Cree Bautista! Congratulations, you're on CEO blog! Weird, right?

This new article in the New York Times’ Education section talks about unlikely hero to college applicants everywhere, Cree Bautista. Mr. Bautista saw fit to apply to NYU just a few hours after the Common App went live at the beginning of this month, and in so doing became the first applicant of the year through the site.

Cree’s eagerness, though exceptional in degree, isn’t uncommon in practice. The Common App’s directors have already started talking about the speed of this year’s applicant pool, and the sheer number of applications students are managing. From the Times’ article:

“Rob Killion, executive director of the Common Application, said he was particularly unnerved by the flood of early submissions through the organization’s website because he feared that students were rushing their essays. (This year’s Common Application was actually posted several weeks later than last year’s — not as a prod to get applicants to file later, but instead to allow high schools extra time to send final documents before the new year begins.)”

Remember, your top choice is not your only choice! There are many applications to be managed, and sites like CEO are here to get that work out in front of you and help you keep it under control from the get-go. While we can’t all be like Cree, we can all save ourselves from those last-minute crushes of papers and apps.

Where does the road in that logo roam? To new technologies, my friend.

The Journal of College Admission, a publication that discusses the National Association for College Admission Counseling (or NACAC), recently put out an article called “Using Technology in Undergraduate Admission: A Student Perspective.”

It points out that nearly all students are using various forms of technology to guide them through the admissions process. In fact, the article mentions that, “One survey found that 88 percent of college-bound prospective students would be disappointed or possibly eliminate a school from consideration if the institution’s web site did not meet expectations.”

We encounter many college websites that are more complicated than they need to be, especially in their organization of honors, scholarship, and departmental essays, so we commiserate with applicants who are frustrated by this. Lucky for you, CEO’s goal is to design a simple technology that provides a solution while streamlining your efforts to simplify and organize the process. Glad to have you with us as we head into the new application season.

The Scottsdale Community College Fighting Artichokes are clear about what they want from applicants: a love of fighting and delicious cuisine. Other schools will require an essay.

The Independent Educational Consultants Association recently released a bit of press about what colleges are really looking for in applicants. And while a number of things we know to be vital remained vital – academic performance, difficulty of schedule, a willingness to challenge one’s self – this particular quote caught our eyes:

“The importance of the essay moved up since the last survey, perhaps reflecting the essay’s role as more colleges move to ‘test optional’ status. The essay was also seen as more important to private liberal arts colleges, as compared to large state universities.”

Schools continue to add essay requirements to find ways to distinguish their applicants and to find unique elements among them. Though on the surface this appears to make more work for applicants, much of that work is easily avoided with tools like CEO’s, and simultaneously delivers to applicants the opportunities they’ve long asked for to be considered as people rather than numbers. Not bad.

So recognize that our trusty friends at the IECA have spoken – get your essays right. They are truly your greatest opportunity to speak directly to the universities themselves. But even more than that, they are becoming opportunities to distinguish yourself clearly in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

We can help you KISS a little less of your money goodbye.

One of the hidden benefits of using CEO’s Essay QuickFinder and Essay RoadMap tools is that they deliver optional and departmental essays, as well as those for special applicants. If you are applying for scholarships available to high school seniors entering their freshman year, CEO will find those for you too!

Using the Essay QuickFinder has this hidden benefit – you’ll be told about departments and scholarship opportunities you didn’t even know were there!

This is especially true with large state schools. With such large class sizes and departments, the nooks and crannies for scholarships to be tucked away in are seemingly endless. By letting CEO deliver that easy-to-use list of your essay requirements, often you’ll find out about opportunities others may have overlooked.

There are a number of schools in our database with over fifteen essay requirements, many of which are department-specific or scholarship-oriented. Use these results to your benefit and increase your opportunities to receive that no-strings-attached funding.

Maybe after you get the acceptance letter you can think twice about getting the tattoo to match.

The University of Miami got a few new ways to recruit students this week – Lebron James and a few of his friends.

The King’s decision caused us to pause and consider His Majesty’s… shall we say… not so tactful way of revealing where he was headed. Let’s compare it to the somewhat less prickly process of letting your family know which college you’ll be attending. Yes! I said it! You will get in! Somewhere! After that initial joy wears off, take your tips from the Chosen 1:

1. Don’t schedule an hour-long slot on prime-time television, no matter who asks for it. We understand you’re going somewhere. We understand it is very, very important to you. And to many other people in your life. Even to people you have not yet met. But the process of telling people should take you fifteen seconds at best. Perhaps thirty when speaking to the elderly. An hour is pushing it for anything that can be safely squeezed inside a single sentence.

2. Don’t surround yourself with children like you’re Mother Theresa. You are not bringing wider peace to the populace. You are bringing academic potential and all the hard work of preparation that comes along with it. You are not, however, raising a city from the ashes. If, for example, you’re going to college in, oh, say, southern Florida, remember that southern Florida has seen a lot and has done okay without you.

3. Don’t tell people where you’re about to “take your talents.” We also understand how talented and wise you are. Just get in there and get those straight-As like your mama made you to. Just get in there and get ‘er done. And if there is, oh, say, someone else who might have a leg (or six) up on you, pay them respect and just let everyone know about where you’re headed quietly. A phone call, an email, even a press release to the proper media outlets, and you’ll be fine.

Follow these three simple tips and it is highly unlikely that anyone will shove life-sized cutouts of you into the garbage face first. Better yet, very few people will set anything on fire with your name on it. Stay strong.

You have a summer. Don't spend it like this guy.

One of the great advantages CEO provides to its users is the ability to get a head start on what can be a pretty humungous amount of work. Access to our database comes along with a weekly emailer, letting you know which schools’ requirements have been updated for the coming year, and giving you a chance to get out in front of that pile while you still have the time to do it.

The rude, nay, completely unacceptable reality of senior year is that your superiors insist on continuing to give you homework despite your being a full 75% complete with your high school education. What I’m saying is that seniors have work. Papers. Math. Things to do.

Piling the applications and essays has loads of upsides for you, but the amount of work and the creeping deadlines are not part of those upsides.

So here it is, July already, and after that, there’s, you know, August. Months when you may find yourself with a wee bit of free time. Working with CEO can help you turn September and October’s piles into very manageable slates of work. Get started ahead of time and knock those essays out beforehand, so your revisions in the fall feel more like tweaks and fine-tuning. The kind of work that turns high school writing into actual, honestly good writing.

If you don't know who these people are, just know them as the stars of Mega Python vs. Gatoroid. And don't write your college essay about the Mega Python or the Gatoroid.

All right, it’s Friday, and this post isn’t going to be so much for the students applying to college this year as it is for the counselors and parents who love them.

CEO would like to send out a hearty congratulations to the wizards at the inexplicably titled SyFy channel for rolling up their sleeves, putting the noses to the grindstone, and getting some very important work done. These people have brought Debbie Gibson and Tiffany together. In one film. At last. And that film is titled Mega Python vs. Gatoroid.

That’s right, for those of you who couldn’t get enough of her epic turn in Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, the 80s pop star Debbie (that’s Deborah to you) Gibson returns in what ought to be called a conceptual sequel to that made-for-the-small-screen masterpiece if someone’s not out there calling it that already.

But the people at SyFy didn’t stop there. No. They brought on the lead vocalist of the ‘I Think We’re Alone Now‘ cover that everyone who was eight at the time thought was the original. That’s Tiffany. Nope, don’t know what her last name is and we didn’t stop to look it up. Too excited.

What will come of MPVSG as the kids are calling it only the future knows. My guess is that it will involve a snake and a gator of some sort doing battle. But it will also feature 80s rivals Debbie Gibson and Tiffany doing battle and that’s what we’ve waited over twenty years to see here. With the special effects in Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus rivaling those of an awkward Super Nintendo cut scene we can only hold out hope for the best of all the gatoroid has to offer. Whatever a gatoroid is.

Like Heinz Vinegar, the Common App will now be more powerful than you ever could have imagined.

The Common App will add at least twenty-five schools this coming year, enticing students to apply to even more schools than they might have in years past. As we’ve said before, there’s very little downside to applying to a large number of schools, and whatever hangups you might have (cost, inconvenience) should be outweighed by the long-term benefits of landing a spot at a reach school (successful friends, higher income potential).

So there are more schools on the Common App. Problem solved, right? Not quite. One of the big misconceptions about the Common App is that adding schools to your list is a click-and-you’re-done situation if they’re all on the Common App. But the large majority of these 25 new schools will ask for supplemental essays, so having these schools on your list might mean fewer applications, but won’t necessarily cut down the number of essays you’re required to write. That’s where CEO comes in. We can streamline that process instantly, automatically, and inexpensively.

What’s more, starting next week and going throughout the fall, CEO will be updating its database of essay requirements to keep them as current as possible. And with our new email notification system, we’ll be able to alert you as soon as the requirements are made available so you can start early and save yourself the stress.

The new additions to the Common App might mean fewer applications, but with CEO, it’ll mean fewer apps and fewer essays. If you’re a rising senior, check out the discounts we have available. They won’t be there after July first!

I mean, it’s right there. Copy. Paste. Done. Why not? It’s a time saver. And the colleges aren’t doing you any favors there by making their applications so similar, yet not identical. Why not take just a little help from your friends?

It’s an ethical issue everyone wrestles with, especially when doing work you’re not necessarily pouring your heart and soul into. But where CEO comes to the rescue is in the focus and ethical re-application of the work you’ve already done for your other apps. It cuts down on the work you need to do, making the apps especially easy for those sure-bet and safety schools you have on your list. For sure, by the time you get to those apps, you’ve outlined your grand life plan in five hundred words or less enough times. No need to do it again, right? Right.

Now thank CEO instead of the command-v.

Here are some other speed-mongers who whose abilities, while not necessarily as speedy as CEO’s, will amaze you. Behold.