought that it would be fun to tackle a geometry problem on today's post. I know what you're thinking, fun and geometry – can these two words even go in the same sentence? But yes, geometry can be fun; let's see as we work together through the details of a particular problem.
Application Consulting: Free Writing the Personal Statement
"Never stop to look back, to cross something out, to wonder how to spell something, to wonder what word or thought to use, or to think about what you are doing."[1]
College Corner: Writing your College Admissions Essays
Many colleges and universities require a few essays as part of the application, and many colleges and universities provide different prompts...You could be writing 15 different essays by the end of the process, but hold on, you don't have to do that!
The College Corner: Do's & Dont's of the College Interview
Remember that the college interview is as much an opportunity for the school to learn about you as it is for you to learn about the school. There is no right or wrong answer during a college interview – it isn’t a standardized test. Think of it as more of a conversation. Don't stress too much. Applying to college can feel like a drag, so keep this ...
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