You want your Personal Essay to be a supplement to your application, not the only reason you get in. I highly recommend you take the time to write an Additional Information section. I showed this through mentioning different interests (Rubik's cube, chemistry, Nietzsche) and iterating through a few designs for an alarm clock (electric shocks, explosions, Shakespearean sonnet recitation). A strong "Why This College" essay will make a case for why the school in question is a good fit for the student. For example, participation in an honors or academic enrichment program, or enrollment in an academy that’s geared toward an occupation or a major, or taking advanced courses that interest you — just to name a few. She didn't even fill out the section about "first words that come to mind to describe this student.". Just like extracurriculars, there's a quick dropoff in value of each item after that. A good test of a strong Personal Narrative: if you swap out one item in the Personal Narrative, you'll get a feeling of a completely different person. I was mediocre at competition math because I didn't train for it, and I won some regional awards but nothing amazing. But they're largely the same. I think I sound too smug and self-satisfied. The earlier you are in high school, the more time you have to prepare and implement the right strategies to build a strong, distinctive application. First, notice the circle around my email address. At this point, most of your application is set in stone. (You can tell I love the concept of the vehicle in essays.) The reader underlined this sentence. Your answers should reflect your own ideas and be written by you alone, but others — family, teachers and friends — can offer valuable suggestions. If you’re currently working your way through a challenge, what are you doing now, and does that affect different aspects of your life? Throughout my application, we can see marks made by the admissions officer highlighting and circling things of note (you'll see the first example on the very first page). Back then AP scores weren't part of this section, but I'll take them from another part of my application here. Packaging my points together under the snooze button theme makes it a lot more interesting than just outright saying "I'm such an interesting guy.". It's obvious that schools like Yale and UChicago want the best students in the world that they can get their hands on. So state honors really don't help you stand out on your Princeton application. I want to as well. Why was the challenge significant to you? The reason I think he circled this was that the email address I used is a joke pun on my name. As I recommend in my Harvard guide and 4.0 GPA guide, smartly allocating your time is critical to your high school strategy. In this guide, I'll show you the entire college application that got me into Harvard—page by page, word for word. When describing my personality, she's exuberant and fleshes out a range of dimensions: "conscientious, motivated and responsible," "exhibits the qualities of a leader," "actively seeks new experiences," "charismatic," "balanced individual with a warm personality and sense of humor." Where in the world did fried rice come from? This section asks for your parent information and family situation. I hope you don't misinterpret this as bragging about my accomplishments. BFF is the shorten form for best friend forever. Overall, this letter is very strong. I really did love sleep (and still do) and I thought it'd be interesting to frame my personality, interests, and life experiences from this perspective. Once you are satisfied with your answers, save them in plain text (ASCII) and paste them into the space provided in the application. She had a kind personality and was universally well liked by her students, even if they weren't doing so well. What did you learn from your effort? This section was straightforward for me. Got Questions? The structure is effective: first Miss Vorak talks about my academic accomplishments, then about my personal qualities and interactions, then a summary to the future. I meant it as a nod to my Chinese heritage, but it's too sudden to work. I had a lot of teachers who really just phoned it in and treated their job perfunctorily—these people are likely to write pretty blasé letters. Along with Activities, Academic Honors is the other major area where you can really shine and develop a big Spike. In addition to all this detail, there are two special parts of this college application breakdown that I haven't seen anywhere else: For every piece of my application, I'll provide commentary on what made it so effective and my strategies behind creating it. Whether you want to gain strength or just stay healthy, join over 1.2 million people who have downloaded Strong to stay on track in the gym. This is the same application I sent to every school I applied to, including Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford. Do you have a creative skill that is important to you? You can define community as you see fit, just make sure you talk about your role in that community. You can see that this was the only activity my admissions reader circled. Looking back I don't mind this much because I generally enjoyed my musical training and had a mostly fun time in orchestra (and I had a strong Spike anyway). ", "controversial positions often being the spark that set off the entire class", "ability to take the quiet and shy student and actively engage"…"went out of my way to partner him with other students who needed", "strength of conviction"…"raw, unbridled passion"…"He will argue on any topic that has touched a nerve.". Built by Harvard grads and SAT full scorers, the program learns your strengths and weaknesses through advanced statistics, then customizes your prep program to you so you get the most effective prep possible. They know that there is some amount of chance every time you take a test, so a 1600 is more or less equivalent to a 1530. I didn't grow up as a refugee, wrenched from my war-torn home! Almost any unique topic, even one that’s seemingly insignificant, can lead to a strong Common App essay. Just a sanity check: the average SAT score at Harvard is a 1540. How did overcoming this barrier help shape who you are today? These tended to be teachers I vibed more strongly with, and typically these were teachers who demonstrably cared about teaching. The Common Application now limits you to five honors only (probably because they got tired of lists like these), but chances are you capture the top 98% of your honors with the top five. This can also mean an international ranking is worth 1000x that of a regional ranking—again, why a big Spike is so impressive. Read my How to Get a 4.0 GPA for tips on how to interact with teachers in a genuine way that'll make them love you. The Strong Body App contains physically demanding programs which utilises weight training and are designed for those at least 16 years of age and older. Again, with one test score, you have already passed their filter. She was young, having taught for fewer than 5 years when I had her. I do think my Spike was nearly sufficient to get me admitted to every school in the country. The major question for you to ponder as you read is—what is YOUR Personal Narrative, and how are you going to show it through every component of your application? Some especially terrible lines: "I was playing for that cathartic moment when I could feel Tchaikovsky himself looking over my shoulder. Developing strong research questions. This shouldn't be an essay, but rather a place to note unusual circumstances or anything that might be unclear in other parts of the application. Finally, I co-founded and run a company called PrepScholar. The Common Application now has 16 qualities to rate, rather than the 10 here. I'll point out mistakes I made that I could have corrected to build an even stronger application. What I did might not be as impressive as it used to be. This, again, is why being well-rounded is so deadly—mix ten different paint colors together and you end up with an unappealing, indistinguishable mess. From the beginning of high school, each step was more and more ambitious—my first academic team, my first research experience, leading up to state and national competitions and more serious research work. Some phrases really make me roll my eyes. I did appreciate music as a diversion to round out my academic focus. We create online SAT/ACT prep programs that adapt to you and your strengths and weaknesses. College Admissions, Archived. The ending: "with the extra nine minutes, maybe I'll teach myself to cook fried rice" is silly. Common App Essay Prompts 2020-2021. I got straight A's in my coursework, so this wasn't an issue. Does your creativity relate to your major or a future career? All questions are equal: All are given equal consideration in the application review process, which means there is no advantage or disadvantage to choosing certain questions over others. For less selective schools, having an overall strong, well-rounded application is sufficient for getting in. Remember, the horse leads the cart. I made sure to note where the papers had been published or were entering competitions, just to ground the work in some achievement. Unlike some of my very accomplished classmates, I hadn't ranked nationally in prestigious competitions like ISEF and Siemens. And frankly, I don't think my research work was that spectacular. But this guide is already super long, so I want to focus our attention on the main points. The 5 Strategies You Must Be Using to Improve 4+ ACT Points, How to Get a Perfect 36 ACT, by a Perfect Scorer. So you see how the snooze button acts as a vehicle to carry these major points and a lot of details, tied together to the same theme. Which means you should use our guidance for each question just as a suggestion in case you need help. In today's Common Application, you have 50 characters to describe "Position/Leadership description and organization name" and 150 characters for "Please describe this activity, including what you accomplished and any recognition you received, etc.". I wanted to show I'd broken out of that mold. What makes a candidate truly stand out is the same, at a high level. Even though math and science were easy for me, I had to put in serious effort to get an 800 on the Reading section of the SAT. Which questions you choose to answer is entirely up to you: But you should select questions that are most relevant to your experience and that best reflect your individual circumstances. You have so little space in your Yale application or Duke application to express yourself—this is purposely designed so everyone doesn't submit 100 pages of drivel. Here's what I would consider my Personal Narrative (humor me since I'm peacocking here): 1) A science obsessive with years of serious research work and ranked 6th in a national science competition, with future goals of being a neuroscientist or physician, 2) Balanced by strong academic performance in all subjects (4.0 GPA and perfect test scores, in both humanities and science) and proficiency in violin, 3) An irreverent personality who doesn't take life too seriously, embraces controversy, and says what's on his mind. Scores were n't part of my application, not intelligence or talent strong evaluation here, giving the... 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