Want to find your best material to start your college essay?

x

Enter your email address, and the guide is yours, free!

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Essay Intensive

  • About EI
  • Services
    • Admissions Essay Support
    • Tutoring Plus
    • Homeschool Reimagined 2020-2021!
  • Featured Essay
  • What They’re Saying!
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Login

interview

A Mother and Daughter Reflect on the Challenges of the College Essay Writing Process

October 25, 2017 by Sara Nolan

How Can I Help? The College Essay Predicament When Your Parent Is A Writer Some families know they’ll need outside help navigating the college essay, and seek it. Other families have help conveniently located at home-- which you might think is a perk, or wish was your situation. But it's not simple.  Here’s one [longer form] revelation of what happens when mom-- writer Anne Anthony-- has the very skills her daughter--Samantha Hess-- needs when crafting her application essay, but their working dynamic becomes an emotional challenge. At the end, we invite you to share your (horror, triumph) stories of parent input.  Sara: Thank you both for agreeing to reflect on the college essay experience. I thought it’d be interesting to hear from a mother and daughter who’ve gone through it and offer a perspective (and maybe advice or guidance) to those starting that journey. So, Anne, why don’t you give my readers some background. Anne: I’ve loved to write all my life and value a well-written sentence more than most mothers do. So, my daughter faced a harder critic in me than she would have with a different parent. I’d worked as a technical writer and analyst. Putting together words in the clearest and most effective way-- read, college essay gold!-- was something I did every day. I wonder how my daughter felt about my ‘help’ with her college essays. Too much? Too critical? Samantha: As the daughter of a writer, I always enjoyed reading and writing. English was my favorite subject in high school as it came naturally to me and I excelled at it. I took a lot of pride in my writing. Writing in general is also incredibly personal. Anne: She was good. Maybe that’s why I expected a lot from her. I wanted to make sure anything she submitted would be her best. Sometimes I felt like I pushed too hard, expected too much. Maybe the way we worked together didn’t help. She’d send me drafts by email. I’d mark up the draft with my edits which always appeared in red on the  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Feedback, Integrity, Parents, Stories, Uncategorized, Writing Tips Tagged With: challenges, college essay writing, interview, parent involvement, stress

Meet Tim, Our Creative Web Designer

January 20, 2014 by Sara Nolan

Meet Timothy, our web designer and collaborator, student and (yes) teacher. Meet Timothy: our savvy website designer, Creative Lead at Iron Bound Designs, and participant in Essay Intensive Summer 2013 Workshop.  Freshly accepted into RIT, his first choice school, Timothy can also be found levitating (with his laptop).  Today, Tim is our featured student (on the blog screen)--not only the awesome invisible force who makes our online presence possible, presentable, professional and...teen-tastic.  We love Tim. E.I:   What’s your favorite word? Tim: Schadenfreude [He spells it out.] E.I.:  When did you learn the word—and how to spell it correctly? Tim: My music teacher—formerly an airline steward! One of his things was vocab in music class.  How that makes sense is unknown. E.I.:  Why do you love the word?  What does it mean? Tim: It sounds nice. Unbastardized German: Taking pleasure in someone else’s pain.  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Integrity, Questions, Teachers, Uncategorized Tagged With: interview, projects, Timothy Jacobs, Writing

Primary Sidebar

About Our Conversations

At Essay Intensive, we are listening for the Big Challenging Questions to arise–physically, mentally and emotionally. We jump, word-ninja style, at the chance to be stimulated and engage in a true conversation.

Our bodies are holistic, courageous homes with a singular mission (in a multi-faceted world): live! It’s up to us to realize and share the rich outcomes of that drive. “A conversation” is a place for members of our community to do just that.

Think, feel and write deeply. Question. Sweat. Speak.

Find a topic

Tags

admissions officers advice anecdote anxiety attitude authenticity college acceptance college admissions essays college application college essay college essay tips college essay writing Common Application Essay Writing exercise Free-writing freewriting ideas inspiration Letter from Birmingham Jail Listening love Martin Luther King Jr. meditation parents personal essay perspective poetry prompts revision sample essay self-awareness stress stress reduction student stories supplemental essays teachers topic choice topics voice writer's block Writing writing process writing prompts writing tips

Recent Posts

  • Writing About Your Weaknesses in Your College Essay
  • Frog and Toad Write Your College Essay
  • Strategies for College Supplements
  • Apologies Accepted
  • I promise you don’t have “Nothing To Write About”

Subscribe below to receive new posts in your email

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn