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We Answer Questions From Independent Consultants

April 25th, 2011

This week we'll be featuring answers to fifteen frequently asked questions from Independent Counselors and other academic consultants about College Essay Organizer. Here's the first bunch, and if you have more questions, please let us know.

1. Is College Essay Organizer appropriate for all students?

CEO is a time-saving tool regardless of where a student is applying. It instantly delivers all of the questions for any student's selected schools -- and for students applying to schools with few or no essay questions, CEO helps them confidently know that a certain college does not have any essay questions, as sometimes it takes hours of looking to determine this.

Moreover, many colleges that don't have required supplemental essay questions for traditional applicants do have required questions for students applying to specific programs or departments. Most students are not aware of this, find out too late, and end up rushing to write mediocre essays in order to make their deadlines.

Finally, an increasing number of universities, especially state schools, offer a multitude of scholarship essay questions that appeal to all demographics, even those who do not require financial aid. CEO now features hundreds of such questions, and the list is growing.


2. Can you help me place a value on College Essay Organizer?

Based on our research, the value of CEO far exceeds our current price point. With CEO, consultants save several hours per student, which means much less work required for the same number of billable hours. During the busy application season, this means your efficiency in setting up new clients skyrockets.

In fact, many consultants have found that if they share a sample CEO report with potential clients, it often convinces clients that they could not possibly manage this process on their own without enduring excessive stress and confusion.

CEO also finds program-specific essays that aren't included in schools' applications or on the Common App -- these questions tend to get overlooked or are discovered late in the game. Rather than spending hours seeking these out or losing your credibility when clients recognize that you've failed to address them, you can have them all delivered instantly through CEO.

CEO also provides a multitude of scholarship essays that can mean thousands of dollars in additional money for applicants.

With our new feature that allows you and your clients to upload and edit essay drafts within the CEO platform, you won't have to email multiple drafts back and forth for multiple students.

The alternative to using CEO is researching all the questions on your own or assigning this task to your clients, which may lead to incomplete and inaccurate results, not to mention frustrated students and parents. It also means resorting to the cumbersome process of emailing drafts back and forth dozens, even hundreds of times.

We offer various promotional discounts via our partner sites throughout the year and post new discount codes on our blog regularly, giving you many opportunities to make CEO an even more valuable part of your business.


3. What new features have been added to College Essay Organizer?

Our recent upgrades include making the RoadMap so much easier to interpret, adding note-taking and essay uploading features, and providing a checkbox that allows you to know whether or not an essay has been completed. We have also enhanced site speed overall.

We will also be holding weekly webinars for members, covering various essay topics, guidance on how to make the most of CEO accounts, and Q&A for answers to specific questions.

Finally, all independent consultants who are CEO members will be able to guest blog on our heavily trafficked site, expanding their reach to potential new clients.

If there is ever anything that you would like to see added to CEO, please let us know. Your feedback drives us to be better!


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Posted in Studies | No Comments »

How To Find Money For College

April 15th, 2011
Money for college - everywhere

Okay, maybe finding scholarships isn't quite like this, but it's CLOSE.

There are a lot of things on most students' minds as the deadlines for enrollment approach, not least among them the increasing cost of a university education in America.

For those of you unsure of how you're going to be paying for college (or for those parents in the audience), remember that the number of scholarships, fellowships, and diversity-based grants are higher than ever before.

Shaking the money tree effectively amounts to these three things:

  • Do your homework. What groups do you belong to? What are your special interests? Your favorite sports, hobbies, even your hometown can be qualifications for money you didn't even know was out there.
  • Creatively apply, and apply often. Your goal when applying in any competitive field is to stand out on your own and be memorable. No better way to do that than to insist on a creative, clear, inventive approach in your writing that stays specific to the money source you are applying to.
  • Apply often. Don't just stop at one or two. Spread it around, like you did with your college apps. You never know which one will hit, or how many.

Scholarships are out there if you seek them aggressively. And be sure to start with college essay organizer - we've diligently tracked down the scholarship opportunities schools present on their own applications and websites, so take advantage of them. Just because an essay isn't required doesn't mean it's bad for you.

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Posted in College Admissions Tips | No Comments »

New York Times Reports on 2011 College Admissions Figures

April 7th, 2011

New York Times College AdmissionsOver at the New York Times' The Choice, a great chart of up-to-the-minute admissions figures has been made available, and it makes clear that the trend of applying to many schools is showing no signs of letting up.

There are a number of caveats that they point out in the write-up under the chart, most notably that the budgets for advertising schools' applications have been increasing as well. The schools are in the business of increasing the number of applicants just as much as the students are in the business of hedging their bets by applying to more than ten schools a piece.

But what does that mean to you?

Notice that certain schools' acceptance rates dropped significantly from 2010 to 2011 without their academic metrics (like accepted student GPA or SAT scores) improving at the same level. These are schools that have found effective ways of boosting the applicant pool and driving down the acceptance rate without necessarily increasing competition for qualified students.

So it's not as much doom and gloom as you might think. If the schools are making an effort to increase the applicant pool without necessarily increasing the pool of applicants that deserve to be at the school, you are going to appear just as competitive as you would have in previous years, despite the increasing number of applicants. More than anything, you'll need to be focused on efficiency and making sure your pile of applications isn't overwhelmed by the typical homework you have to do in the first semester of your senior year. Get organized!

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CEO's Best Essays Contest - Free Money For College!

April 6th, 2011
Free Money At College Essay Organizer

Why is Abe Lincoln wearing a one dollar bill hat instead of a fiver? BECAUSE THAT'S JUST HOW HE ROLLS.

We know how much hard work you put into writing the perfect college essays this year, and now that the 2010/2011 admissions season has come to an end, we want to help you celebrate by giving away $1,000!

We invite you to enter College Essay Organizer's annual Best Essays Contest! The contest is open to all who applied to college this past fall, not just those who used College Essay Organizer.

Simply send an email by April 30 to info@CollegeEssayOrganizer.com with your best essay pasted in (no attachments please), and we will alert you if you're among our cash winners.

Here are the prizes:

  • 1st place = $500
  • 2nd place = $200
  • 3rd place = $100
  • 4 honorable mentions = $50 each

5 SIMPLE RULES:

  1. Only one admissions essay submission per person (pasted into the email - no attachments)
  2. Essay must be under 500 words
  3. Submission must be received by April 30
  4. Write "Contest" in the subject line
  5. You must have applied to college this past fall

So what are you waiting for? All the hard work is already done! Just send us your best essay and cross your fingers one last time. Hint: we like risky, creative, compelling, and just plain ol' fun essays!

Good luck!

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Don't Rely on Early Decision. Plan Your Other Essays Now!

December 1st, 2010

Many of you early applicants will be hearing back from your top choices this week, and just in case you find that thin envelope, CEO is extending a new offer to help you get the rest of your applications in order quickly.

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.

While you're at it, here are our top 3 tips on what to do if you've been rejected from your top choice:

1. Itemize Your Workload

There’s going to be a lot to do – probably somewhere between six and ten applications in two weeks’ or a month’s time. So before you begin, list all of your work and make sure you have a single source to work from, instead of ten different applications in a pile. Handling such a workload is all about managing your time appropriately.

2. Find other options that are comparable to your first choice

Your first choice is gone. Let it go. But the good news is that there are other options out there that are actually very similar to your top choice in many important ways. In many respects, you’ll even find that they’re better. So do your research if you haven’t already, and find out what else is out there. If you were aiming for Amherst, consider Williams and Brown. If you were aiming for Chapel Hill, think of Ann Arbor and Berkeley. Any one of these places might surprise you if you look a bit further into their many nooks and crannies.

3. Repurpose, Repurpose, Repurpose

You’ve got a lot of prompts, but remember that those essays can be handled with fewer essays than you think. After you’ve itemized your workload, consolidate it. Find an efficient way to get things under control, and you may be surprised at how quickly and accurately you can knock these essays out without over-exerting yourself or spreading your interests too thin.

That's where CEO comes in! We'll make sure to save you time and stress, enabling you to focus on writing your best quality essays instead of spreading yourself too thin. Good luck moving forward!

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3 Steps To A Winning College Admissions Essay

November 22nd, 2010
College Essay Mad Libs

Here's what not to do. We said, THIS IS WHAT NOT TO DO.

So you’ve done all the research. You now know where you’re applying, your SAT scores are stellar, and your list of extracurriculars is a mile long. But how do you make yourself stand out amongst the thousands of other students all fighting for the same spot at your top choice school?

We know that writing a strong college essay is the best way to ensure that admissions officers see the student behind the numbers. So don’t hide who you are, and use these tips to make sure your true colors come through:

1. Choose a topic that is specific to you.

Students often make the mistake of choosing a topic that is too broad or overused. For example, a vague recollection of some sports-related memory or a generally clichéd observation on life lessons learned while volunteering at a homeless shelter. Ask yourself this: What is a story only I can tell? That’s the one they want to hear.

2. Have a trusted educator read a draft.

The pressures of applications can make students feel like they have to sound “smart,” but once the thesaurus comes out for those four-syllable zingers, your personality can easily disappear. “If it sounds like a Ph.D thesis, it’s probably not their voice, the voice we’re looking for,” says Parke Muthe, the associate dean of admissions at the University of Virginia. Having a teacher or guidance counselor you respect read a draft can ensure the words are truly yours.

3. Be concise.

Most essay requirements cap the word count at 500, so make every word purposeful. Cut anything that is superfluous or repetitive. Each sentence should reveal a little more information about you: the way you think, the way you act, and the way you see the world. That way, admissions officers can walk away from your essay with a sense of who you are and hopefully, remember you.  That said, going a bit over the word limit is not going to hurt your chances – and it might even help if those additional words convey a great deal more about you.

Another way of thinking about this is don't write for length. Your high school teachers often do you a disservice by assigning a paper as a "two page assignment." Think about the content first, not how long it needs to be. You want this piece of writing packed with specific, memorable content, rather than words just for words' sake. Revise and edit! This means writing a lot more than you think you have to, then cutting it down for the material that matters.

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CollegeApp From Avery Educational Resources

November 9th, 2010

CollegeApp, a new app available for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad

Independent Consultant and CEO user Erin Avery has developed a new application for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad called CollegeApp.  CollegeApp uses a colorful and fun interface to help students find the universities that fit them best, allowing them to choose from among 600 of the most selective colleges in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico.

From Erin:

"My biggest leap into the current trends in social media and technology is the creation of CollegeApp, which by now, you may know, if the college search application I developed for iPhone and iPod Touch and iPad. It was an astounding process to conceive of an idea, and through the utilization of current technology, have it spring to life as a useful interactive tool for students, parents and counselors alike!"

With CollegeApp, users build a version of their ideal college characteristics using an avatar with rotating body parts that correspond to attributes such as size, location, cost, Greek life and selectivity. After the selections have been made, a list of colleges appears that match these chosen characteristics. The results page includes the most updated specifics self-reported by each college so that the information is accurate, current and pertinent.  A map even appears to show location with a direct link to each college's website.

The application also offers a search feature geared toward guidance counselors, educational consultants, and parents alike.  In a moment, users can isolate every college with Greek life, or every college located in a small town or city, or every college in a hot climate, or any number of combinations of the above.

Oh. And it's free. Click here to learn more!

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Writing College Admission Essays Is Hard

November 8th, 2010

With early decision deadlines surrounding us this week, we'd like to point you to this classic article over at the Wall Street Journal that reminds us just how difficult it really is to write a college application essay.

We'd like to emphasize the thought these college and university presidents gave to the topics of their essays. Selecting your topic and point of view carefully is a fundamental part of writing the admission essay (not to mention all writing in general). Are you writing about yourself in the present? About yourself in the recent past? Are you writing about yourself before you had a change in opinion or experience?

The people the Journal write about here might seem different from typical college applicants in that they are older and more experienced than those applying now, but in reality, writing their essays is not so different from writing yours. You need to intelligently choose your subject matter, making it something that is distinctive, personal, memorable, and accessible.

Near the end of the article, one writer considers, but then avoids, writing about her morning workout routine. The reasons she cites are good - it's boring and self-congratulatory - but the more important reason not to choose such a topic is that it tells us little about the writer's life outside of the gym. These essays want to be more than a story of what you do. They can address who you are, and implicitly, they should be about what you can bring to a university, be it in the classroom or the campus at large.

Don't shy away from topics that feel overly emotional, just make sure not to convey them in tired, cliched ideas. One essay cited in the Journal article, about a sibling that had died before the author was born, used a topic that was full of emotional pitfalls, but if the writer is willing to be honest and talk about how that living condition affected him as a person without using cookie-cutter descriptions, then there stands to be an enormous amount gained by the reader.

This article is a strong reminder that writing is difficult, and being interesting while avoiding cliche takes effort. Put your time in now - get started early - and remember that the college essay ought to be the piece of writing you do more revision on than anything you've ever written.

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St. John's University (NY) Admission Essay Prompt Confusion

October 29th, 2010

While researching the essay requirements of the over 600 colleges and universities currently in our database, we have come upon many inconsistencies and contradictions, but few as noticeably different as the one between St. John's University's online application and the PDF version. Here's a taste of what we're talking about - St. John's online application asks this of all who apply:

Although this is optional, we'd like to learn just a little bit more about you. Please submit a short personal statement on one of the topics listed below.

  1. What motivates you? We'd like to know what activities you really enjoy. Do they tie in with any career goals? Have you won any awards or honors?
  2. Don't reinvent the wheel. You have the option to submit a graded essay from your senior year.

Nothing too out of the ordinary there. It's an optional but recommended essay with a straightforward prompt and another option to submit a writing sample. But here's what they ask if you're using the paper application:

A 250-word, typewritten personal statement or essay on a topic of your choice. If you choose to submit a personal statement, please offer some explanation of your current career goals, information about honors and awards you have received and/or other activities in which you have engaged in order to provide us with a clear, personal profile of your pursuits and interests beyond the classroom.

This prompt is clearly on a topic of the applicant's choice. So the options are wide-open, which for many applicants means the difference between writing an additional essay or not.

This is the kind of work CEO does for you. We check and re-check the thousands of requirements on many applications nationwide, looking for opportunities like these, and making sure that your options are clearly presented to you. CEO sides with the online application in this case, since it's the one the majority of applicants will be using, but we also provide a note in the school's header explaining the difference and allowing you to choose.

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Early Decision Admission Deadlines Approaching

October 21st, 2010

With most schools' early decision and early action admission deadlines fast approaching, we at CEO want to drop a little wisdom on you:

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.

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