The Common App has responded to this issue and changed its short answer requirement from 750 characters to 1,000 characters. We have updated our Common App settings at College Essay Organizer and adjusted the Essay RoadMap readouts to reflect this change.

It should also be noted that the Common App did not post an official notice of this fairly crucial change (they've increased the length requirement by a third without saying so!), but College Essay Organizer is on the case as usual.

One of the most notable disparities we've found is with the Common App itself. That's right, even the trusty old Common App has a significant difference between its paper (or PDF) version and its online version.

The paper version of the Common App calls for 150 words for it short essay, while the online version calls for 750 characters. The distinction is important, especially if you're running long, in which case the online version on the Common App will simply cut your writing off at the 750 character limit. So that 150-word essay can be significantly shorter if you're using big (some might say college-ready) vocabulary.

The Common App's short essay and optional space question are also worded differently. It's not a significant difference, though in many cases with colleges, different forms of college applications often feature different word counts, character limits, or even completely different questions! Just remember that College Essay Organizer is here to research these elements full time and contact the colleges to help resolve any confusion. So feel free to rely on us - it's our job.

Today's post comes courtesy
Erin Avery at Avery Educational Resources

Today's blog post is from Erin Avery, an independent educational consultant based in Fair Haven, New Jersey, who specializes in the college and boarding school search and application process. A graduate of Oxford and Yale, Avery is a Certified Educational Planner and creator of CollegeApp, available on the App Store. You can learn more about her and her services at averyeducation.com.

Ed. Consultant Erin Avery: “So, where geographically are you considering attending college?”
Son: “I don’t know…I was thinking of maybe an island.”
Father: “Yeah, Long Island.”

Yesterday, I sat beside a father and son duo, not unlike many cradled in the inner sanctum of my office’s worn leather armchairs. Often, as depicted above, parent and child come with divergent perspectives: rightfully so based on their respective worldviews and life experiences.

This is why I always welcome parents, guardians or other loving stakeholders to participate in the all-important Essay Brainstorming Session. The results are phenomenal. The invited “guests” act as time capsules, jogging the student’s memory of past notable examples of characteristics demonstrated, or character embodied. They may recall that precise anecdote that illustrates the quintessence of the student. Ultimately, if it is conducted properly, the essay brainstorming session is akin to a love-fest wherein the student hears and has mirrored back to him or her a chorus of voices affirming his or her unique gifts to the world.

In my role as an educational consultant, I have to admit, I am always scanning my conversations with you, my client, for “essay-worthy” content. I simply can’t help it. I have met myriad teens in my near decade of private practice. By employing my strength-based methodology, I passionately echo back to each student how incredible I find him or her. High school students never cease to astound me! While peers and society attempt to smother teens with the gag order of conformity, I bathe you in affirmation for your daily courage to choose to be yourself.

I have seen my share of Eagle Scouts, Congressional Medalists, National Merit Finalists, Point and Figure Charting experts, even oyster gardeners, and the accolades continue. Yet be mindful that the most profound essay topics need not be the most cataclysmic. At a symposium last spring, the New Jersey reader from GW shared, as she welled up with tears, that her favorite essay amid her applicant pool was written by a student portraying the profound impact on him of his parents’ 25-year marriage. (Her second favorite essay topic was on the sneaker-odor of the applicant’s car.) Your story can (and often must) be drawn from the quotidian, everyday seventeen year-old lived experience. Do not grant one instant to counterproductive feelings of inadequacy if you have not yet discovered a cure for cancer (but get on that, would you?). Rather, own who you are and where you are. If you are presently staring at a blank screen, go grab a decaf frappuccino with someone who loves you and if you are too embarrassed to ask them blatantly to sing your praises, ask him or her what s/he would say at your funeral (morbid, yes, but effective!). Still stumped? Google and read “The Desiderata”. Works like a charm.

Don't let your senioritis get the best of you. Finish those English classes.

Nothing like getting that fat envelope in the mail, is there? Nope, nothing like it at all. First thing that comes to mind for most is, "I'm done." Images of fleeing, running through a field, perhaps jumping a prison wall. Glory days.

Not so fast. You have so little high school left in front of you, but so much... other... school... things. Or as those of us not suffering from senioritis would say, you've got opportunities in front of you. Keep your eye on the prize and remember that with your academic courses especially, maintaining decent grades is essential for holding your place in any class formed in 2011.

While the odds of your having an offer rescinded are low - about one in a hundred and fifty, even at the more selective schools - if you represent yourself one way and turn in a final transcript that is significantly different, you can expect trouble. Just have a look at this statement about senioritis from the director of admissions at the University of Washington in Seattle:

"When they say, 'I'm taking a fourth year of language, I'm taking AP (Advanced Placement) this and AP that,' and when you see their final transcripts, it is underwater basket weaving and intro to breathing ... you wonder if you are on the same planet," said Admissions Director Philip Ballinger. "They don't look the same. You were duped."

So take it easy, but not quite that easy. Keep those APs going and your foreign language too. And pass those classes, friends.

Don't wait until you hear back to get

started on the rest of your applications.

We see it year in and year out - students put all their eggs in the basket of their dreams, and are then left with a pile of writing to do in a very short window when they receive the dreaded thin envelope.

Remember that college applications, even if you're using the Common Application, are usually made up of several essays, both long and short. And when you're applying to six, eight, ten or even more universities, the amount of writing you may need to do can easily get out of hand.

Head on over to our Essay RoadMap preview and see - for FREE - how many essays your schools will require. Then get started ahead of time and make sure you're using your time wisely while writing as few essays as possible for all your questions.

We're looking to save you time and effort, so get started now. You can thank us later.

50% off all Essay QuickFinder and Essay RoadMap

accounts for individuals during the month of December!

Simply enter the promo code senior9 when you purchase your account.

Many students think that by using the Common Application, they only need to write two essays. But in addition to the Common Application’s basic essays, most schools require multiple supplemental admission essays. Some applicants have never even heard of supplemental essays – which can make for a pretty rude awakening as deadlines approach.

The facts:

• Submitting 7 college applications often requires more than 15 different admission essays.
• Just finding and organizing your college essay questions can take several hours.
• Many admission questions are hard to find, and some are not even located on the Common Application, especially the program-specific and scholarship questions.

CEO provides your essay questions in one place, instantly. We save you hours of work, keep you organized, and make sure you never overlook any essay questions.

We've put together a page explaining what Common App supplements are, and have provided a few examples of colleges that have them. For example, Yale has 2 required supplemental essays along with 5 short-answer essays. Some schools that have gone completely overboard: NYU has 3 required essays and as many as 27 program-specific essays.

Ready to get started? Click here to get your essay questions now for as little as $2!

Use the promo code senior9 for a 50% discount this month only!

These errors are all too common, and they're the kinds of things that can sink an application for good. Letting yourself be sloppy, cliched, repetitive, or negative won't just make your essays forgettable, they can even actively work against you, ruining whatever goodwill the rest of your application has engendered with the person reading it.

So without further adieu, make sure you never make these common mistakes:

• Don't litter your essay with quotes from others
• Don't go thesaurus-happy
• Don't generalize or stereotype
• Don’t use profanity or crass humor
• Don't use stuffy language

Take a look at our more comprehensive list of writing styles to avoid and see what other kinds of common errors you can be sure to look out for.

Always look out for cliche! Avoid it like the plague, as well as essay topics that center themselves around your faults or around things that you are not, rather than things that you are.

Any advice about what not to do, of course, always comes with a grain of salt. There are always exceptions, so use this only as a guide. Just make sure that if you cover one of the following topics, you do so in a unique way that highlights your strengths:

• Crime you've committed
• Character flaws
• Excuses for your shortcomings
• The "Big Game"

This last one might surprise you - the big success at a sporting event is a common topic, and it talks about a positive, emotional event. So why not use it?

It often leads you down very well-worn paths without necessarily telling us much about what you will be able to bring to an academic or social environment. More often than not, these essays focus on one-off events that don't translate to your everyday life. But worse, they aren't memorable.

Picture an admissions officer reading through five hundred essays. Five. Hundred. Essays. How many of these feel the same? How many are about a success in a sporting event? Push further, past cliche and into the elements of who you are that are specific to you and what you do. Things no one else in your school can say.

There are many, many more. Take a look at CEO's list of college essay topics to avoid.

If you have more suggestions of good essay topics (or bad ones), we look forward to seeing them in the comments!

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.

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.