The Ultimate Brainstorm Questionnaire

  For more than 20 years, the magazine Vanity Fair has collected provocative and memorable details from the most famous people on the planet using their version of what is called the Proust Questionnaire. The famous French writer didn’t actually pen these...

New Common App Essay Prompts for 2015-16!

 The Five Prompts to Write your College Application Essay for The Common Application (Same prompts for 2016-17!)   The folks at the Common Application announced the five essay prompts students will choose from to write their core essay for the coming college...

“If you want to ‘show’ something, ask, ‘Can you prove it with an example?'”

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You Are Not Alone

  I gave away 100 copies of my ebook guide last week. (If you missed the giveaway, I’m planning on doing another in October.) Even though I’ve always had visitors from all over the world, I was overwhelmed by the enthusiastic students from so many...

Should You Humblebrag in Your Essay?

  A smart dad sent me an email recently asking how college-bound students could work in related achievements and accomplishments into their personal, narrative-style essay, without sounding like they were blowing their own horn. It’s definitely a fine line....

Book Giveaway for Escape Essay Hell! Guide

  I’m Giving Away 100 Copies of My Popular Writing Guide! 10 a Day for 10 Days   Almost every day, I have students tell me they cannot afford to buy my ebook guide on writing college applications essays–Escape Essay Hell!–so I decided to...

Work First, Surf Second: A Lesson in Mundane Topics

A student who I will call Ryan arrived for his tutoring session yesterday, and showed me what he had written for his English class. His essay started with how he worked with Habit for Humanity and a trip he took to work with Native Americans. Oh no. Not the old...

Jumping to Conclusions: How to End Your Essay

How to Conclude Your College Admissions Essays   Here’s an excerpt from my ebook guide on how to write a college application essay using a narrative, storytelling style. I pulled this from my chapter on writing conclusions. Some students find ending their essays...

Some Supps Are Just Asking for BS

Many of the students I work with have finished their core essays for their college applications, and are now asking for help on the supplements. For most, writing their personal statement-type essays wasn’t that bad, searching for their stories and unique topics...