College Essay Organizer FAQs

3 – If I don’t use CEO, how long would it take me to assemble a list of all my college essay requirements by myself?

4 – What is the Common App?

5 – What if a college I'm applying to doesn't appear in CEO's database?

6 – Does CEO write my essays for me?

7 – Do I need CEO if I am applying early decision?

8 – When are the essay questions in your database updated?

9 – How can I be sure CEO's information is accurate?

10 – Don't the essays stay the same every year?

11 – Does CEO provide a Master Account for counselors to manage all students' accounts?

12 – I'm already using Naviance or a similar type of educational management software. Can CEO help me?

1 – Why do I need CEO?
With two groundbreaking automated tools, CEO streamlines the essay process, the most time-consuming and challenging part of your college applications. Even if you are receiving help from a counselor, teacher, parent, or private tutor, CEO will further enhance that support, making the process even more efficient and successful.

CEO’s first tool, the Essay QuickFinder, instantly generates a comprehensive list of all your up-to-date essay requirements for each college selected.

CEO’s second tool, the Essay RoadMap (which includes Essay QuickFinder free), finds overlaps among your Essay QuickFinder results and converts the many essay requirements into the fewest original essays you need to write, saving you time so you can maximize your creativity.

Try the free Essay RoadMap Preview to see how many total essays your colleges require and how CEO would minimize that number for you. You may have far more essay requirements than you expect—but CEO will convert them into a manageable plan.

For School Counselors or Independent Consultants, you need to optimize your time. It's hard to change your protocol, but with CEO, it's the difference between using an old, tedious, manual approach and using a new, instant, automated one. You wouldn't go to the library each time to research something when you could easily Google it. CEO similarly simplifies things, and you'll quickly see your old way of managing the college essay process as slow and antiquated. If you don't currently streamline the college essay process for your students, you absolutely need to so students can focus their energies on writing their best essays rather than waste hours getting organized.

2 – When should I start using CEO?
Get started as early as possible so you can pace yourself and write your best essays without the rushed anxiety. Seniors should create their accounts immediately, as most colleges have already posted their new applications. For those few colleges that have not yet done so, when those applications are posted, your CEO account will automatically be updated, too. Once senior year kicks into high gear, with classes, SATs, sports, student clubs, and all your application forms, the last thing you'll have time to do is waste hours looking up all your essay requirements and try to map out a strategy. Let the experts do it for you—instantly.

3 – If I don’t use CEO, how long would it take me to assemble a list of all my college essay requirements by myself?
The time varies depending on your college selections. But finding and organizing the essay requirements for 7 colleges, for example, could take approximately two hours, especially if you are not familiar with navigating college applications. Figuring out which essays overlap and which topics you can write on could take even more time, especially if your college list keeps changing.

Even if you are using the Common App, many participating colleges require supplemental essays. Department-specific, program-specific, optional, and special applicant questions make the process even longer. Plus, some colleges do not show you the essay questions until you have submitted part 1 of their applications.

The reality is most students do not take the time to organize their essay requirements on their own, and as a result struggle through the process without clear direction. Students who decide to write their essays one application at a time inevitably end up doing more work and taking more time since they do not plan in advance—it's like running a marathon without knowing how long the race is. You need to know the course and pace yourself. CEO lays out the process simply and clearly from the start, showing how to make it more manageable than it may seem at first.

4 – What is the Common App?
The Common App is a free college admissions application that 415 top-ranked colleges and universities currently accept. CEO has found the Common App to be a useful tool for college applicants, allowing users to simplify their application demands. All member colleges give the same treatment to the Common App as they do to their own applications, including applicants who use the Common App to apply early decision. In fact, many colleges accept only the Common App as their application.

CEO should be used to further simplify the Common App. The Common App has two standard essay requirements and one optional essay question, but many of the participating colleges also require supplemental essays, which vary from college to college. CEO provides you with the Common App supplemental questions for each college as well as the college’s own application questions. CEO also provides each college's many program-specific and scholarship questions, most of which are not listed on the Common App.

The Essay RoadMap will automatically determine whether using the Common App will save you time, or if it is required. In the vast majority of cases, using the Common App is indeed the way to go.

5 – What if a college I'm applying to doesn't appear in CEO's database?
If you can't find a college, click the link on our Select Colleges page once you are logged in and just let us know! CEO will add that college to our database within a few hours. We currently have more than 650 colleges listed.

6 – Does CEO write my essays for me?
Absolutely not! Our goal is to provide a tool that helps you produce your absolute best writing, revealing your individuality in a unique way that elevates your quality of work to new levels. CEO's organizational technology saves you time and energy that you can spend expressing yourself in a compelling way. Our services are instant and automatic—we do not help in the actual editing of essays.

Our free blog offers a variety of tips and insights for writing winning admission essays.

7 – Do I need CEO if I am applying early decision?
Don't make the mistake of applying to one college via early decision and waiting until you receive notification before dealing with your other applications and essays. If you do not receive an early decision acceptance, you'll have only a few short weeks, including the December holidays, to finish everything up.

CEO encourages you to finish most of your essays and applications prior to hearing from your early decision college so you're in a good position to submit everything before the deadlines in case you're not accepted to your top choice. For those who do not get accepted early and have not yet addressed their other essays, CEO is absolutely the best solution.

8 – When are the essay questions in your database updated?
We are in a constant state of updating our database, and have already updated all the available colleges for the 2010/2011 application season. Each college's essay requirements are uploaded as soon as that new application is posted—and often even before then in many cases. If a college still has an asterisk next to it in our database, that means the essay requirements are from last year's application. Once the application is released for the new season, CEO will update it and the asterisk will be removed.

9 – How can I be sure CEO's information is accurate?
Accuracy and thoroughness are our top priorities, and we pride ourselves on our exceptional record. CEO takes the data directly from the applications themselves. Each college's data is cross-checked multiple times, and we make clear in your account which colleges' essay requirements have been updated for the new application season. Leading private schools, public schools, and students have used CEO with great success. CEO is a member of the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC) and is partners with the Independent Educational Consultants Association (IECA), ConnectEdu, and MyCCA.

10 – Don't the essays stay the same every year?
No. Some colleges keep their essay requirements static from year to year, but the vast majority change them yearly, sometimes in small ways, but often to completely different prompts. The problem is that you can't know which ones will change and which ones won't—so you'd have to check them all individually. CEO provides the up-to-date requirements to you as soon as they're available—all in one place, instantly.

CEO also addresses each college's department-specific, program-specific, and special applicant questions, which can be much harder to find on the applications and which many applicants don't even know to look for. CEO also provides numerous scholarship essay questions.

As a member, you can register for our email notification system and be alerted as soon as the essay requirements for any college are updated for the coming season.

11 – Does CEO provide a Master Account for counselors to manage all students' accounts?
Yes. CEO features an easy-to-use Master Account interface that allows School Counselors and Independent Consultants to create and manage students' individual accounts through one simple login. Students can access and update these accounts themselves, if you choose, keeping you aware of their ever-changing college lists. Some counselors and consultants, however, use their Master Accounts privately.

12 – I'm already using Naviance or a similar type of educational management software. Can CEO help me?
CEO is the only service that provides college essay management, the most time-consuming and challenging part of the application process for students and counselors alike. Naviance and other similar software suites rely on you to do this work manually, costing you several hours with each student you work with and leading to anxiety and procrastination among students themselves. CEO is an ideal supplement to Naviance or a similar management system, and can even be used on its own to guide students through this most demanding application stage. Plus, you don't have to learn how to use CEO. Simply select the colleges and CEO does the rest.