College Essay Writing Timeline - A Primer (For parents and curious teens!) Parents of high school juniors and seniors often ask me about the college essay writing timeline and process. At first, the process is shrouded in institutional mystery, because the only part parents really know about is the end goal, or product. But how, and when, do we get there? And is there some kind of magic wand to expedite? There can be a lot of pressure on this one precious piece of writing, and there are ultimately some non-negotiable deadlines and no magic wand. However, if you understand that there is a process, and the college essay writing process produces reliably good results you might exhale. In fact, I hope parents exhale a lot! (Here’s 2 minute guided breath from Dora Kamau) I’m going to describe my recommended (optimal) timeline first, because it’s the first question I get (“When should a student start? How long should it take?). In a separate post, I’ll cover the college essay process, which can occur over a longer or more compressed time period. Later posts will be devoted to the ANATOMY of a college essay. If you’re already feeling overwhelmed about all things college, and prefer to talk directly to an expert and fellow parent, book your 30 min complimentary consultation HERE. Timeline for college essay writing process Spring Start When asked about the college essay process after all their applications have been submitted, students are rarely stressed to have started early. However, I think you can start too early. The college essay you write in Feb of junior year–even if you take a class or have guidance– is rarely going to be the one you send to schools. It’s the throat-clearing, orchestra-tuning round. And it has value as that. That said, all writing teaches you about writing, which teaches you about your thinking, feeling, and self. No effort is wasted! Between winter of Junior year and submissions season is a lot of months. You Continue Reading …
Writing Tips
Is it cheating to use Chat GPT to write your College Essays?
A controversial take on a hot industry topic: is using Chat GPT to write your college essay cheating? Maybe, maybe not. It’s all about how you use it. Duke University announced this week they would no longer assign a numerical value to the essay as part of a student’s application: the rampant use of AI and of college writing coaches and consultants (like me!) skews the essay as a metric of a student’s independent writing ability. However, it can still give useful insights into their character. When is it cheating to use a tool? You can almost always cheat in life– including cheating on your college essay. So the question is, will you? Which begs the question, in the age of AI, is using Chat GPT to write your essay considered cheating? It depends. And it's not a new question. In college, I took a torturous 8AM Ancient Greek language class: Thucydides & The Peloponnesian War. Think: convoluted grammar, and geopolitics of long-dead people and long buried wars. Bellicosity, and weak dining hall caffeine. In a perfect world, independent work (or homework) is designed to enhance or embed learning. It’s designed for you to struggle a bit to retrieve the knowledge your ego thinks you’ve stored and mastered. However, at 2AM, when you’re stuck in a thorny section of translation, with pages left to go, and even caffeine has given up on you, what do you do? In the late 1990’s, there was no Chat-GPT, but you could look up the entire English translation of the Ancient Greek writers online- sometimes with word-for-word correspondence. You could get that homework done, correctly, on time, and by a 2:30AM bed time. Pretty tempting. Two obvious issues with cheating on your work: 1) Ethically, you didn’t really do the work by yourself. 2) The next time you hit that problem, you haven’t learned anything about how to solve it. The only thing you know how to do is where to find someone else’s answer. How to use Chat-GPT for your college essay- Continue Reading …
Common App Essay Prompts 2024-2025 Are Live! How To Start Writing
Common App Essay Prompts 2024-2025 Are Live! Now Go Live (and Notice) Your Life! Common App Essay prompts are newly released for 2024-2025 college admissions, everyone's most relaxing season of life! Spoiler alert, the Common App essay prompts are the same as last year, which doesn't mean much to anyone who wasn't applying last year! Before you freak out (unless you enjoy a good freakout, which, by all means, you do you), I'm writing a post to make you happy. Note- The Common App website itself offers some basic resources for getting started on the personal essay, to encourage reflection. And this is a good time for reflection and introspection! When Should I Start My College Essay? Now-- Sort of. For most students, summer before senior year is plenty early enough to draft the essay proper, with the goal of a very strong draft before September hits. However, there are things you can do in the Spring of junior year that will lead you towards an incredible, magnetic Common App essay. This requires increasing your awareness, yes, but without trying too hard at all. It is possibly even pleasurable! I call this, how to write your college essay without writing it. Gather enough notes, and your college essay will start to crystallise for you. Really. How to Start Your Best Common App Essay Without Even Trying My 3-step college essay writing-ish process Notice your own thoughts, feelings, actions and passions Take Notes (in docs or voice memos) Organise your content What to notice to start your essay... Notice your own thoughts. Where does your mind go? When you're walking down the street, in your room, commuting? With family, your bestie? Doing something terribly boring? How quickly do you turn on something to listen to, and what are you listening to? How often are you looking up and out versus down at a device- yes, even while walking? What are you taking in? OK, my friend. TAKE NOTES. That's right- on an app on your phone. Or in the voice memos or pocket-size Continue Reading …
First write a bad college essay draft
First write a bad college essay draft to write a great essay I spend a lot of my time helping students unfreeze, and accept that if they first write a “bad” college essay draft, it might be THE most important step to a great draft. This blog came from a bunch of “you can write your essay” pep talks I gave to students over the past few weeks (and years!). ** It’s very paralyzing if you think you have to have a finished product before you even really started your college essay!** Most students don’t know how to write a narrative essay– I didn’t either, back when. But fretting about a lack of a skill never taught it to you. If it did, we’d all be amazing at things we never tried, but fretted a lot about. :) In fact, anxiety about the essay is exactly what will stop you from writing a great personal essay. You need to understand, hack, and tap into– the organic writing process. What’s the solution? FLOW. (Too Impatient for a pep talk? Cut right to getting expert help writing your college essay draft HERE.) A few essential reminders about writing college essay DRAFTS BTW: Even though I use the term “bad” throughout, I’m just using the language my students use. We should NOT call it a “bad” draft! There is nothing good or bad about it! It’s just… a draft! You might not even know the best college essay topic before you start writing! The search for a great college essay topic and totally great essay is noble and important, even critical. However, in my experience, you often have to write into a topic idea before you can be sure if it will work well or not. This is true for the supplemental essays and the Common App essays. It’s also true for…basically all writing! What sounds like a good idea while scaffolding might be less evocative (as in: not work) in execution. THAT IS A NORMAL PART OF THE PROCESS. The order goes: bad draft, good draft, great draft (but it can take way way more than three attempts!). And the writing might Continue Reading …
When Should I Start My College Essay?
I'm going to answer this common question, "When should I start my college essay?" with three contradictory responses. Enjoy! The best time to start your college essay is: Right now! As early as possible. Whenever the stress response will most work in your favor. Let's break it down. There are at least three right approaches: First, I don't know when you're asking this question. If it's February (when I'm writing this), and you're a junior, I'll give you some general tips. Right now you can: Learn about craft in writing. What makes a great opener? How about a dead one? Can you identify great, succinct description? Work on assessing tone. What kinds of personal claims sound pretentious? Authentic? (I wish there was a swab test for this!) Make Lists: What do you love? Absolutely hate? How about some quirky personal facts? (i.e. you hate cracking eggs). What are some of your favourite things to do or think about? Quick, stream-of-consciousness lists can reveal a lot. Understand "fit" with college specific notes: Guess what, there are a LOT of supplements you'll write. They MATTER to your application success. Whenever you learn about a new college, take the extra 3-5 minutes to jot down a few SPECIFIC things you noticed about it and are truly interested in ("nice quad" doesn't really count. Everyone loves a nice quad). As early as possible: Drafts I read written by juniors are rarely the drafts I suggest they send to college. BUT it gets you started on the form. And some times you have to write a bad essay to get it out of the way so you can eventually write your good and true one. It's never too early to understand the genre of college essay for an admission audience. Read! Not necessarily college essays, but personal essays. What do they have in common? Characters, conflict/problem, a TURNING POINT, and some change. And context, friends. You need some context. There is no wasted effort if your goal is good writing. Ask Continue Reading …
Your college essay is a mess, but it will be amazing
"Messay" Process Your college essay might be a mess before it's amazing. I have many students freaking out when their essay is in the messy inchoate stage. Trust the writing process to move from a-mess-ing to amazing! You know what happens when the sun begins to rise? That's just the idea of the day beginning. It hasn't figured itself out yet. It's a hot mess! The whole sky goes crazy, and it tries out all these different colors. They are not the same colors, or in the same order, as yesterday's sunrise. You know why? Me neither. The sun is just going through a process. The atoms have moved around and swapped outfits. They blaze and reorganize. Take notes for your college essay! Beautiful Oops = Mistake Composting I read my kids a book called Beautiful Oops (if I'm really honest we lost our copy, but stick with me). I recommend everyone get their hands on it and absorb it. This is a how-to book designed to help the perfectionists among us calm the F down. It's also for those who can't handle their mistakes and meanderings as a natural part of the process. This book says-- no such thing as a mistake! Take that coffee spill, that misshapen tree, that sentence that is tomato sauce dribbled on your prom outfit, and turn it into something else. It was getting you to your art all along. In fact, that might be your stroke of genius. It's messy before it's sweet I have a lot of students who come to me very early in the college essay process. They are stressed the F out, because they are not sure what they are writing about, and the essay isn't coming out looking finished, in 650 words. That advice thread on Reddit didn't make their essay get born whole. Prince Ea's magic words didn't conjure it. The messy process of creation is a bit uncomfortable. Hey now! Is the sun making a big deal about its sprawl? Should my kids never scribble scrabble in the process of drawing a dragon (it breathes fire, yo!)? Is it OK that I have to step to the left and right Continue Reading …