July 22nd, 2010
With the latest Common App coming on August 1, we will be opening up a forum here to give you feedback on miscellaneous issues related to the college essay process. This way you’ll not only save hours of work and enhance your efficiency with CEO’s web tools but also get some clarity with the more confusing aspects of the process.
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.
Tags: Admissions, CEO, College Essay Organizer, Common App, Deadline, Essay, Guidance Counselor, Guide, Help, News, Organization, personal, Regular Decision, School, statement, Tips, Top Choice, university
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July 16th, 2010
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.
Tags: accomplishments, Admissions, CEO, College, College Essay Organizer, Common App, Deadline, early decision, Essay, Guidance Counselor, Guide, Help, IECA, Independent Educational Consultants Association, News, Organization, personal, procrastination, Recommendation, Regular Decision, School, statement, Tips, Top Choice, university
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July 9th, 2010
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.
Tags: accomplishments, Admissions, avoid, CEO, Cleveland Cavaliers, College, College Essay Organizer, Deadline, early decision, Essay, Guide, Help, Humor, Miami Heat, mistake, News, Overwhelming, personal, Recommendation, School, statement, Tips, Top Choice, university, University of Miami, Videos
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July 6th, 2010
Fun Fact: This picture was taken in February. Amherst's physics department can change the weather locally.
Amherst College is a Common App-exclusive school, but unlike many of its peers, it has gone ahead and released its 2011 essay requirements to the general public. They’re quite lengthy, so we won’t reprint them here, but Amherst’s decision to put them out ahead of the Common App’s August update points out a few great things about top schools like Amherst and what its actions mean for other schools that follow.
1. The more open a school is with you, the more open you can be in return. By putting out such a complex series of questions early in the admissions season, Amherst is showing you that it’s worth preparing to write your application essay. Amherst’s questions are challenging, and they require quite a bit of thought. Go ahead and put in the time it takes. Write multiple drafts. Get it right.
2. You have more work ahead of you than you think. Amherst recognizes that senior years are busier than they get credit for. So take advantage of the time the school has afforded you by putting this info out ahead of time. With opportunities like this and tools like CEO, your workload can be a lot more manageable than, say, those of your overworked and underprepared friends.
3. The college essay is the most underrated and under-appreciated part of the application. The admissions officers at Amherst know what it’s like to read half-baked and ill-conceived essays. Sure, they see writing from a lot of the top students in the country, but they also see it from people that have rushed themselves through a pile of applications, regardless of their grades and resumés. This is your opportunity to speak to the college – your chance to create something of a dialogue and show them who you are. Make the most of it.
If we were hard pressed to add a fourth element to this list, it would be that Amherst appreciates how many movies you have to watch this summer. That vampire flick ain’t gonna watch itself. Thank the school for its foresight and watch all the movies. There are so many. Then fire up CEO and get back to work.
Tags: Admissions, Amherst College, avoid, CEO, College, College Essay Organizer, Common App, Deadline, early decision, Essay, Guidance Counselor, Guide, Help, junior, News, Organization, Overwhelming, personal, Recommendation, Regular Decision, SAT, School, statement, Tips, Top Choice, university
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June 30th, 2010
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.
Tags: accomplishments, Admissions, CEO, College Essay Organizer, Common App, Deadline, early decision, Essay, Guide, Help, News, Organization, Overwhelming, personal, procrastination, Regular Decision, School, statement, summer, Tips, Top Choice, university
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June 18th, 2010
Gotta diversify... And mix it up... Like a... British Jamaican DJ.
As we’ve written about before, the cost of diversifying your set of schools is minimal when compared to the potential reward you have in store for an acceptance at a school above your safe range.
Being accepted at a school on the high end of where you’re aiming is a big deal in terms of the academic experience you’ll have, the success your peers will have after graduation, and the professional expectations you’ll have, both in salary and breadth of opportunity.
So how do you expand that list of schools without wasting your time?
Focus on the core priorities you have for your university experience. Selectivity, reputation and ranking, class size, location, setting, etc. Once you’ve made those decisions, find ways to broaden your selections, and the odds of landing a position will increase.
If you’re going to be applying to, say, Cornell, Drexel, Boston College, and UConn, stretch out the list of top schools to three or four, and your chances of winding up at a school like Cornell, even if it’s not exactly Cornell – say, Brown, Carnegie Mellon, or Yale – are going to increase.
Remember, there are many reasons you can be denied admission to a school, many of which are outside of your control, such as your demographic, geographic location, or high school’s history with the university. Broaden your selection and you’ll improve the chances.
CEO is here to compliment the other tools at your disposal and make the many applications, and the legwork that goes along with it, that much easier.
Tags: Admissions, Boston College, Brown University, Carnegie Mellon University, CEO, College Essay Organizer, Common App, Cornell University, Deadline, Drexel University, Duke University, early decision, Essay, Guidance Counselor, Guide, Help, mistake, Organization, Overwhelming, procrastination, Regular Decision, School, statement, Top Choice, UConn, university, Yale University
Posted in College Admissions Tips | Comments Off
April 27th, 2010
Washington Post. Get it? A post? In Washington? I guess? You have no idea how long we spent looking for an image to put here.
This terrific article over at the Washington Post describes in detail the process that CEO simplifies every day. Top applicants, facing ever-increasing odds against their getting into top schools, diversify their applications and increase the chance they’ll land an acceptance from a school at or above their academic level.
Sounds like a plan, right? And why not? There are plenty of horror stories to be had in that article. Perfect SATs. Top grades. Conservatory-level piano skills. A deferral.
But what the Post doesn’t address here is that if the process is being made easier and top schools are becoming ever-more selective, what’s the downside to applying to more schools?
There isn’t one, except for the cost of the applications, which is far outweighed by the potential reward of ending up at a school that brings you up academically, and eventually, professionally and financially.
Take a look at the last line from the article: “I’m feeling it was really smart of me to apply to so many,” she said, “because now I have enough options.” Speaks for itself.
And with CEO, you can get this work done before that rerun of Seinfeld comes on.
Keep your eye on the ball and you’ll see that tools already at your fingertips like CEO make this task easier than ever, often at a very low cost.
Tags: Admissions, Brown University, CEO, College, College Essay Organizer, Common App, Deadline, Duke University, early decision, Essay, Extra Curricular, Grades, Guide, Harvard University, Help, junior, MIT, News, Overwhelming, personal, procrastination, Recommendation, Regular Decision, rejected, SAT, School, Stanford University, statement, Tips, Top Choice, university, University of Maryland, Ursinus College, Washington University In St. Louis, Yale University
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April 19th, 2010
Our CEO and founder Daniel Stern is quoted in this New York Times article on plagiarism. One of the unexpected – but great – side effects of CEO’s service is that it cuts down on plagiarism. And maybe better yet for the more ethical time-strapped teens we help, it cuts down on that nagging urge to plagiarize.
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.
Tags: accomplishments, Admissions, avoid, CEO, College, College Essay Organizer, Common App, Deadline, early decision, Essay, Grades, Guide, Help, mistake, New York Times, News, Overwhelming, personal, Plagiarism, procrastination, Regular Decision, School, statement, Tips, Top Choice, university
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March 19th, 2010
There is no better opening. But you cannot have this opening. Sorry.
Tom Robinson at Today’s Campus Online recently addressed an issue that we’ve found CEO is well-designed to defeat, that of plagiarism in college essays.
Robinson discusses a recently published study that a jaw-dropping 36 percent of personal statements were found to include “significant matching text” when put through plagiarism-checking software, leading the researchers to believe that more than a third of all applicants were lifting parts or all of their college essays.
There are a whole lot of issues that come to mind when discussing this, not least of which are the problems of the naturally overloaded guidance counselors of America. Without meaningful one-on-one collaboration between students and faculty, it can be difficult for writers to be aware of the significant differences between the college essay and the standard five-paragraph essays they’ve been expected to churn out for years.
Another significant issue is the overwhelming amount of work that seniors are saddled with each fall. Most have their hearts set on an individual school, and if their early applications are denied, are often surprised to learn the actual amount of writing they have to do for their other applications. Panic sets in, and cheating begins to feel inevitable.
Our president and CEO, Daniel Stern, is quoted in Robinson’s article and talks about how CEO provides an ethical solution.
For juniors who are looking to avoid that time crunch in the first place, we’ve offered steep discounts, encouraging them to get started ahead of time and capitalize on the free time available in the summer.
For seniors, we provide an automatic, low-cost solution to the organizational challenge they’re bound to face, and we show them how to repurpose the work they’ve already done for many applications without resorting to taking others’ words.
Hey, if putting a dent in plagiarism is our good deed for the day then it’s been a good day. Shoot us an email and let us know what CEO’s doing right for you.
Tags: Admissions, avoid, CEO, College, College Essay Organizer, Common App, Deadline, early decision, Essay, Guide, Help, mistake, News, Organization, Overwhelming, personal, Plagiarism, procrastination, Regular Decision, School, statement, Tips, Today's Campus Online, Top Choice, university
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