The Personal Approach to the Personal Statement
The latest news, tips, & tricks for surviving the college admissions game
Fairy Godmother Nicki Minaj started paying off her fans’ student loans, laptops, current classes, equipment and tuition on Twitter—after daring them to show straight A's—and she's up to $18K so far. And this is not a one-time thing: she's planning to start an official charity soon. [Vulture]
Read More"I have to thank you for all your help! Ms. Shuster's techniques for helping students with their essays are astonishingly effective. She just doesn't limit herself to fix our essays, but rather to make us part of the essay's revision by asking us questions about us that can help, she also ensures we are comfortable with her suggestions. Without Ms. Shuster, I doubt I would have had been able to be as confident about both my personal statement and supplements. All of this is pro-bono."
Read MoreApplications have skyrocketed to Ivy League schools. Cornell got 47K+ apps and accepted only 12.5% (a record low). UPenn had 40K+ apps and admitted only 9.15%—the lowest in history. Brown had 32K+ apps and accepted a record low of 8.3%. Stanford got 44+ apps and admitted just 4.65% of that application pool, another historical lowest rate.
Read MoreWriting the admissions essay is so stressful that I don't blame students for reading about seemingly easy, out-of-the-box approaches and thinking, well, if it worked for this guy, why not me? The problem with such methods, though, is you're not the only one thinking that. Once an admissions trick becomes a trend (and a national news story), it's no longer out of the box. Translation: instead of looking creative, you look lazy.
Read MoreI worked with Marie last winter pro bono in partnership with a public school in NYC and I knew right away she was a force to be reckoned with. Her first draft was impressive and it was clear she knew the power of a creative narrative. Her first line started "in media res" (in the middle of the action), which draws the reader in right away and continued with evocative descriptions that helped me feel like I was right there with her throughout her narrative. We worked on clarifying timelines and context, cutting cliches and repetitions, reordering paragraphs for a smooth, easy-to-read flow, and digging deeper to get to the emotional root of the story.
Read More"Letters of recommendation are typically superfluous, written by people who the applicant thinks will impress a school. We regularly receive letters from former presidents, celebrities, trustee relatives and Olympic athletes. But they generally fail to provide us with another angle on who the student is, or could be as a member of our community."
Read MoreYelena encouraged us to write freely and give a lot of examples to help our son come alive before the Admission Committees. She then skillfully edited our answers to highlight his strengths and show how he was working on his weaknesses. As we moved along, to ease the process, Yelena created a master file with all of our answers so that we could reuse them efficiently. She not only edited each application package, but also helped us ensure that we were consistent between the parent and the student essays, covered everything we needed to, and were not repeating ourselves—no small feat with such a volume of work! I am very happy to say that we completed all the applications several weeks before the deadline and feel very good about them. We could not have gotten this done without Yelena!"
—Regina, parent of Max, who was accepted to St. Ignacius College Preparatory & JCHS
"Yelena provided my essay with the perfect pair of fresh eyes. She shined a light on all of the blind spots, showing me which content I needed to highlight more or less. And the best part? The revision process was conveniently done online via a Google Doc. Yelena gave lengthy and straightforward comments that were 100% helpful. Without her guidance, I'm not sure if my essay would've had the same impact." —Dara, accepted to the USC School of Social Work
With college costing more than 14 illegal kidneys, more students are turning to GoFundMe campaigns to raise money for college costs. Over the past 3 years, more than 130,000 GoFundMe campaigns nationwide have raised $60 million from over 850,000 donations for college tuition and related expenses. [Chicago Tribune]
🚨 🚨 🚨 There are two new Common App Essay Prompts for 2017-18: one is literally a blank slate, reinforcing my advice to ignore them altogether when writing yours.
Describe a topic, idea or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more? [New]
Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.
Read MoreIn addition to my one-on-one pro bono work with underserved students, I also love going back to school (#NERD) and hosting admissions essay seminars. Last fall, I led an essay workshop at a local New York public school where 73% of the students receive a free lunch. We discussed how admission essays are different from the academic essays they're taught at school, why the personal statement can influence your acceptance, and the secret things admissions officers look for (and don't want to see) in your answer.
In this week's Testimonial Tuesday, I'm so honored to present Jackie's story, who was just admitted early decision to UC Hastings Law School—with a scholarship.
Read MoreWhenever you’re sitting at the screen panicked like a Cathy cartoon, just remind yourself that you will revise it into a masterpiece later. For now, just get it all out, hide it in a locked treasure chest in your secret nuclear bunker (these are required for 2017, no?), wait a week, then revisit it with a fresh mind and perspective. Voila!
Read MoreThe hardest part about writing is getting out of your own head and silencing your inner critic. This quote helps remind you that all you can do now is word-vomit your first draft and then take time later to finesse it into perfection.
Read MoreNo matter what your political opinions, there is a palpable sadness in the air. The bigotry of the presidential campaign has made immigrants, minorities, women, and other vulnerable communities feel especially vulnerable and unsafe right now. So what can you do?
In honor of last night's Halloween shenanigans, let's talk about terrifying mistakes not to make in your admissions essay. As someone who helps students brag about themselves for their admissions essays, I’ve realized there’s a fine line between impressing someone and irritating them. So what do you do when the cover letter practically begs you to be #blessed all over the place? Check out our killer tips for wowing their socks off without turning them off.
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