25 ways to take care of yourself this fall It's fall. It's frenetic. It's college application season for you or your kids or your students. It's hard to do it all. To take care of yourself feels like a luxury item that gets tossed with last year's papers. But still, you've got to take care of yourself or game over. Any of the suggestions on our list will be a perk, a plus. Pick and choose: aim to keep your body, mind and heart healthier-- and hopefully less bat-shit crazy-- as you move through coming months. Continue Reading …
Practice
Ditch cliches for a strong college essay
The worst thing you can do for your personal story is deaden it with cliches. Cliches make your reader's mind go numb. Use them too much (playing it safe?) and Admissions officers have forgotten you before they are even done reading your college essay. Even the most intense, riveting tale can lose all of its power if you tell it just like everyone has told it before you. "I couldn't believe my eyes. As she took her last breath I begged her not to go." This sort of thing. How tragic would that be? You have a powerful story to tell-- but it's so predictable that no one cares. Now, look: in human life, death is predictable. Suffering is predictable. Some mishap, some humor, transitions-- all are predictable. But that doesn't have anything to do with cliche, or how you choose to tell your reader about what happened. It's all about what details you include, where you put the focus, and what fresh images or stark descriptions you weave in. Continue Reading …
Use the Present for your essay conclusion
Where does the present fit in to your college essay? During the application process, you need to think and talk about your past-- where you came from, how you got this way-- and the future-- where you're headed, what you hope for. It's never bad to take stock like this, even if, in four years, your thinking is completely different. But the present has a very important role to play in your essay content, so read on. Good storytelling (which you should definitely practice in your essay) allows for flexible or fluid interpretation. No one will chase you down with your college essay when you are 25 and doing something completely different from what you predicted and say, "BUT YOU SAID IT WAS LIKE THIS?! YOU SAID YOU WANTED/CARED ABOUT THIS!" Don't worry about reducing your future to one personal quality or goal. Instead, stay present. What does that mean? It's kinda simple. You can't just write about that important thing that happened to you and call the essay done. Tune into yourself, and use the last third of your essay to show your reader what you're like, now. How that important event or story relates to your current self--your actions, engagements, and mindset. Make Your Past Relevant to the Present Your entire past led up to this moment, this person, this character-- you. You picked just a slice of it to share with your readers, and in a well-told story you highlighted something about yourself, some personal characteristic you made real for us, worthy of our attention. But how is that trait an important part of your life, right this very minute? For example: were you a picky kid, who didn't like to wear socks in the winter, or who wanted notebooks of only a certain color? Well, maybe the present you has a high tolerance for adverse weather, or loves things other people find challenging, or has a fine sense of design, or maybe you advise those other kids who never seem to know what to buy (that was me, thank you!), and that's your Continue Reading …
Free-writing for your college essay content? Yes!
I'm a big believer in guided free-writing for students: Just when you think you have nothing to write about for your college essay (or generally!), BOOM, a subject appears from the back of your mind. It's like magic: awesome, repeatable and yours if you want it. Free-writing helps young writers produce freely I watched this magic happen again this weekend in Chicago, at JPMorgan Chase The Fellowship Initiative. We convened on the 56th floor of the company skyscraper, where I offered my intro to the college essay workshop (a sizzling title!) meant to fire up the Fellows' creative circuits. The offices sported a dizzying, commanding view of miniaturized downtown, Big Ole Lake Michigan, and a huge sky. The view itself said, "We own this!" Exactly how I hope the students come to feel about their college essays. Exactly where the productive power of free-writing can get you. Continue Reading …
Free-writing prompts to find your college essay topic
Non-stop exploratory free-writing for your best college essay material You know something good is happening in a college admissions essay-writing workshop when 29 teenage boys have their hands tight to the paper, free-writing with a fervor usually reserved for Mortal Kombat. (They may not know writing actually is a form of Mortal Kombat!) This is exactly what went down last weekend at JP Morgan Chase The Fellowship Initiative, where I was lucky enough to share free-writing exercises for my newest cohort of students. These fellows are selected for the Fellowship based on the strength of their dreams and the qualities of their character to help change the professional landscape for young men of color. What better way to amplify this mission, this visibility, than with their words? We started like I always start: with the freedom and exploration of free-writing. I'm sharing the free-writing prompts to help you dig for your college essay material. If you haven't done this before, first read the rules below, then respond to the writing prompts that follow. What you write just might lead you to a rich, authentic topic for your application essay. Note! These are just two of the prompts we used at the workshop. We have many, many, many more upon request. Parents and teachers-- you can try these exercises too. Rules for free-writing: Write automatically and non-stop for a set period of time. Set a timer. Follow wherever your mind goes without censoring or policing and write it all down, even if it seems unrelated, random or unexpected. Do like you would on the ball court and don’t stop moving (your hand on the page). Only reread or make changes once you are done (when the timer goes off!). Free-writing Prompt 1 (3-4 min) "I am an invisible man...I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me." ---Ralph Continue Reading …
Your college essay and more in 10 minutes
Is this yet another "improve my life in 10-minutes" BS pitch? No. We don't play with your minutes here. But we want you to get the most out of your time. So-- do you have 10 minutes to spare? (If you're reading this, you probably have 10 minutes. Admit it. Stop checking your Facebook Feed.) (Everyone has 10 minutes.) But the problem is: what's the most important thing to do-- right now? How should you spend those precious minutes? Here's our recommendations. Determine what you need, first. Need to open up and calm down? Check out this guided meditation from Tara Brach. (It's 10 minutes-ish. Thanks for your generous meditations, Tara Brach!) Need to work out on the sly? Check out this "Quiet Workout." (It's 10 minutes-ish. Modify as needed. Thanks for these original quickies, pop sugar!) Need to say something about something? We recommend-- assess your energy level, consider options 1 and 2 above, hydrate, and then... Freewrite Get your writing instrument/implement of choice: Sit your butt down or stand your butt up. (Don't have a standing desk? DIY with a crate placed on top of a table, or by working on a kitchen counter). Set a timer for 10 minutes. (See? We're precise!) And write about what makes you mad. Without stopping. (Thank you, writing guru Don Murray). Or try this writing prompt, from Ted Ed: A genie grants you three tiny wishes. What are they? (Thank you, TED. You are so full of useful randomness. Want more prompts?) Help, I really don't have 10-minutes! The multi-taskers version. Even though multi-tasking has been proven as neurological BS (You're uni-tasking, in quick succession, and with crappy outcomes), sometimes we need to layer up. Especially if we really only have 10 minutes. In that case we suggest: Do the Tara Brach meditation while you are on the toilet or taking a shower. Do the workout while returning a phone call to someone who will understand if you are out of Continue Reading …