College Admission Essays - Summer Before Senior Year - Educational Consultant

• Ideally, every student should come to the essay prompt with a wealth of ‘self-reflection’ inventory. Students, in the best situation, have already done the time-consuming work of completing biographical questions, several types of assessments and surveys, and if they are fortunate, a counseling session where the reflections and surveys are discussed and questioned for verification, making the inventory all the more rich with unique details of the student that simply could not be discovered elsewhere in the application. When a student finally comes to the essay, the prompt is primarily offering the student a device in which to share a slice of the inventory – of self.

  In approaching each prompt, students must balance what they want to express about themselves with what colleges must know about the student. So many of the prompts seek to know several basic, essential traits about the student, such as the following:

  - Is the student resilient; how does the student handle stress
  - Is the student likeable and teachable; can and will the student work and live well with others
  - Can the student navigate the complexities of college life – of campus life; is the student resourceful; and does the student take initiative
  - What will the student add to the academic conversation and research of the university; what might the student give back as an alum
  - How is the student’s major selection supported in their comments
  - How much and how will the student engage and contribute to the residential life and in creating community

  While admissions will be striving to ascertain this type of information about the student, the more selective the university is, the more they will want to discover evidences of ‘demonstrated interest’. With yield rates so paramount, these colleges will want to know what the student really knows about their college, their particular programs, etc.. The ‘why us’ question can only be answered through genuine research on the student’s part.

  Helping students understand these admissions dynamics when approaching each essay prompt is an important piece of what a good college counselor offers to each student. See Patricia Nehme for more details - pnehme@myeduadvisor.com