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10 Tips to Complete College Applications on Time
Thanksgiving break is over, Early Decision 1 and 2 are behind us, and the University of California has closed its doors. If you're still in the thick of applications, you need to focus. The best tip to complete college applications on time is simply to do them—there is no other way. But you knew...
The CUB Critique: Marketing Secrets for College Applications
As an entrepreneur, I’m often struck by the similarities between writing college application essays and writing marketing copy. Your mission on your college application is, after all, to sell yourself to your reader. Last week I was struck by the simple advice in Copy Logic! by Michael Masterson...
Why I Think You SHOULDN’T Read College Essay Examples
I’m going to take an unpopular position here: I think you should not read other students’ college essays. Not ones published in books, not ones available online, and potentially not even ones by people you know. You’re already stressed about how you sound and whether you’re clever or...
How To Make Your Essay Longer
How To Make Your Essay Longer When you speak with a relative you rarely see, it’s easy to feel like you have nothing to say to them. On the other hand, you can be so long at lunch talking to your best friend that you’re late to your next class—when you just saw them third period! In the...
Trust Your Life Story: Finding the Point of Your Essay
Trust Your Life Story: Finding the Point of Your Essay Of the many cool experiences Northwestern University afforded me, one of the coolest was the opportunity to serve as assistant stage manager on a traveling children’s theater production. Before, during and after each performance, I was...
Put Together Stand-Out College Applications
The school year is well underway at this point even for those who didn’t start until Labor Day. (And for those who started in early August, I assume finals are approaching.) If you haven’t yet, it’s time to get serious about your application work. Have you finalized your school lists?...
Living a Cliché
The further away you are, the more we look the same. That sounds like some sort of good news for peaceniks, but what it really is—is super-inconvenient for the high-school senior trying to stand out. Students are often led to believe that standing out in the crowded applicant pool is their...
5 Simple Steps to a Better College Essay
5 Simple Steps to a Better College Essay With so many prompts to choose from, stories you could tell, and organizational structures you could use, it can feel hard to know whether you’re making the right choices for your best college essay. There are so many aspects, you don’t even know where to...
Why I’m Not Teaching You To Procrastinate: Start Your College Essay While Time Is Still On Your Side
Start Your College Essay While Time Is Still On Your Side "There’s a difference between giving yourself time and space to think of your best ideas and avoiding an important job." In 2016, writer Adam Grant published an op-ed under the provocative title, “Why I taught myself to procrastinate.” In...
Go Jump in the Lake
Go Jump in the Lake Many writers find themselves stopped before their first sentence by the question, “Where should I begin?” The problem with that question is that while there are right and wrong places for a piece of writing to begin, it’s backward to assume you’ll figure out where that place is...
