After a cliched topic, the biggest problem you’ll want to avoid is writing in generalities. This note applies to many elements of an essay, but overall, it means that you should identify something that is of importance to you and to talk about it with commitment. Make sure that you are addressing the most specific elements of it that you understand, and that you’re focusing on the decisions and actions you made during the event you’re writing about.

Avoid phrases like “she’s always there for me” or “looking around the room, I realized…” Avoid phrasings that don’t tell us what someone is actually doing, saying, or feeling.

Here’s a short list of writing suggestions to improve others’ sense of your writing:

• Take a risk
• Show, don’t tell
• Use specific details
  • General: My uncle Mike has been a huge influence in my life.
  • Specific: My uncle Mike was the man who told me my brother had broken both his legs skiing in the Alps. Mike was the man who took me to the father-son picnic when my dad was ill. And when I found myself in need of help that late Friday night that would forever change my life, it was Mike’s number I dialed.

There are a whole lot more here at CEO’s guide for what to do in a college essay.

We would love to hear your ideas or other good examples in the comments.

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!

One of the most obvious things you can do to make your writing stand out is to choose an exciting, accessible topic for your essay. Of course, many of the prompts will be decided for you, but that doesn’t mean the topic is. College applications are known for their broad, interpretable questions that have a surprising amount of flexibility to them if you think about it for a bit.

Here are a few good places to start:

• What are your favorite activities and hobbies? Why?
• What are your talents/skills? How did you develop them? Who helped you?
• Who have been the most influential people in your life?
• What was your most memorable experience? Best? Worst?
• How have you changed in the past four years?

We’ve got more good essay topics for you here. Remember to not always choose the first thing that comes to mind. It’s much more important to have a good piece of writing than to just get it over with.

Mark Sklarow, IECA Executive Director

The following is a guest blog post from our partners at IECA, the Independent Educational Consultants Association. This is the first in a series of IECA articles that will be posted here.

Mark Sklarow has served as Executive Director of the Independent Educational Consultants Association for 16 years. Prior to this he was Dean of Students at a private day school in Philadelphia, a Political Science instructor at Temple University, and Director of Education at Presidential Classroom. As IECA’s CEO he presents extensively across the country about trends in the field of independent educational consulting, and offers trainings and assistance to those entering the profession.

Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education recently completed a study of the field of Educational Consulting.  Noting the dramatic growth of the field, the research concluded by cautioning parents and other educators to steer clear of the thousands of educational consultants who have refused to subject themselves to the thorough vetting process required of membership in the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) or the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA).  As a result, there has been increased exploration among consultants in joining IECA.  To assist those unaffiliated, yet serious professionals, here are my “top ten” ways IECA helps to serve independent educational consultants:

1. Referrals: Given our extensive outreach efforts and national promotional work, the IECA print and online directories are referenced by parents thousands of times each week.  Just in the past few days we heard from one member noting that he received 4 referrals in August alone and another new member who noted she received her first client from an IECA referral, less than a week after joining.  A single referral covers the cost of IECA membership many times over.

2. Professional Development: IECA hosts multi-day and full-day training programs for those newer to the profession each fall (in conjunction with NACAC) and each summer.  We partnered with the University of California/Irvine extension to offer the only certificate program in independent educational consulting.  Our two national conferences draw between 850 and 1200 attendees each, including hundreds of colleges who participate in our fairs.  We also sponsor group campus tours throughout the year and IECA members receive invitations to members-only and other group tours through our website.

3. National Staff: IECA’s professional staff of 6 full-time employees means that someone is always here to help.  Whether you are working on your own social networking, need assistance with one of our dozens of member benefits, have questions about an upcoming meeting, need a sample contract or want to examine business expansion or ethics concerns, the IECA staff is available to you.

4. Small Business Assistance: We know that most who enter the field do so with a background in admissions or counseling and chose the profession because they are passionate about helping adolescents.  Yet to “make it” consultants must also embrace entrepreneurial skills and we assist members every step of the way in understanding small business skills from running an office to marketing.

5. Press and Public Relations: IECA spends considerable resources on its public outreach efforts.  Our goal is to make sure that when families, educators and the media think about independent educational consulting, IECA comes to mind.  We make all of our dozens of brochures and fliers available to members to use and continually look for ways to use new media including blogs, LinkedIn, Facebook and much more.

6. Leading the profession: Ask anyone who sets the standards for educational consulting and IECA is mentioned.  The recent Harvard Study noted our ‘Standards of Excellence’ and our ‘Principles of Good Practice’ as the two leading documents for those entering the profession.  Our opinions are valued, our leadership sought out.  No wonder those who want to be seen as serious professionals and leaders in the field join IECA.

7. Member Services: Marketing, publications, campus tours, special events, discounts on professional materials and office supplies (including College Essay Optimizer), healthcare programs, liability insurance, mentoring and members-only seminars are just some of the offerings for members.

8. Peer Networking: Central to our mission is a belief that professionals support each other in their work.  Whether through our ListServe, mentoring or interactions during workshops, seminars or conferences, those who join IECA become part of a network of consultants stretching around the globe.

9. Holistic View of Adolescence: We do not believe you can view college admission in a vacuum, and we do not exist to assit only with admission.  IECA believes strongly that independent educational consultants must understand the entire child.  We help ensure our members understand issues like depression, teen anxiety, impact of adoption, learning disabilities, non-traditional families and more, to best serve the needs of all students.

10. Recognition for Excellence: When you include “Member, IECA” on your brochure or Web site, it conveys a great deal about you: that you have been fully vetted, that you are among the most respected, knowledgeable, competent consultants with top-notch training, experience and credentials.  No wonder so many in the media, in college admission offices, and among parents, will only work with IECA Members.

To learn more about IECA and membership opportunities, visit: http://www.iecaonline.com/membership.html

With so many different sources for this information, such as the Common App, College Board, and NCES, CEO is your trusted source, doing all the investigative work that would take one person days.

If you had a flag for every essay... That'd be thirty flags.

30? You read that right. The powers that be at New York University have so specifically divided the school that there are now 30 essays for undergrads to consider waiting in our database. 30!

To the school’s credit, no undergraduate applicant will have to write thirty individual essays when applying to NYU. The numerous essays mostly belong to specific departments, like the Tisch School of the Arts or the Silver School of Social work – all told, the Violet Bobcats of NYU have essays for programs in Film, Photography, Music Business, you name it. They even have a new satellite school in Abu Dhabi. While no applicant will have to address them all, each applicant will have to write several essays, regardless of which school within the university he or she chooses.

It just goes to show that the breadth and reach of schools like NYU should not be underestimated, and that with tools like CEO you can get a shortcut to those requirements, and in turn, see the opportunities that schools of such great diversity offer.

So keep in mind that the big schools often pose as many challenges in their applications as they do in their classes! It’s all benefits in the long run, but managing the task from the get-go can be daunting. Make sure you have the right tools to guide you on your journey.

And while you’re at it, make sure you’re not just avoiding questions like this guy.

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.

That's right. It says 35 years.

The Common App has updated for the class of 2015. This year’s application features twenty-nine new schools, including Columbia University, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, UConn, and three SUNY schools – Maritime College, Morrisville State College, and Potsdam.

As in past years, many schools require supplements to the Common App, which means additional writing, sorting, and organization. CEO is right on the edge of these releases and we make sure our application information is up to date. So as these supplements are made available, we’ll have them here, and your Essay QuickFinders and Essay RoadMaps will update automatically to reflect the latest information for the schools you’ve selected.

Make the most of these early releases and get your writing done ahead of time! Remember that CEO is a great resource for finding scholarship and honors programs, too. That’s cash money and respect! What else could you ask for?

One of the reasons schools make these requirements known so far ahead of time is to allow you to explore the departmental and honors requirements so many of them have without getting overwhelmed. Too often we hear about students who choose not to apply to programs or even entire universities just because of the application workload! That just won’t do. So use CEO’s tools as much as you can and keep your eye on the prize.

In the next few weeks we’re going to up the ante a little bit and open the floor to you in a more hands on, nuts-and-bolts way. If you have a question you’d like answered about the college essay process in general, about a specific prompt, or about CEO, let us know by dropping us an email.

As we roll into the fall and the admission season heats up, we’ll continue to maintain an open forum so you can get answers to your questions about your struggles, your curiosities, and your successes.