Testimonial Tuesday: Accepted to St. Ignatius College Preparatory
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Yelena 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
Over the years, I’ve read and edited hundreds of college application essays. I’ve seen the good and bad (and very bad). Discover how to avoid the Common App essay's most common mistakes.
1) Using Bloated Thesaurus Speak
Most students think a higher vocabulary (read: thesaurus) will make their essay sound better. That instinct may work for your more formal academic essays, but it’s wrong in the case of the personal statement: the essay should sound how you speak, not a formal academic letter. "Thenceforward" and “heretofore,” for example, seem way too formal and almost sound funny in this personal context. Would you ever use those words in real life? Didn’t think so.