Common App Essay Season!

As we get ready to send our freshies off to their first year of college, it is also time to engage with our 2025 seniors. If you have not already done so, hop over to the Common Application website and review the essay questions for the 2024-2025 season. These questions remain unchanged from last year so if you drafted an essay or two over the summer, they will rollover on August 1, 2024.

If you have not started on your essays, now is the time! For my Indiana folks, school starts in early August so you may need to push the first few "suggestions" back a week or two.

Here are my suggestions for writing Common Application Essays for early admit:

First 2-3 weeks of August: brainstorm and do some free writing with the prompts. The purpose is to see what works best with your academic, extracurricular and personal interests.

End of August: have at least two draft essays and some notes available. Keep it messy! Nothing has to be formal or include intros, hooks and conclusions just yet.

First 2 weeks in September (keep in mind Labor Day weekend!): Complete a first draft of personal statement. Consider the answer to a Common App question from your personal attributes/perspective.

Weeks 2-3 of September: Complete a revision of the first essay. Focus on qualifyting statements. For example, "I am proficient..." may become "I have excelled in...through club/award/distinction." Be careful not to repeat the awards listed in other places of the application, but instead, seek to clarify and qualify what that means for your future achievements.

End of September: Complete third and fourth drafts of the same essay. Add detail! Remove excess words like "that." I find it beneficial to CTRL-F for "that" and read the sentence without the word. If it makes sense, delete. Also, read for passive voice and revise to active voice.

Beginning of October: Seek feedback and request reviews from teachers, advisors and especially people who do not know you or your story. A complete stranger will read and identify missing details where those who know you, may miss. Admissions advisors may be swamped with senior audits or other workload responsibilities so have grace when requesting a review.

Middle of October: Finalize your essay and prepare for submission. Take a week off from looking at it...come back and make minor revisions as necessary.

If your goal is a November 1 submission date, the schedule above works well. If you start later, just modify and shorten the time between to accomplish a strong revision period. I also encourage students to apply to schools with December and January deadlines. These are the most popular "regular decision" schools and round out a strong application portfolio.

Need help with your essay reviews? Schedule a consultation and get on my calendar! My schedule for fall 2024 is filling up quickly.

AP Scores Released!

It's time!

AP scores are available and if you are wondering how this may impact your admission to college...consider these as opportunities to demonstrate academic achievement and future potential.

Your admissions package will include some, if not all, of the following:

• Unweighted GPA and perhaps class standing

• Rigor of course load throughout high school

• AP Scores (and courses taken)

• Standardized test scores (PSAT for early applications, ACT & SAT)

• Extracurricular activities (athletics, clubs, service)

• Personal essays and statements (necessary for Honors colleges)

• Letters of Recommendation

• The whole person...
  

Generally speaking, AP scores are an indicator of future academic success. Earning a 4" or a "5" demonstrates the ability to succeed at college-level work. Bonus: take classes that fill criteria for your intended major.

In line with demonstrating ability, AP scores are indicative of personal strengths as well as interests. Consider self-submitting AP scores to highlight your program/discipline interest. For example, if you are interested in pursuing medical school after your Bachelor's degree, earning high scores in Biology and Chemistry during high school as evidence of long-term planning and interest.

Many schools will consider AP scores in place of a standardized test score. Using standardized test scores as a measure for academic ability and potential has been scrutinized in recent years and with the onset of AI "scoring" these exams, schools are adjusting. AP courses demonstrate a "real world" learning experience and validate a student's aptitude.

Stay tuned for more this week on AP scores and how they may or may not be accepted at the college's you are investigating!

Need a consult or have some questions about planning your high school curriculum to transfer? Contact me!

Building a College Admissions Portfolio

Nowadays, college admissions officers consider more than just academic grades. Students who will contribute as well-rounded individuals to the college community stand out to college admissions committees. One way to grab attention is to showcase your extracurricular activities and accomplishments in a college admissions portfolio. Highlighting your skills, dedication and future interests may also be appealing to selective programs. For my rising freshman and sophmores, start early! Create an excel spreadsheet or other document to track volunteer hours and activities as well as keep track of important contact for future letters of recommend or reference on scholarship applications.

Building a college admissions portfolio can be done two different ways: by compiling a document, like a pdf to showcase your work, or by developing a website with links to documents and scanned image files. Both formats come with their own advantages and disadvantages.

The benefit of the pdf format is that it's easy for anyone to look at, and it organizes your work in a clear, simple way. It can be attached to emails or uploaded along with other application documents, as well as easily modified in a different file, then saved as a PDF. You maintain control over the layout and formatting and can tailor any document for the receiving organization. The biggest drawback to the pdf is that it's not ideal for multi-media projects such as videos, audio files, or 3D designs. For my athletes, you'll want to create a separate sharing site where coaches and athletic directors frequent.

If you choose the website option, there are plenty of online options that allow users to create portfolios, blogs, or art displays relatively easily. The specific site you use doesn't matter, as long as it suits the kind of art or project you want to show off and your ability to design with it. I would caution that anything posted online is there permanently, even if deleted, thanks to programs like the "wayback machine" and software that can pull data previoulsy posted. Some suggest building your portfolio online shows admissions officers that you're comfortable using technology as well as experiencing the attention that comes along with public audiences.

I advise starting your portfolio early and updating every semester during high school. Even if the projects or artwork you produce as a freshman are not as refined as those you create in your senior year, the commitment and effort you put into improving can be noteworthy to college admissions officers. Keep in mind that you are narrating a story to the admissions team about your current self, but more significantly, about the potential for growth over the next four years. While showcasing your finest work is essential, demonstrating a progression that highlights your development is also an effective method to capture their interest.

Keep it concise! If you've been producing entire albums of electronic music during high school, don't include every track. A selection of your four best is sufficient. There's no exact number, because it depends on the nature of the work and how long it takes admissions officers to experience it. You can include up to a dozen photographs or other visual art work, but only three or four video pieces or short stories, for example. If you are showcasing academic work, upload written essays along with honors from National Honors Society or other organizations. A link to images from science or history fair projects is beneficial as well as any athletic achievements. If you are an athlete, be sure to link your MaxPreps or other athletic profile with season highlight reels and stats.

Finally, be sure to proofread! Have several friends look over the written work as well as ensure no personal data could lead individuals to your doorstep. For the PDF, avoid including phone numbers and emails as these documents are not in a controlled environment once submitted. Similar, if not stronger, protections for the website should be considered as well. Bots scrub websites for personal data and emails will generate automatic marketing in most cases. To avoid being targeted by those seeking to make money from your information, keep posts basic.

Looking for some coaching on a portfolio? Let me know. I offer consultations and create unique templates to use for your tracking and submission purposes.