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January 2023
How to get students to get feedback, love feedback, and use it to improve
Surprisingly, feedback is a big pitfall in the essay-writing process. As essay coaches, we’ve seen essays go off track all the time — the issue is that…
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Prompt
14 ways to make the most of the Additional Info section
Here’s the secret to the Common App’s Additional Info section: have students write the Additional Info section last → it is a space for anything at all…
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Prompt
How to write a powerful Activities List
We need to get students to stop treating the Activities List as an afterthought. Admissions officers definitely don’t. Thanks for reading The Apply…
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Prompt
The best generic essay structure for college essay supplements
This newsletter will take you through 4 easy steps for getting students to write a killer “Describe an Activity” essay (ie: most college supplemental…
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Prompt
December 2022
November 2022
How to structure the common app essay
In last week’s newsletter, we discussed the #1 thing people miss in their essays. Spoiler alert: students tend to write about what happened to them, not…
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Prompt
The biggest essay myth: Telling your story
College essays are not the place to "just tell your story." It's not that “tell us your story” is wrong. It’s just severely misleading. If you’ve read…
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Prompt
The best Common App Essay Prompts and why
Take this week’s newsletter with a grain of salt. The choice of essay prompt matters little next to getting students to brainstorm their experiences and…
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Prompt
October 2022
A powerful way to prove intellectual curiosity
Two weeks ago, our newsletter shared how (surprisingly) important the Personal score is to students’ chances of admission. We followed-up last week with…
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Prompt
The #1 Question to Ask High Performers
Most college applications read flat. We know students aren’t the same. But it sure seems like it from many applications: similar academics, similar…
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Prompt
How colleges calculate the Personal Score
Most students underestimate the power of their essays to get admitted. As we shared in last week’s newsletter, they usually think academics mostly…
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Prompt
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