Each month we will give you the best tips and tricks to help students write compelling college essays. Make sure to forward this newsletter to anyone who needs application support. 

Where you should be in the application and essay process: Creating your personal brand

At this stage, most students and families have built their school lists and they’re ready to start tackling their essays. The next step is to establish a personal brand that you’ll want to reinforce in all of your application materials to form a cohesive narrative.

Here are the tools that will put you on track to write your Common App Essay during the early summer. These resources will also prepare you to tackle your supplemental essays as the prompts are released in the coming few months.

What to watch:

• How to Get Into College: Build A Strong Personal Brand

• The 5 Traits to Highlight in Your Essay

• Unpacking 2022-23 Admissions Trends

• The Rise of the “Trauma Essay”

What to read:

• How Defining Your Personal Brand Makes College Admissions Essays More Powerful

• Should you use ChatGPT for your College Essay?

• The Purpose of College Essays

• Explore our College Essay Help Center

What to do:

• Sign up for an account at myprompt.com. Use the modules under “Brainstorm Essay Ideas” to identify your strongest traits and topics that we’ll help you translate into compelling essay content.

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Can we translate this into non-meme terms? Students can increase their chances of admission by up to 10% by writing clear, straightforward essays that focus on their potential. And yet, in large part due to influencers and social media, they keep messing it up by going for flowery writing and metaphors.

In this newsletter:

• Case study — the Harvard essay that went viral

• A metaphor is of utterly marginal value

• Influencers rarely know what they did right in their essays

• 3 ways a viral essay on TikTok can lead students astray

• Don’t let students get distracted by (metaphorical) beautiful women on the street

Case study: “This Girl's Harvard University Admissions Essay Is Going Viral”

Buzzfeed had a great story about an essay by a recent Harvard admit that went viral on TikTok. Actually, it wasn’t the essay. It was just the first two paragraphs of the essay (that turns out to be important to our point). The student’s essay does have a killer intro:

I hate the letter 'S.' Of the 164,777 words with 'S,' I only grapple with one. To condemn an entire letter because of its use .0006 percent of the time sounds statistically absurd, but that one case changed 100 percent of my life. I used to have two parents, but now I have one, and the 'S' in 'parents' isn't going anywhere.

This is an excellent intro. 

The problem here is that students seeing this viral story will think two things: (1) that the reason her essay is strong is because of the clever letter “S” metaphor, and (2) that coming up with this metaphor is what got her into Harvard.

No and no. Let’s take each point in turn.

Metaphors in colleges essays are like chopped parsley on pasta — utterly marginal 

Brilliant metaphors and flowery language, cleverly weaved into college essays, are like fresh chopped parsley on a pasta dish. Is the parsley a nice touch? Yes. Does it add an element of striking visual color? Yes. When you think about how much you liked the pasta dish, does the parsley factor in … at all? No.

At best, it ranks minimally. But if the pasta was great, it’s not because of the parsley. More important: if the pasta dish is bad, no amount of parsley — no matter how fresh and peppery — is going to save that pasta dish. A great metaphor will not save a bad essay. 

Influencers rarely know what they did right in their essays

The essay that went viral has been published. As Prompt analyzed it, what made it great wasn’t the S metaphor — although, the student did nicely weave it in throughout the essay. Rather, the less flashy parts stood out and helped this essay do its job. 

Colleges aren’t looking for creativity or great metaphors or even great writing skills in essays. Instead, as we’ve said a million times, they’re looking for the 5 traits that show a student has what it takes to succeed in college and beyond. 

But only if you’ve spent considerable time interviewing admissions officers, dissecting admissions data, and reading books on admissions are you likely to understand what’s working. For the “S” metaphor student, it so happens that an admissions official has written what they liked about her essay.

Was it the “S” metaphor? No. 

True, the “S” metaphor gets a positive mention: “she utilizes wit and a framing device using the letter ‘S’ to share a profoundly personal journey.” Notably, this mention is extremely brief. Even in this one sentence, the focus is on the “profoundly personal journey.”

The Harvard reviewer talks about “the adjustments she has had to make” in the wake of her parent’s death. They also talk about how “satisfying” it is to see her “discover[ ] things that she has become passionate about.” The essay also has a sense of “realism and maturity.”

In Prompt parlance, this reviewer is talking about at least 3 of the 5 traits:

• Drive or grit — Here, despite the enormous setback of losing a parent, this applicant is demonstrating that she has the drive to turn pain into something useful and positive. This type of trait leads to success. 

• Initiative — Here, the essay makes clear that it’s the applicant herself who has taken the initiative to improve her situation by keeping busy instead of letting herself wallow excessively. She comes off as the type of person who won’t accept the status quo but will work energetically to improve it.

• Intellectual Curiosity —By discussing her passions, the applicant indicates that she’s an interesting person who is curious about and engaged with the world. Although she leaves the details of her passion vague (as we’ll explore below), that curiosity is still something colleges love. 

   

3 ways a viral essay on TikTok can lead students astray

Here are 3 serious way in which the “S” essay might lead someone on TikTok astray:

1. Getting distracted by the metaphor, they try for their own. But these kinds of metaphors are extremely difficult to pull off. Instead of telling a compelling, but simple story about their potential to succeed, the student gets bogged down in an unnecessarily complicated metaphor that doesn’t work. Their chances of admission plummet.

2. They get distracted by the pathos of the parent’s death. As the Harvard reviewer notes, it’s a “common pitfall … to take a tragic event and effuse it with too much pathos [because it] fails to reveal much about the author’s own personality.” Going for tragic subject matter usually results in a worse personal statement. 

3. They think this essay is perfect. It’s good, but it’s not perfect. The Harvard reviewer says as much: “this essay could have been strengthened further by giving the reader a sense of what those passions might be, as we’re left to speculate based on the activities she had mentioned.”

That’s a huge point. We do not know why this student got admitted. Chances are, she has much more than just this essay going for her — she probably has great grades and test scores, and we know from her essay she has great extracurriculars. 

What we do know, however, is that her essay left out some great material. If she’d given just a little more detail on the passions she developed as she worked through her grief, this essay would have said more about her intellectual curiosity (as well as initiative and drive). And that’s where she might have seen an even higher score on her essay.

It didn’t matter in the end: she got in. But students applying don’t have that luxury.

Don’t let students get distracted by (metaphorical) beautiful women on the street

To summarize, students can’t get distracted! They’ve got a beautiful girlfriend (metaphorically). That girlfriend = their experiences, potential to succeed, and traits that prove their potential. Those are the things that will boost their chances of college admission. 

Remind them of that. And turn their attention to sharing that in their essays, as clearly and straightforwardly as possible. Frown on metaphors and you may see your students’ admission rates go up.

How to help your students write great college application essays

Prompt’s Essay Planning Tools help students identify what to write about and how to write about it. The tools are available for free for every student either by requesting a Prompt college application essay resource page for your school (click here to request a page) or through our integration with MaiaLearning.

Click here for a 12-minute video overview of Prompt’s Essay Planning tools.

If you’re not a subscriber, please add your email address for more issues.

And if you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to other counselors.

As essay coaches, we’ve seen essays go off track all the time — the issue is that too many reviewers (moms and dads, mostly) focus on all the wrong things (grammar and phrasing, mostly), not the right things (does the essay show the student will succeed in college and beyond?).

But, as you surely know, feedback is also critical to creating a powerful, admissions-boosting essay.

In this newsletter, we’ll explore:

• The guided questions students can give to their reviewers (so Mom and Dad don’t get them off-track)

• Preparing students for the need to revise their draft from scratch — it’s not that hard!

• Coaching students to do a last round of feedback — focused on writing clarity

The guided questions students can give to their reviewers (so Mom and Dad don’t get them off-track)

The trick to feedback that improves (rather than impedes) is to give the reviewers clear instructions.

Have students ask the people revising their work (usually parents) these questions:

• What did they learn about the student in the essay? What traits did they see depicted? 

• What didn’t they learn about the student that they wanted to know? (What content should the student add?)

• How could the student restructure the essay to make it clearer? (Is it readable? Easy to follow? Is it clear where this essay is headed from the beginning? Or does the essay take a confusing turn somewhere?)

Students should direct their reviewers not to focus on grammar. Instead, they should have them circle where they found the writing to be unclear.

The point (which they can explain to their parents) is that the student is probably going to be making substantial changes — so grammar feedback isn’t helpful for the first revision. (That comes later.)

Preparing students for the need to revise their draft from scratch — it’s not that hard!

Armed with excellent, content- and structure-focused feedback, the student will have what it takes to win the battle of the personal statement (or supplement).

Many students need a “radical revision” at this early stage. It sounds awful, but it’s actually … not. If they start again, they’ll find that they keep in the good stuff from their first draft, but that the writing flows much better as they rewrite. We’ve seen that being radical at this stage usually saves time over trying to move things around — and gets much better results.

Whether or not the student does need a “radical revision,” they should consider the following possibilities as they assess the feedback they received:

• New topic? It’s possible a student might realize they should switch to a new topic that better lets them show off how they exemplify one or more of the 5 traits that colleges look for in applicants.

• New outline? It’s also possible that students will realize they should overhaul their structure or write a new outline.

The point is that students should be “content-focused” as they assess the first round of feedback — if they’re hoping to make minor grammar changes and call it a day, they’re missing out on the opportunity to seriously boost their admissions potential through some admittedly major (but not egregiously time-consuming) changes.

Coaching students to do a last round of feedback — focused on writing clarity

Finally! The student has gotten through a serious, perhaps radical act of revision. They now have an essay with a winning structure and content that compellingly proves they exemplify some of the 5 traits.

Now is the time to make sure the admissions officer can follow it. Yes, we’re talking grammar and phrasing (which we earlier kicked to the curb so rudely).

If possible, have students stick with the same reviewer. (It simplifies things to just have one so the student doesn’t have to “retrain” them.) 

The student should ask the exact same questions as before — but this time the focus will likely be more on the essay’s clarity. The content that was missing will now generally be there; the content that was underwhelming will now generally be replaced with something stronger.

So the bulk of the edits at this stage will likely be lots of circles where mom or dad (or whoever) is highlighting passages that are unclear, as well as suggestions for making the essay flow more logically.

How to help your students write great college application essays

Prompt’s Essay Planning Tools help students identify what to write about and how to write about it. The tools are available for free for every student either by requesting a Prompt college application essay resource page for your school (click here to request a page) or through our integration with MaiaLearning.

Click here for a 12-minute video overview of Prompt’s Essay Planning tools.

In our next issue, CANCEL METAPHORS: CLARITY, READABILITY.

If you’re not a subscriber, please add your email address for more issues.

And if you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to other counselors.

This works because admission readers grade each application for personality and potential not essay-by-essay, but based on the entire application. (That’s why our College Essay Help Center advises doing applications college-by-college rather than essay-by-essay.)

Thus, for each college they apply to, students should look at their application as a whole and ask what’s missing:

• is anything confusing? does anything potentially look bad that could be explained?

• is there something impressive they couldn’t fit in other places?

• or is it pretty much all there?

Those questions should determine how (if at all) they fill in the Additional Info section for that college.

In this newsletter, we’ll discuss:

• 6 ways to expand on an application

• 3 ways to explain potential issues

• 2 ways to clarify potential confusion

• 3 ways to mess it up

6 ways to expand on an application

‍#1 — Expand on an amazing item from the activities list.

As we mentioned in our last newsletter on the Activity List, sometimes, an activity is too big and exciting for a 150 character-limited box. If so, the Additional Info section can expand on that one activity. 

‍Tech note: In the Activities List, students should let the reader know they can find more in the Additional Info section. First, they should write up the item as they normally would. Then, at the end of that space, they should write “See Add’l Info” to show the reader that there is more. Finally, in the Additional Info section, they should use resume-like bullets to expand on what they achieved.

(Keep writing in the Additional Info section as succinct as possible. This section is the last thing standing between the admissions reader and a coffee break. Despite the expansive 650-word limit, don’t let students wax on excessively.)

#2 — Bullet point a supplemental essay that the college didn’t offer

Similar to expanding on the Activities List, students can use this section to include information from an essay they wrote for another school — for example, a supplemental essay on an extracurricular.

Two points here:

1. Add meaningfully: make sure the student isn’t being redundant - they didn’t get this point across elsewhere.

2. Boil it down: Although they have the space to copy/paste the other school’s supplemental essay, they shouldn’t. On top of acknowledging the reader’s mindset (craving a coffee break), students shouldn’t give colleges something they didn’t ask for (an essay); they should give what they did ask for (additional information). 

‍Tech note: To pull this trick off, students need to be sure that they submit the right Additional Info to the right school. Most of the time, applicants write just one Additional Info section that goes to all schools (or leave it blank). But to repurpose an essay, students just need to make sure that they submit a blank Additional Info section to the school for which they wrote the full essay and the bulleted version in the Additional Info for the school that they want to see this extra info. (Going school-by-school takes care of this issue. 😌)

#3 — Describe impressive research or other academic projects

Students who’ve done something particularly impressive academically can use this space to describe it briefly. For example, if they did an IB extended essay, they could share the topic, essay title, and a few words explaining their thesis. Same for scientific research, a research paper, or something of that caliber.

#4 — Describe impressive outside projects

Creative or maker students can use this space to provide a word of explanation and a link to an:

• Etsy shop, 

• YouTube channel of their video essays or music, 

• blogs, or 

• anything else they’ve created. 

Make sure students write a sentence explaining what the admissions officer will find if they do click the link. (You never know if they won’t skip it for that cup of coffee.)

‍#5 — Give context on unusual classes or online/outside courses

Students who’ve taken an unusual class can give the college a little context on what it involved. For example, if they got to design their own Senior Spring curriculum, they might briefly describe the program, the project, the reading list, and how it went. 

If they took a course online or outside of school (at the local community college, for example), they can describe the rigor of the course, how much work and time was required, and maybe why they decided to take it. 

#6 — Acronyms or context

If the student used any acronyms in their Activities List and didn’t have space to spell out what it stands for, they can use this space to do so. Again, if possible, they should note that they’ll be doing this in the Activities List using the phrase “see add’l info.”

3 ways to explain potential issues

#1 — Explaining serious health issues

Students who’ve faced a serious health issue in high school can share that background with the admissions team to show what they’ve overcome and potentially explain some lower grades or a gap in extracurriculars.

A few bullets they could include:

• Describe the health issue itself — ex: underwent major leg surgery on 10/5/21.

• How long the recovery was + how much class time they missed — Couldn’t walk for a week; missed two weeks of school; continue to attend hour-long physical therapy sessions twice a week. 

• Say how they made up their work — Worked with all of my subject teachers on a plan for each class. I began catching up by working independently a week after the surgery and relied on teachers (and friends) to catch up with each class. 

• Describe some of the impacts — I had to give up playing the lead in the school play. Despite being disappointed to miss the experience, I look forward to seeing the show on opening night. 

• If they’ve improved their grades, mention that — I initially struggled in all of my classes, particularly Physics. However, after an intensive catch-up weekend, I got an A on my last Physics test. 

Note on grades: if the student's grades suffered because of the health issue, there’s no need to say so. They’ve provided the context that will help the admissions team understand why their grades dipped.  

Note on counselors: As a college counselor, you should absolutely supplement the student’s application with a note about what happened. Your note can work together with the student’s own brief description of their experience to give a full account of the issue they faced.

Note on mental health and learning disabilities. These issues can be trickier to describe. This is a good place to help students actively, working to explain the mental health challenge/learning disability, and show its impact, all without raising more questions than the note answers.

‍#2 — Explain any difficult family circumstances that have impacted a student’s schoolwork or extracurriculars

There are so many obstacles that students can confront. This is a good place to describe them to the admissions team.

‍Examples include:

• Long commutes to school, limiting extracurricular participation

• Family circumstances that pushed the student to take on a job or extensive domestic and/or childcare responsibilities

• A family member who is disabled or requires care

Have the student try to describe the situation as straightforwardly as possible. 

#3 — Explain any potential red flags in the application

Looking at the totality of what the student has given the admissions team, are there any issues they might have questions about? 

Examples might include:

• A bad grade

• Dropped sports or activities

• A class they didn’t take (ex: they want to be a doctor but didn’t take AP Bio)

In such cases, the student should provide the explanation in a concise, matter-of-fact description. 

‍Tech note: Review the application first. Some college applications offer specific spaces for explaining potential “red flags” like a bad grade or a gap in schooling. Students should use these instead of the Additional Info section if the college provides them.

2 ways to clarify potential confusion

#1 — Explaining something unusual about the high school

For example, if the high school is new, and the student is in its first graduating class.

#2 — Explaining something unusual about the grades the student is submitting

If your school (or a combination of the student’s schools) has an unusual grading system, this is also a great thing to explain to colleges. 

For example —

• Your courses are full-year or trimester-length — your students can explain how that works in this space.

• They attended School Year Abroad or another unusual program — they can explain the details of the two high schools.

• They switched high schools — they can explain the reason (a move, for example), and any other context that would be helpful to admissions teams. 

• Your school has a specialized curriculum (performing arts, religious, trade) — they can explain how the specialized piece works in conjunction with regular classes.

What not to do: 3 ways to screw it up

‍#1 — Don’t let students write another essay

As we noted above, “additional information” doesn’t mean “essay.” 

#2 — Don’t let students “explain” a B on their transcript

Students who worry about minor imperfections will appear to colleges to lack a sense of perspective.

#3 — Don’t let students make excuses

Explaining an issue will boost an application. Making excuses for it will hurt it. Sadly, the line between the two isn’t always obvious. Nevertheless, work with students to make sure they walked that line because the Additional Info section is likely the last thing the college will learn about the student — it’s important that it’s a good one. 

How to help your students write great college application essays

Prompt’s Essay Planning Tools help students identify what to write about and how to write about it. The tools are available for free for every student either by requesting a Prompt college application essay resource page for your school (click here to request a page) or through our integration with MaiaLearning.

Click here for a 12-minute video overview of Prompt’s Essay Planning tools.

In our next issue, How to get students to get feedback, love feedback, and use it to improve

If you’re not a subscriber, please add your email address for more issues.

And if you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to other counselors.

Admissions officers definitely don’t.

They see the Activities List as a quick way to see how involved students are, what they’re interested in, and the impact they’ve had. They translate what they find into hard numbers that make or break applications.

Note: Some schools give applicants a separate Activity score; others assess Lists as part of a broader personal score (ie: students’ potential for success, as reflected in essays and other non-academics). 

In this newsletter, we’ll cover:

• Admissions officers look at Activities Lists for evidence of impact

• Write Activity descriptions using strong verbs + short phrases (5 tips for writing)

• Descriptions should explain what the activity was + what the student did

• Students should think deeply + creatively about what Activities to include

• How the Additional Info section can be invaluable for some tricky Activity Lists

• How to prioritize Activities (hint: description, leadership, time)

Admissions officers look at Activities Lists for evidence of impact

Knowing what admissions officers look for in an Activities List is the best way to write descriptions that give them what they’re looking for. Here’s what they keep top of mind:

Sustained engagement — Colleges like activities that students have done over a long time, or for many hours a week. It indicates that they care about the Activity (and are likely to keep caring as a college student).

Leadership — Colleges like to see that students attained a leadership role, whether formal or informal. Though it’s harder to describe an informal role in the Common App’s short boxes, we’ll talk about how to do it below.

Impact — Colleges like to see the student’s unique contributions to the activity. Students tend to articulate this well when given this thought exercise: Think about if you were never a part of the activity. How would it have been different? (Bonus points if they can quantify their impact with numbers or clarify it with quotes or awards.)

Potential to succeed (aka the 5 Traits) — Have we talked about this before? (Jk, yes, we do it constantly.) Colleges love the 5 traits that indicate a student will succeed in college and beyond: Drive, Intellectual Curiosity, Initiative, Contribution, and Diversity of Experiences. Activities — formal or informal — are a great place to demonstrate these traits.

Example — applicant filled in as an afterthought:

• Position/Leadership description: Server 

• Organization Name: Scoops Ahoy, Starcourt Mall 

• Description: Served ice cream after school two days a week.

Example — Now that the applicant knows the college is reading this for evidence of impact:

• Position/Leadership description: Server 

• Organization Name: Scoops Ahoy, Starcourt Mall

• Description: Honed service skills, improving personal tips by 50%+ in 9 months. Received promotion. Used shop as base to uncover evil Soviet plot. 

As you can see, there’s plenty of room within 150 characters to pack a punch and demonstrate potential to succeed in college.

Write Activity descriptions using strong verbs + short phrases (5 tips for writing)

Tip #1: Begin each phrase with a strong verb

Scooped ice cream. Increased tips by 50%. Uncovered Soviet plot.

Strong verbs get the descriptions going, are extremely efficient, and keep the focus on the student’s actions and impact.

Tip #2: Cut full sentences into succinct phrases

Instead of:

I set off a country-wide eternal winter, and put my sister in mortal danger, before applying a love-based solution to revive my sister and the land. 

Pack the impressive facts in:

Created country-wide eternal winter. Put sister in mortal danger. Applied love-based solution, reviving sister and the land. Ruled happy people. 

By cutting sentences down into phrases, students can pack in much more impact. 

Tip #3: Focus on the problems solved, skills gained, and/or impact created

Most students instead list things that anyone in their position would have done:

• Wrote articles for the newspaper. 

• Attended debate tournaments. 

• Played on the soccer team for four seasons.

These phrases are not doing the applicant any favors. Instead, encourage students to think about their activities in terms of problems, skills & impact. 

• Demystified new junior curriculum requirements in article newspaper advisor called “best of the semester.” 

• Raised over $1000 to help all debate members travel to the state tournament. 

• Scored five goals, the highest number of any team member this year.

Tip #4: Quantify impact, use quotes, and mention awards whenever possible.

Once students have determined their impact (using the “How would it have been different without me” prompt above), they should try as much as possible to translate it into numbers, quotes, or awards.

Compare:

Victorious in a high-stakes yearly contest of skill. Competed fiercely, using cunning, strategy, and collaboration to succeed.

It’s a big achievement, but kind of limp. Says who? What does any of it mean? Instead:

1 of 2 survivors (of 24) in a yearly contest. First to get authorities to change rules, saving co-victor. Dictator called me a threat to his rule.

By quantifying her experience, and quoting a real person, Katniss brings the size of her achievement into relief. 

Tip #5: Students should show how activities changed them for the better

Compare:

Survived being eaten alive. Rescued by hunter. Grateful to be alive along with Granny. 

To the improved:

Learned to be wary of strangers trying to influence me. Gained an appreciation for what matters in life, esp. time with loved ones.

Descriptions should explain what the activity was + what the student did

Most activities don’t need explanation. These are the usuals: Model UN, Speech & Debate, Band, Sports teams, etc.

For activities and clubs that are specific to your school, students should add a few words of context:

• What the activity is (its purpose). 

• Its size (number of students in it). 

Often, it’s helpful for the student to spell out their responsibilities — what did they do? This can do a few things:

• Show the reader what the activity is. (Particularly, if it’s more unusual.)

• Show why the activity matters to them. 

• Show what kinds of skills the student is building.

• Show the student is acting as a leader, even if they don’t have a formal leadership role.

For example, a team captain might include the line:

Led early-morning practices. 

This is just a description of what a captain actually does. While it doesn’t focus on impact, it does suggest that the student is building important skills:

• Discipline and drive in pursuit of a larger goal.

• Interpersonal skills — the ability to get teenagers to wake up early and do hard work.   

In addition, this description shows that “captain” isn’t just a title to the student. They really put in the work. They really are a leader. 

Students should think deeply + creatively about what Activities to include

It’s surprisingly easy for students to forget their own activities and accomplishments. It’s important to make students understand that they should devote some time to brainstorming and thinking comprehensively about their activities, formal and informal.

Encourage students to think through their high school years chronologically. (High school only — colleges don’t consider activities that predate freshman year relevant.) This can take some detective work - going through old emails and paperwork is normal for this exercise.

In addition, emphasize the power of informal activities to your students. Things like independent learning, family obligations, hobbies that have gotten serious, and much more can do a lot to show a student’s character and potential.

How the Additional Info section can be invaluable for some tricky Activity Lists

For students without a lot of activities, well, the best advice is to encourage them to participate in a meaningful activity if they still have time.

But … if it’s too late, or if that’s not possible, students can consider using the Additional Information section to put their somewhat-light Activities List in context. For example:

• Long commutes,

• Intensive family responsibilities,

• Intensive practice obligations (violin, sports).

A straightforward account of these circumstances can allay admissions’ concerns and even add color and strength to an application.

For students with an activity that requires more than 150-characters to fully explain, they can add “(See add’l info.)” to their description, and say a little more there, particularly if providing a fuller picture of the activity can shed light on the student's capabilities.

How to prioritize Activities (hint: description, leadership, time)

Have students consider these 3 factors as they decide which activities to place highest:

1. How impressive is the description? — Descriptions with big impacts or awards should come first.

2. Where do they have leadership roles?  

3. How much time have they devoted to it? (Per week and over what period) 

There isn't a hard and fast rule, but these questions should guide the thinking here.

How to help your students write great college application essays (and activity lists)

Prompt’s Essay Planning Tools help students identify what to write about and how to write about it. The tools are available for free for every student either by requesting a Prompt college application essay resource page for your school (click here to request a page) or through our integration with MaiaLearning.

Click here for a 12-minute video overview of Prompt’s Essay Planning tools.

In our next issue, 14 ways to make the most of the Additional Info section.

If you’re not a subscriber, please add your email address for more issues.

And if you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to other counselors.

More good news: we’ve found that students tend to like writing this essay — at least as much as they’re going to like writing any admissions essay. It’s usually short and presents students with a chance to talk about something they already love.

In this newsletter:

• Why students should choose their second-best activity

• 4 things to look for in the activity to feature

• The essay should show off what they might do on campus

• As always, the importance of writing simply (but clearly)

Why students should choose their second-best activity 

That’s a joke. Of course, they should choose their “best” activity. Except if they already used their “best” activity in their personal statement (which many do - writing about activities in your essays is a great idea). In that case, second-best is the right choice. 

The important thing here is to get students to spend 15-30 minutes brainstorming all their activities (if they haven’t done it before). They should get everything down on paper — the obvious ones; the ones they dropped; the unusual ones that aren’t really “Debate Club” stuff — did they make their own umbrellas? Have they read every Jane Austin biography known to man?

Having everything down allows students to assess the candidates clearly and assess which extracurricular is “best” using the 4 criteria below:

4 things to look for in the activity the student features

1. Steady commitment — Students must talk about something that’s meaningful to them in this essay. “Commitment” implies that they’ve kept up with the activity until relatively recently. That is, through most of high school.  

2. The 5 traits — there’s never a time admissions officers aren’t interested in the 5 traits. Bonus: activities are great at showing off the 5 traits.

3. Awards, leadership - Awards and leadership experience are pretty irrefutable proof that a student developed the interest fully and well. They’re not necessary (unlike commitment and the 5 traits, which are necessary), but they’re nice. 

4. Unique, interesting - Something memorable and unusual can be more tantalizing to a college admissions officer than all the awards in the world. Not always — generally, students should talk about an interest for which they were a leader and won rewards (ex: Debate Club) over an unusual one (ex: made their own umbrellas), but there’s a lot to be said for a student who writes about something genuine that the admissions officer has never read before. 

The essay should show off what students might do on campus

This supplement is something of a “preview.” Colleges are wondering if the student is likely to fully develop an interesting extracurricular with them, on their campus. (And also, maybe later, once they graduate.) That’s hard to predict, of course. But the best evidence a student can present of future success is to show they’ve pulled it off before — with a really interesting high school activity. 

Students should paint a picture for the admissions reader of themselves doing this exciting activity on their campus. Making their campus better and more interesting because of their work.  

To do this, students should spend a little time researching the campus and what opportunities it offers to further the particular activity. (Don’t panic! This is much less work than for a usual Why Us essay, as it’s just one activity.) Generally, the research entails finding out what clubs and funding the college has available. It could also mean showing how the activity would influence or benefit from certain academics. 

Writing Style: Clear and straightforward

As we say ad nauseum, college essays are the wrong place for “beautiful” writing. That’s particularly true for supplements, where space is typically limited. 

Encourage students to put all their energy into showing off 1 or more of the 5 traits via the activity they chose. Also, encourage them to get feedback, whether from you or someone else they trust. (We’ll discuss avoiding feedback pitfalls in an upcoming newsletter.) Bottom line: students should ask their reviewer (unless it’s you) to read through only for clarity.

How to help your students write great college application essays

Prompt’s Essay Planning Tools help students identify what to write about and how to write about it. The tools are available for free for every student either by requesting a Prompt college application essay resource page for your school (click here to request a page) or through our integration with MaiaLearning.

Click here for a 12-minute video overview of Prompt’s Essay Planning tools.

In our next issue, How to write a powerful Activities List.

If you’re not a subscriber, please add your email address for more issues.

And if you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to other counselors.

But there’s a simple “Why Us” essay strategy that works. Have your students:

• write about their college-related interests,

• do a little research on how the school matches those interests, and

• aim their essay at demonstrating they’ll (1) be a good fit at the school + (2) likely attend if admitted.

In this newsletter, we’ll show that:

• Colleges ask “Why Us” to see if students will be a “good fit” and are likely to attend.

• Yes, students can reuse their “Why Us” essays for different colleges (mostly).

• Students should take time to brainstorm their college-related interests. 

• 3 tips for showing how those interests match what the school has to offer.

• A word on pulling it all together.

‍Colleges ask “Why Us” to see if students will be a “good fit” and are likely to attend. 

Colleges that require “Why Us” essays often care about yield — how many of the students they admit actually enroll. It’s a big factor in college rankings. A lot of surprising things help colleges determine a student will likely help their yield — for a deep dive, see our article on Demonstrated Interest. But ultimately, writing a great “Why Us” essay is the best way a student can show a college they’re serious about them.

In addition, colleges are looking to see if the student will fit well on campus. So have your students write with those two aims in mind.

Note: If the college asks why a student will major in, say, engineering at their school, it’s still a “Why Us” essay. (Ex: Cornell.) If the college is instead asking about students’ interest in a particular major, that’s a “Why Major” essay (Ex: MIT). For a strategy for Why Majors, see our article.

Yes, students can reuse their “Why Us” essays for different colleges (mostly)

While students can't write the exact same thing for each school, they can often get away with similar essays. First, once they’ve done the work to articulate their college-related interests (see below), it’ll work for all schools. Second, once a student knows how to research a school for how it matches their interests, it’s not hard to do again.  

Students should take time to brainstorm their college-related interests 

The hardest part of “Why Us” essays sounds like the easiest part: figuring out the student’s college-related interests and writing about them well. That’s why they can’t skip a solid brainstorming session.

As you know if you follow Prompt’s method, we’re big on having students brainstorm first and write second, so they know exactly what is most compelling to write about.

In this instance, students need to figure out what interests they want to develop in college. They should brainstorm a few of these, in each case answering questions such as:

• What most interests you about the subject?

• What first sparked your interest?

• How does this interest relate to your ambitions (if any)?

• Are there classes related to this interest that you’d like to take at college? 

• What big questions do you have about this interest? 

• What are you most curious about within it? 

The student should end the brainstorm with 1-2 interests that feel right and fully fleshed out.

Then, they should do it all over again for their extracurriculars. While some “Why Us” prompts specifically ask about academics, many are broader. In those cases, colleges love having an idea of what students will get up to on campus outside of class. A little extra brainstorming can deliver.

Here are some questions students can use to generate great content:

• What kinds of volunteering, clubs, or organizations do you hope to continue participating in during college? Why do you want to continue?

• What kinds of volunteering, clubs, or organizations do you hope to try for the first time during college? What do you hope to gain from these experiences?

• Are you looking for work or research opportunities in college? What kinds? 

• How do you want your college to support you?

• If you’re a maker and/or interested in creative pursuits, how do you hope to develop your skills in college? 

A word of caution on study abroad: students should avoid mentioning it unless they have a specific idea of where and what they want to study. It can come off as “I can't wait to go to this school so I can leave and go somewhere else!”

Researching how students’ interests match what the school has to offer is actually pretty easy

Now comes the part that seems difficult, but is actually relatively straightforward: research. Have the students begin with a Google of the department they’re most interested in.

• They should look at the class offerings, research opportunities, fellowships, and anything else — and write down the things that jump out at them as interesting.

• Note: the general curriculum is usually less exciting and tends to be similar across schools. Students should look at the more advanced, esoteric classes intended for junior/senior students.

• Department sites often have articles about students and faculty who’ve done newsworthy things. Students should look into those that interest them and make a note.

Next, students should do a general search for the school’s organizations and clubs that relate to their interest(s). Again, all they have to do is note down the things that excite them. Finally, examples from a student’s campus visit make excellent fodder for this essay, so do tell students to use those experiences if they have them.

By the end of this process, students should have a number of particularized notes on what the college has to offer that genuinely excites them.

Use a super direct approach to turn brainstormed content into an essay

“Why Us” is an essay that needs a super direct approach: it’s straight geometry — we fit together. “I’m interested in X, and you have Class and Activity that match X.”

Here are some quick pointers for students: 

• Follow the formula. Present your most important interests + how the school matches those interests. 

• Start with academic interests. Extracurriculars should go further down. Social reasons should go last. 

• If the school is your top choice (or a top choice), say so. As we know, schools ask “Why Us” to see if students will accept if admitted. (However, don’t say it if it’s not true.)

How to help your students write great college application essays

Prompt’s Essay Planning Tools help students identify what to write about and how to write about it. The tools are available for free for every student either by requesting a Prompt college application essay resource page for your school (click here to request a page) or through our integration with MaiaLearning.

Click here for a 12-minute video overview of Prompt’s Essay Planning tools.

In our next issue, Tips for the UC PIQs.

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And if you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to other counselors.

In this newsletter, we’ll stick with personal essays, but take a more pragmatic approach: how to get the thing written, written well, and written fast.

In this newsletter:

• Students should choose the prompt that lets them show they’ll succeed in college

• Avoiding the 4 most common personal essay mistakes

• The power of outlines to save time and improve essays

• 3 points on Writing style: Admissions officers love nothing more than clear, straightforward writing

Students should choose the prompt that lets them show they’ll succeed in college

Strong essays can 10x a student’s chances of getting into selective colleges. Strong essays prove the student’s potential for college success by discussing experiences that exemplify one or more of the 5 Traits.

(If you follow us at all, you’ve heard all of that before — but you’re not surprised that we led with it again. It’s central to everything else we’ll discuss.)

Once you understand how critical it is that students showcase their positive traits, our counterintuitive advice for picking a prompt will make more sense: students should first, decide what they want to say; then, choose the prompt that lets them say it.

In other words, encourage students to brainstorm their own high school experiences first, and to choose the most compelling of those to discuss — those that showcase one or more of the 5 Traits. Only after that work is done should students spend any time deciding on their prompt.

(That being said, we believe some of the Common App prompts are better than others. See our guidance here.)

Avoiding the 3 most common personal essay mistakes

These are the most common mistakes we’ve noticed in our time reviewing tens of thousands of student essays. Let us know if you agree or if you have others that seem to come up regularly in your experience reviewing admission essays.

[1] Covering too much:

650 words is too short to tell a life story, but many students make the attempt. They struggle when they talk about interesting things that don’t relate to the 5 traits, particularly their family history or their upbringing.

[2] Too much drama:

Students often feel pressure to write about dramatic, unusual, or even traumatic moments, such as death, depression, breakups, and bullying. The problem here is that the reader is often left thinking “How is this relevant to being successful?” 

Avoid this mistake by ensuring that students only write about drama if they can show that they became a better person after it — that they have since taken action on what they learned from the experience, as we discussed last week. (Ex: they mastered anxiety, which enabled them to star in the school play.)

[3] The love of [sports/music/theater] trap:

Students often focus their essays on a particular passion. The problem is that passion alone doesn’t prove much about potential for success.

The fix here is to discuss passion as a way of illuminating one of the 5 Traits. For example, a love of music can showcase Drive — how the student practices for hours every day; how they learned an instrument on their own; or how they wrote or recorded their own music.

[4] Writing a resume:

Students should resist the urge to pack in every one of their impressive accomplishments. It’s not just that these are best suited to the common app activities list. It’s also that listing accomplishments can obscure how the student exemplifies one or more of the 5 traits. 

For example, if a student won a debate award, talking about the award alone makes them come off as a natural. Which is actually a bad thing — they may start to think that this student will struggle as they enter college and the real world, having been used to things coming easily. If the student instead talks about the hard work that helped them earn the reward — that is, their Drive — the officer will see a gritty and determined person who persevered to win an award, and will keep doing so in college. 

The power of outlines to save time and improve essays

Using an outline saves students at least one draft and leads to more compelling essays. In our experience, students using outlines typically need just two drafts, versus three or four for those who don't.

For the Common App personal statement, two basic structures work well:

• The Journey — for essays that show a clear progression of personal growth (ie: There was a Before You, now there's an After You). As we discussed last week, the most important part of this essay is what the student went on to do AFTER the experience of growth. Which actions did they take that prove they’re a changed person?

• The Theme — for essays that show either how the student developed (a) one important trait over distinct experiences or (b) one meaningful passion over time. In this case, the aim is to describe a number of distinct experiences over which they developed or showcased a trait or passion.

Prompt has detailed outlines that students can access if they signup for a free account. You can learn more about this resource and others at our guidance counselor page.

3 points on Writing style: Admissions officers love nothing more than clear, straightforward writing

As we’ve said, admissions officers take notes on what students write about — they don’t grade their writing style. 

Beautiful metaphors, clever analogies, and the rest of the literary arsenal tend to get students in trouble. They distract from clearly illustrating the experiences that prove they’ll be successful.

In terms of style, students should think about:

1. Clarity — the reader gets what they’re trying to say.

2. Flow — the reader gets where the essay is heading from the start; the ending feels natural.

3. Engaging style — the reader wants to keep reading because the text is easy to follow thought-by-thought, the sentence structures vary, vocabulary is simple and effective, useful anecdotes illustrate the points, and there are no jarring grammatical errors. 

How to help your students write a great personal statement

Prompt’s Essay Planning Tools help students identify what to write about and how to write about it. The tools are available for free for every student either by requesting a Prompt college application essay resource page for your school (click here to request a page) or through our integration with MaiaLearning.

Click here for a 12-minute video overview of Prompt’s Essay Planning tools.

In our next issue, how to write the Why Us essay.

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And if you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to other counselors.

If you’ve read our earlier newsletters, you’ve seen how admissions teams actually evaluate applications. To oversimplify, there’s a Personal Score and an Academic Score, and “getting to know you” isn’t really what either is about, despite what admissions officers tend to say publicly.

As an admissions counselor, you need to be able to guide students through these mixed messages: acknowledging how widespread the “tell your story” myth is, but also able to show why it’s so problematic.

In this newsletter: 

• Colleges really do say “tell your story” 

• But colleges don’t admit students based on if they “tell their story”

• The reasons colleges mislead students in this way

As always, for guidance in helping your students navigate the college application journey successfully, check out our free resources for guidance counselors.

Colleges do say they want applicants to tell their story

Let’s go on a journey of discovery through the internet. What advice do colleges give for writing the essays they require? We found one striking pattern (emphasis added): 

• [The essay] is an important part of your application because it gives you the chance to tell us your story as an applicant. — BU

• Tell a good story. Most people prefer reading a good story over anything else. So... tell a great story in your essay. — Tulane Apps 101: Ten Tips for an Epic College Essay.

• Your transcript and standardized test scores tell your academic story, your extracurricular activities, recommendations, essay(s) and background, tell your personal story. — William & Mary

• In [successful] essays, students were able to share stories from their everyday lives to reveal something about their character, values, and life that aligned with the culture and values at Hopkins. — Johns Hopkins 

• Tell your story. Some of my most memorable offers of admission have gone to students who like to color outside the lines. — Canisius College

• The college application process is a wonderful opportunity for self-discovery. You will find out things about yourself, what motivates you and what excites you. This is a passage to an exciting new chapter in your life. We want to get to know you and your story. — Muhlenberg College

Here are some videos that popped up as we researched this question:

And here’s an article from the Washington Post that ranked high in our search:

However, when you look at how colleges actually evaluate essays, it turns out that this advice is wrong at worst and incomplete at best. So let’s do that now.

What college admissions officers really look for

Let’s hop back into the internet for another journey of discovery. This time, let’s search for clues about what college admissions officers do when they’re in the process of actually reading application essays.

There are also clues that other colleges are looking for more than just a nice story or the “true you.” 

Here are some approaches we found to the process of assessing admission essays:

• Emory University specifically takes into account “intellectual curiosity and the potential to contribute to community life on campus.” 

• According to the dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania, “We expect [applicants] to have high test scores and grades. That’s a given. So another way for us to think about merit for those applicants is, what did they do with that opportunity they were given? How far did they travel in their high school journey?” ‍

• “It's quick and easy for candidates to share, and for admissions readers to assess a candidate's 'what,’” says the dean of admissions at Lafayette College, “However, the hope is to find the 'how' and the 'why' behind an applicant's 'what'. If a candidate is a chemistry loving, slam poet who pole vaults, cool, that's 'what' they are. But, 'HOW' and 'WHY' have they become a chemistry-loving, slam poet who pole vaults? Too many candidates stop at the 'what' and do not give the 'how' and the 'why.'”

• "As an admissions officer, I analyzed students' personalities,” says the former admissions head at Dartmouth. “If … the student came off as arrogant, entitled, mean, selfish, or, on the flip side, funny, charming, generous, witty, I wrote that exact trait in my notes. It's not enough just to be smart at top schools. Students must also show that they'll be good classmates and community builders."

• “We want to enroll students who will contribute to the life of the campus, so we are eager to see how you have contributed to your high-school community or the community in which you live,” says an officer at Dickinson College.

• “Applicants who are able to convey that they have spent their high school years exploring different classes, activities and opportunities immediately grab my attention,” says an officer at Drake.‍

• According to an officer at DePaul University, “a successful applicant should highlight an ability to overcome obstacles and garner results. It’s about proving you can produce outcomes.” 

• During the pandemic, 315 admission leaders (including all the heavy-hitters, such as the Ivys), signed a “Care Counts in Crisis” statement, assuring applicants that they most value 5 attributes: self-care; academic work; service and contributions to others; family contributions; and extracurricular and summer activities.

Some supplemental essays also show what colleges value. For example, these are all about intellectual curiosity:

• Stanford — The Stanford community is deeply curious and driven to learn in and out of the classroom. Reflect on an idea or experience that makes you genuinely excited about learning.

• University of Washington — [T]ell us about something that really sparks your intellectual interest and curiosity, and compels you to explore more in the program/area of study that you indicated.

Once you start looking more closely at how colleges actually make their decision, you see that colleges really care about a number of specific characteristics.

Why colleges don't share what they're really looking for

At Prompt, we’re probably similar to you in that we study the pronouncements of college admissions officials obsessively. We’ve gotten to know them, we read books about them, we follow them on Twitter. 

We don’t think that college officials are “lying” when they present this advice. Rather, there are many reasons why their advice isn’t as helpful as they probably think it is. Here are a few:

First, as we noted above, the advice to “tell your story” or “be authentic” isn’t wrong. It’s just misleading because it isn’t clear about what actually gets evaluated. Most admissions officers probably think they’re giving helpful advice.

Second, offices are intentionally vague because it gives them more room to maneuver. If they say they’re looking for X in essays, everyone will write X. They want wiggle room for kids who write Y. 

Third, they may be thinking in different modes when they think about “writing an essay” compared to when they settle down to “evaluate” an essay. In Originals, Adam Grant describes how different these two modes can be. His book describes an experiment that randomly assigned some participants to think like managers and others like creatives. Those in the “manager” mode evaluated novel products correctly only 51% of the time; those in “creative” mode were correct far more often, at 77% of the time.

This is kind of the opposite. Admissions officers likely think broadly when giving advice for writing essays — they might be thinking about how they’d like to read essays, or how great essays are also original, or that they focus on small, everyday topics. But that likely goes out the window when it comes to getting through a stack of essays on their desk and using them to assign “personal scores” that can be used to advance or reject applications. 

Bear in mind how overworked admissions readers are. According to an evaluator at Brown, “[W]e keep up a rigorous reading pace with the regular decision applicant pool. We were expected to read five applications per hour, which equates to 12 minutes per application. In those 12 minutes, I reviewed the application, standardized test scores, the transcript, the personal statement, and multiple supplemental essays — all while taking notes and making a decision on the admissibility of the applicant."

The key, therefore, is to ensure your students write essays that appeal to admissions officers. The one getting through a pile of essays, on a hungry prowl for qualities that will lead to success. We’ve got the stats to prove it can make up to a 10x difference in their chances of admission. 

In our next issue, we’ll share how to structure the common app essay.

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If you enjoyed this newsletter, please forward it to other counselors.

The choice of essay prompt matters little next to getting students to brainstorm their experiences and write essays that demonstrate the 5 Traits and their college potential.

Still, we think some of the personal essay choices are better than others. And this is a fun topic, so let’s explore it!

To be clear: Despite our ranking, any prompt can lead to an excellent admissions essay. We just think it’s less likely with some than others and we’ll explain why.

In this newsletter:

• Common Application Prompts we like most (5, 6)

• Common App Essay Prompts we’re neutral on (7, 1, 2)

• Common Application Essay Prompts we like less (3, 4)

For reference, we’ve labeled each prompt with a short name to make them easier to discuss:

1. Background and Identity.

2. Lessons from Obstacles.

3. Challenging a Belief.

4. Gratitude.

5. Personal Growth.

6. Intellectual Curiosity.

7. Topic of Choice.

Note: Most admissions officers don’t even look at which prompt the student chose. Unlike for the school’s unique supplements, where students must explicitly answer every part of the prompt, they can use the Common App prompts as thought-starters that help identify compelling content to share.

Common Application Prompts we like the most (5, 6)

5) Personal growth — Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

This is a top-two prompt. It’s also the second most used behind Topic of Choice (not that it matters). It’s a great prompt because it naturally focuses on drive – the most important of the 5 Traits. It also easily allows students to prominently feature one or more of the other traits: intellectual curiosity, initiative, contribution, and diversity of experiences.  

The key is for students to choose experience(s) that show a differentiated self BEFORE the time of growth and AFTER (better). Moreover, the student must have been an active participant in their defining experience.

For example, the event might be that the father left the family. But the period of growth is how the student responded by getting a job, taking on more responsibility in the family, working hard to keep up with their school work, and developing more empathy through it all.

Overall, be sure that the period of growth ends with a good outcome, such as improved skills, a better way of doing things than the student had before, or a profoundly different way of viewing themselves and others.

6) Intellectual Curiosity — Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

‍Our other “top two” prompt gets to the very essence of intellectual curiosity — a trait colleges love. Students who love learning for fun are more likely to succeed in college and in life.

This prompt can also powerfully showcase drive and diversity of experiences (i.e., a unique set of interests), as well as initiative or contribution when the “intellectual curiosity” aspect involves other people. 

The key is for students to write this prompt as an intellectual journey. They should begin by describing what sparked their interest; then get as nerdy as they like explaining why they find the topic so fascinating, how they engage with it, and how they continue to deepen their understanding/learning/skill. Finally, they can talk about how it might relate to their future.

Note: The topic need not be related to a school subject. It can be anything they find fascinating and spend significant free time learning about deeply.

Warning: Students should avoid this prompt if they haven’t spent months or even years developing this topic in their free time or if they can’t write about how they deliberately work to improve their skill or knowledge in the area.

Common App Essay Prompts we’re neutral on (7, 1, 2)

7) Topic of choice — Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

This is the most-written prompt, with about 25% of students writing it (not that it matters). It’s a great choice if the student’s content doesn’t neatly fit in one of the others.

But it is possibly too open-ended. Many students who choose “topic of choice” write up content that doesn’t match what colleges are looking for: proving they’ll be successful in college and beyond.

The key to pulling this topic of is staying laser-focused on experiences that show off the 5 Traits. In fact, students should avoid this prompt if their content does fit neatly into one of the others. Conversely, if they’ve got great content that just won’t otherwise fit, this is the best way to write a winning essay.

1) Background or Identity — Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

This was the most-used prompt before the Common App went from five to seven prompts (not that it matters).

It works for students who truly have a story that is core to their identity. Admissions officers love applicants with a strong identity and sense of purpose. These stories, if told right, are memorable and authentic. Importantly, that background, identity, interest, or talent should be one that the student can tie to one or more of the 5 Traits.

The issue, as always, is that many students don’t write about what admissions officers care about: showing traits that prove success in college and beyond. In addition, students should keep away from this prompt if their identity isn’t impressive or memorable or if that identity doesn’t link to what they want for their future or career.

Note: music, band, chorus, athletics, drama, and theater tend to be difficult to tie to the 5 Traits, as they don’t relate specifically to academics. When students write about these topics, they should be the setting of the essay, not the theme (e.g., the setting is athletics, but the essay is really about self-improvement or leadership).

Examples:  

• The student had a loved one who was a victim of gang violence, and their life mission is to become a law enforcement agent and address crime.    

• They love technology, they met and were inspired by a startup CEO, and now, they dream of being an entrepreneur and are learning to code.

2) Lessons from obstacles — The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

This is a fine prompt, but it can be tricky. It’s the third most commonly-used prompt (not that it matters).

The key is having a meaningful enough obstacle (ex: a bad grade is not “bad” enough) AND having meaningful personal growth as a result of the obstacle.

Many students struggle with this prompt because, while they write compellingly about the obstacle, they don’t move on to discussing the actions they took to get past that obstacle (or that they took in spite of the obstacle). Merely facing an obstacle isn’t compelling. It doesn’t prove potential for college success.

On the other hand, succeeding in spite of an obstacle or acting on learning from the obstacle can be compelling content as it shows drive, the most important of the 5 Traits. 

Example: The student lost the student council election. They learned from their mistakes and succeeded in being elected Senior Class President the next year.

Common Application Essay Prompts we like less (3, 4)

3) Challenging a belief — Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

This is the least-used prompt. That’s because it’s hard to have compelling content here. We suggest avoiding it unless the student’s most compelling content naturally fits, in which case, go for it!

The key is to make sure the situation doesn’t reflect poorly on the student and isn’t controversial (e.g., abortion). In addition, as always, the content must tie to one or more of the 5 Traits.

Good content for this prompt often shows contribution, generally where the student is standing up for someone else in the face of criticism. Make sure, though, that the student goes beyond just describing one event or moment — they should show it as part of a pattern of other actions taken based on their beliefs.

It’s also good if the essay can showcase the student’s ability to empathize with and/or persuade others while simultaneously displaying interpersonal skills (e.g., conflict resolution within a group of peers or superiors).

4) Gratitude — Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

Students should try to avoid this prompt. Yes, gratitude is a force for good in our lives. But in an essay, it’s hard to translate feeling thankful into evidence of a student’s potential for success.

The key is to focus on the second part of the prompt, which asks about the student’s actions. The kindness should have had a momentous effect on their life, and that kindness should have made the student take action in a radical way.

Don’t let students get stuck on the “what someone has done for you" part of the prompt. Admissions officers want to know about the applicant, not some nice person who inspired them.

Examples:

• The student’s grandmother left them the family bakery in her will. Since then, the student has taken on that role with reverence for her legacy, and a fierce determination to see the business thrive, even as they pursue their high school life.

• A stranger donated bone marrow, saving the student’s life. They’re determined to make the most of this gift, dedicating their life to cancer research.

In our next issue, The biggest essay myth: Telling your story

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Now, let’s get even more advanced: one thing you can encourage your students to do that will supercharge their Personal scores, their Academic scores, their Extracurricular scores, or some combination. What is it?

Passion projects.

In this issue, we’ll discuss:

• How passion projects make students stand out

• How students can realistically pursue passion projects

• Why colleges love them, and

• How to showcase them in the application.

Passion projects make students stand out

Here’s how a Cornell admissions officer put it:

Even for academically stellar students, their applications often “lacked tangible indicators of their passions: a project, experiment, portfolio, or an endeavor on which they spent substantial time learning, tinkering, or creating.” (Emphasis added.)

Encourage your students to develop that “tangible indicator of their passions,” by accomplishing something beyond what a typical high school student can do. These projects can be almost anything, so long as they show deep and sustained interest (ie: a “passion”). For example:

1. Writing a research paper

2. Being a maker

3. Writing music

4. Creating impact through community service

5. Or almost anything … for example, a weather station.

The Cornell admission officer held up one student as distinguishing himself through a passion project:

[T]his student's fit with the program really came to life as he described the weather station he had built at home. … After reading, I thought, this student clearly will get my recommendation for admission, because he has the grades, the test scores, and a demonstrated intellectual interest in his chosen program. Trifecta! He had hit the nail on the head in expressing "fit and match."

Another indicator is that Harvard only awards its top academic score (a 1 out of 4) to 0.4% of its applicant pool. Applicants with an academic 1 rating have a 67% chance of admission, compared to 8.6% for those with an academic 2 rating. 

In sources made public by litigation, Harvard has said that, generally, “an applicant receiving a ‘1’ academic rating has submitted academic work of some kind that is reviewed by a faculty member.” That is, “If the applicant has submitted material that Admissions Office staff believe would be best evaluated by a Harvard faculty member, such as an academic paper or a recording of a musical performance, the application may be sent to a faculty member [...] for review and assessment.” (Emphasis added.)

By contrast, the next-highest academic rating — a 2+ — means that, though the student has “perfect, or near-perfect, grades and testing,” their application lacks evidence of “substantial scholarship or academic creativity.”

These examples show that colleges are hungry for students with passion projects. But how can students deliver?

How students can realistically pursue passion projects

We find that many of our students do have passions — but what they haven’t yet done is put in the time and focused energy to turn that passion into a project worthy of admission. Often, “just” by adding another 80-100+ hours of effort to a portfolio or project, they’d be able to create something that would truly stand out. 

Encouraging students to get teachers to work with them independently on projects such as:

• research papers or science research

• artistic or musical projects or

• community service

is one relatively achievable path to passion projects that matter.

Another way is by looking into companies that specialize in supporting high schoolers in their own projects, such as Polygence and Lumiere (you can get a sense of the diversity of projects from Polygence’s project gallery).

Colleges love passion projects because they show academic rigor and the 5 traits

College admissions teams are looking for something highly specific when they read through essays — the 5 traits that show the student will succeed in college and beyond:

• Drive (or grit)

• Initiative

• Intellectual Curiosity

• Contribution

• Diversity of Experiences

One benefit of a passion project is that it tends to display all of these. For example, in boasting of its admitted class, UPenn described how many admits had done research projects, saying they “displayed ingenuity.” They also described students who contributed to community service projects, saying they “​​displayed flexibility and creativity.” UPenn’s language shows that they believe these projects reveal important character traits.

Take the Cornell-impressing weather-obsessed kid who built his own weather station as an example! The article also says: 

[The student] had been collecting data and providing information to a cable news station, who then used his data in their weather forecasts. 

The weather station story shows:

• Initiative — the student decided to make something happen by himself. He went beyond following a curriculum or doing what his teacher told him. 

• Drive — just a guess, but building your own weather station is probably hard. Things probably didn’t work right when he first set them up. He probably had to keep working hard until he was able to collect accurate data. He probably showed grit.

• Intellectual Curiosity — building your own weather station easily shows this student’s deep interest in a specific topic.

• Diversity of Experiences — how many students collect data to send to a cable news station? Pulling this off gave this student a unique perspective. 

While this story omits “Contribution,” many passion projects, particularly those with a community service bent, would also have this angle to them. 

The point is that passion projects propel applications forward because they greatly increase the Personal score. In addition, applicants who do academic-related passion projects (e.g., research, coding) are also proving they can do the academic work required to succeed in college.

Showcasing a passion project

Finally, applications have many places to showcase passion projects:

• The portfolio option, available at some schools, such as MIT, Yale, Columbia, and UChicago

• The personal statement

• Another supplemental essay

• The Additional Info section (which students can also use to create a “portfolio option”)

It’s also okay to use two of these venues: for example, sharing a piece of research using the Additional Info Section, and also talking about what drew the student to the research, how they did the research, and what they learned from the experience in an essay. 

Choosing how to showcase the passion project is a judgment call, but if it showcases the student’s ability to succeed in college, they will want to present it as fully as possible to the admissions readers. 

In our next issue, The best Common App Essay Prompts and why.

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The only way for seemingly similar students to differentiate themselves is through their writing (essays, activities list, additional information section). But students struggle with what to write about and how to write about it.

In this newsletter, we’ll explore:

• The one question that sets high-performing applicants apart

• Focusing on actions – not just experiences and results

• How Prompt’s free essay planning tools can help your students identify what to write about and how to write about it.

The one question that sets high-performing applicants apart

High performers have many things in common: 

• They’re always succeeding in challenging situations

• They’re always learning

• They’re always making everything they’re a part of better

• They’re always making other people around them better

But how do students make it clear they’re high performers? Titles don’t do it. Activity names don’t do it. Awards and accolades are nice, but are the result – not the journey. And some people’s journeys are far harder than others.

Selective colleges can’t accept every award winner. Instead, they want the students who’ve had the highest degree of difficulty to achieve success. They want students who can answer the question:

“What did you do that other applicants could not have done (or could not have done as well)?”

This question produces results. It focuses students on the specific actions they took to achieve their most impressive accomplishments. And it gets them writing about their actions, which helps admissions officers understand the amount of work they put in and the degree of difficulty of their accomplishments.

Focusing on actions

There’s a simple framework for discussing any experience:

“I accomplished X as measured by Y by doing Z.”

• X is what the student did

• Y is a sense of the scale of the accomplishment (preferably quantitative)

• Z is the actions the student took to achieve the accomplishment.

Most students only describe X – what they accomplished. 

“My team took 1st in the speech and debate competition.”

Sometimes students include Y – a sense of the scale of the accomplishment. 

“My team took 1st in the speech and debate competition after finishing 2nd to last a year ago.”

Students rarely include Z – the actions they took to achieve the accomplishment.

My team took 1st in the speech and debate competition after finishing 2nd to last a year ago. I achieved this result by working with each team member to create yearly learning and practice goals. Then, I spent an hour each week meeting with each of my 10 team members. In the meetings, we discussed their progress against their goals, and I provided coaching and guidance from my experiences improving from last place to first place last year. As a result, by the end of the year, all 10 team members moved from being bottom-half finishers to top-3 finishers in every event. And 3 even made it to the state competition.

The actions make the experience. If the team took 1st, perhaps the team was always good. If the team went from 2nd to last to 1st, perhaps the team improved without the student playing a substantial role. By focusing on actions, we learn the specific role the student played that led to the result – and it’s far more compelling.

How to help your students identify what to write about and how to write about it

Prompt’s Essay Planning Tools help students identify what to write about and how to write about it. The tools are available for free for every student either by requesting a Prompt college application essay resource page for your school (click here to request a page) or through our integration with MaiaLearning.

Click here for a 12-minute video overview of Prompt’s Essay Planning tools.

In our next issue, we’ll focus on proving intellectual curiosity.

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This week, we will do two things:

1. prove that the personal score really is the most valuable component of your application and

2. show how to improve that score.

Note: Much of this issue is a synthesis of great material from a variety of sources on college application evaluation, such as Who Gets In and Why by Jeff Selingo and the thousands of pages from recent Harvard admissions court documents.

Why the personal score is the most valuable part of the application

Generally, students apply to colleges where their academics match those of other applicants (we’re talking about grades, test scores, and curriculum strength). For admissions teams, this means that most applicants look a lot alike — and they need another factor to distinguish applicants.

Enter what most colleges call the “personal” score. This is a score they calculate based on:

• essays

• the activity list

• recommendations, and

• the interview (if there is one).

Here’s a chart we created showing how the Personal score works with the Academic score to determine your admissions chances:

What this chart doesn’t show is that the personal score is more powerful than the academic score in nudging an application toward the “accept” pile. We’ll show that data in a minute.

But first: how do colleges calculate the personal score? They’re looking at the student's potential to succeed in college and beyond. Colleges measure this potential based on the student's experiences. As they read essays, recommendations, and activity lists, they’re asking: does this experience show the student has the traits that lead to college success?

So far, so good. But why are these squishy “experiences” more valuable than the good, hard data from grades and test scores?

Because they are more rare. Only 1 in 5 students applying to selective colleges have compelling essays. (Contrast that with 4 in 5 students whose academics are over the school’s baseline. As we said above, good academics tend to be a given.)

Why do strong students tend to deliver underwhelming essays? Because they tend to spend too much time overthinking the “style” part of their essays — going for elegance, wit, metaphors, or philosophical musings (all things you should discourage) — and too little time brainstorming their potential-showing experiences (the thing you should help students to laser-focus on).  

Again, with data: why the personal score is the most valuable part of the application

Using data made public by a Harvard admissions lawsuit, we have an excellent case study for how selective colleges use Personal and Academic scores.

Harvard gives applicants ratings of 1 (highest) through 5 (lowest) in 3 categories: Academic, Extracurricular, and Personal (also Athletic, but we’re leaving that out for this discussion).

Below is a table that shows the percentage of applicants that receive each rating. Note that 1s are so rare in any category that we’re also leaving them out of our discussion, for clarity.

Within the 2s (which students can and should aim for), the most common ranking is in academics (42% of applicants, as shown above). It’s therefore not that valuable. In contrast, only 21% of applicants have a 2-ranking in personal. It’s thus much more valuable.

With these ratings, Harvard starts candidates at a 3 (neutral) and moves them up or down based on the content (good or bad) in their essays and such.

In the chart below, you can see that earning a “2” in at least one category is critical to getting in — the move from a 3 to a 2 in any category represents a stark improvement in admissions chances. But of all the categories, the biggest move you can make is becoming one of the 21% of applicants receiving a personal score of 2 (see the blue highlight in the first chart). For those applicants, the admission rate is over 1 in 4; they make up nearly 3 in 4 admits (see the dark orange, below right).

Another way of showing the power of a personal 2 is in the chart below. It’s the jump that most improves your admission chances. In academics, moving up to 2 triples your admissions chances (not bad). An extracurricular 2 quintuples them (pretty good). But nothing beats the 10x improvement you get by moving your personal score up to 2.

How to improve an application’s Personal score

As we said, Personal scores essentially come from essays (as well as activity lists, recommendations, and interviews). Thus, the best way to improve this score is to focus the essays on what admission readers want (experiences that show the student’s potential to succeed) and away from what students generally obsess over (writing style, metaphors, philosophical musings).

In other words, follow our writing advice which is focused only on delivering what admission teams want. To learn more, visit our page for high school counselors or explore our college essay writing blog.

In our next issue, we’ll share The #1 Question to Ask High Performers. (Aka - an easy, but powerful way to improve the Personal score.)

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• Calculating the Academic Score

• Using the Academic Score

• Implications for counseling students

Note: Much of this issue is a synthesis of great material from a variety of sources on college application evaluation, such as Who Gets In and Why by Jeff Selingo and the thousands of pages from recent Harvard admissions court documents.

Calculating the Academic Score

Colleges typically combine all academic information on an applicant into a single Academic Score. The purpose of this score is to determine which students are the most likely to succeed academically at their college. Many colleges have refined their academic scoring system over the years based on how accepted students performed academically in college (and whether they graduated). And many even look at how students from your high school performed academically (if your students perform well, they’re more willing to take a chance on more students from your school).

The simple way to look at the Academic Score is the combination of grades, strength of curriculum, test scores (SAT/ACT, APs), and the strength of your high school. But there are some nuances that can be helpful to understand. College scoring systems tend to:

• Remove grades in non-academic courses (e.g., gym, drivers ed, band)

• Not include freshman year grades (many colleges consider freshman year a transition year and freshman year grades are far less predictive of college academic success) 

• Weight grades (or AP scores) in more difficult courses more heavily (Calculus)

• Weight more recent grades more heavily

• Consider your high school and how students of similar academics performed in college

• Consider the strength of curriculum you took compared to the curriculum available to you through your high school (i.e., taking all of the most challenging classes available in your high school is very helpful).

• Use SAT/ACT test scores to fill in academic gaps (e.g., students who switched high schools frequently, students from high schools that the college is less familiar with).

Using the Academic Score

The main purpose of the academic score is to determine if a student is above the college’s academic bar (i.e., they believe the student can succeed academically). And then determine if the student is strong academically compared to other applicants.

A good rule of thumb is that 4 in 5 applicants are above the academic bar. And 2 in 5 applicants have strong academics. This is because students self-select where they’re applying based on their academics (grades, strength of curriculum, test scores).

Academics aren’t everything. While strong academics are helpful, colleges are mostly fine accepting any student that is above their academic bar. We’ll use Harvard as an example only because they had to publicly release their admissions data as part of a court case. 

• About 8,000 Harvard applicants per year received a perfect 80 out of 80 on their Academic Index (a calculated input to the final Academic Score).

• These 8,000 applicants are part of the approximately 24,000 applicants with strong academic scores.

• The acceptance rate for applicants with strong academic scores was only 13% in 2019, making up 75% of admits. Applications are about 50% higher now than in 2019. So, the admit rate today for strong academic performers is probably around 9%.

• 1 in 4 accepted students have sufficient academics (i.e., are above the academic bar). But these students had something else the college valued (e.g., a strong Personal Score).

Implications for counseling students

It’s critical for students (and their parents) to understand how colleges evaluate them. There are many myths circulating about college admissions. For example, academics-wise:

• Many students mistakenly feel that they are academically strong compared to other applicants. When in fact, they are academically similar to other applicants. 

• Many students mistakenly feel that being slightly better academically than other applicants will give them the edge. When in fact, colleges view academics as indistinguishable, placing tens of thousands of applicants in the same Academic Score category.

We suggest talking with your students and parents about how colleges score applications and what colleges look for in applicants. Or you can sign up for a free 30-minute family webinar where a Prompt team member will walk through this information (click here to sign up).

In our next issue, we’ll be doing a deeper dive on the Personal Score.

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And if you enjoyed this newsletter, forward it to other counselors!

Colleges evaluate academics and non-academics.

• Academics. Colleges combine grades, strength of curriculum, and test scores (SAT/ACT, APs) into a single “Academic Score.”

• Non-academics. Colleges combine essays, activities list, additional information, and recommendations into one or more scores. For simplicity, we’ll call this the Personal Score, as it’s the most common.

• Note: We’ll avoid athletics, legacies, and other special non-academic admissions situations for now.

In this newsletter, we’ll briefly explore how colleges score applications. The next two issues will do a deeper dive on the Academic Score and Personal Score.

Note: Much of this issue is a synthesis of great material from a variety of sources on college application evaluation, such as Who Gets In and Why by Jeff Selingo and the thousands of pages from recent Harvard admissions court documents.

A visual representation of application scoring

Scoring applications is the way admissions officers give hard numbers to the many difficult-to-measure components of applications. The chart below is the simplest way to think about application scoring – a score for academics (the Academic Score) and a score for non-academics (the Personal Score). Some colleges use more scores (e.g., breaking non-academics into an Extracurricular Score and Personal Score). But we find simplifying it into just two scores makes it most clear how the system works.

• The higher each score, the higher the probability the student gets in. But high scores don’t guarantee admission.

• There’s an academic bar. Students below the bar rarely get in as the college believes it’s unlikely the student is capable of succeeding academically at their college.

• There’s a personal bar. Students below the bar rarely get in as the college believes the student may have character flaws (a red flag for success in college and beyond).

Now, let’s take a look at the scores applicants typically receive.

• 4 in 5 applicants are above the academic bar; nearly all are above the personal bar.

• It’s easier to have a high academic score (2 in 5) than a high personal score (1 in 5).

• It’s rare to be exceptional in the Academic Score or Personal Score (the top boxes). 

Colleges don’t only rely on scores. If they did, only applicants with strong Academic and Personal Scores would get in. However, at highly-selective colleges, applicants with strong Academic and Personal Scores are only about 75% of admitted students. At colleges with large class sizes, students with strong academics are likely to be accepted without strong Personal Scores (as there aren’t enough applicants with both strong Academic and Personal Scores).

The scores are guidelines. Colleges will consider other factors beyond the scoring when making final decisions – which is why high scores sometimes aren’t enough. For example, admissions officers may consider the opportunities the student had available, priority students (athletes, legacies, children of faculty or donors), demonstrated interest in attending their college, ability for the family to pay, intended major, special circumstances (family hardships), or something particularly unique in an application.

Implications for students and parents

The implications of this are important for students and parents to understand.

• Most students are very similar academically to other applicants. This is because students self-select where they’re applying based on their academics (grades, strength of curriculum, test scores).

• Colleges with more academically-qualified applicants than spots use the Personal Score to differentiate between applicants. At highly-selective colleges, the data indicates a strong academic score increases admissions chances by 3x; a strong personal score increases admissions chances by 10x.

• Students who want to get into selective colleges need to focus on their Personal Score – what they write about (experiences) and how they write about it (essays).

• Even having a spectacular application (strong Academic and Personal Scores) doesn’t guarantee admission.

Implications for counselors

We run webinars for tens of thousands of families each year. It’s an eye-opening experience for students and parents to understand how colleges score applications and what colleges look for in applicants. We find families have two key takeaways:

1. Their academics are unlikely to set them apart from other applicants. This better sets admissions expectations and gets students to have more balanced school lists.

2. They need to focus on their non-academics – e.g., essays, activities list. Students will start working on their applications earlier, spend more time on their applications, and may pursue more growth opportunities to show their traits (e.g., leadership, self-learning).

We suggest talking with your students and parents about how colleges score applications and what colleges look for in applicants. Or you can sign up for a free 30-minute family webinar where a Prompt team member will walk through this information (click here to sign up).

In our next issue, we’ll be doing a deeper dive on the Academic Score.

If you’re not a subscriber, please add your email address for more issues.

And if you enjoyed this newsletter, forward it to other counselors.

(See our College Essay Help Center for help with all aspects of applications.)

In this issue, we’ll discuss how students can prove they’ll be successful:

• The 5 Traits Colleges Look for in Applicants

• How the 5 traits relate to what colleges are looking for

• How students can use the 5 traits

• Using Prompt’s Essay Planning Tools to help students identify their traits and what to write about.

The 5 Traits Colleges Look for in Applicants

As Emory’s Dean of Admissions puts it, college admissions are about evaluating potential. Students with the most potential exhibit traits that are highly likely to make them successful in college and beyond. At Prompt, we’ve distilled these into 5 traits colleges look for in applicants:

1. Drive – Pushing yourself to succeed no matter how long the odds; going through difficult situations and coming out a better person.

2. Intellectual Curiosity – Learning just for the fun of it (e.g., in your free time) to gain a deeper understanding of the subjects/topics in which you are interested.

3. Initiative – Not willing to accept the status quo; entrepreneurial; always thinking of ways to improve whatever you are working on or involved with.

4. Contribution – Making your community, school, organizations, or peers better as a result of your involvement and actions.

5. Diversity of Experiences – Different life experiences and ways of thinking about the world; adding unique perspectives to the student body.

How the 5 traits relate to what colleges are looking for

Colleges are looking for students who will be successful in college and beyond. Students exhibiting one of more of the 5 Traits are able to prove they’ll be successful.

• Driven students are more likely to graduate. They’re more likely to succeed in whatever they choose to do. Drive is so important that as one admissions dean put it, they’re looking for students who are unusually driven – even in a pool of highly-driven applicants.

• Intellectually curious students are more likely to graduate. They’re more likely to keep learning throughout life, leading to a greater impact on whatever they choose to do. Intellectual curiosity matters so much that some colleges, like Stanford, even have a supplemental essay just about intellectual curiosity. And Emory University has an intellectual curiosity score they use when evaluating applicants.

• Students who take the initiative are always making everything around them better – a trait that enhances a college community and signals that the person will make every organization they’re a part of in the future better.

• Contributors make every group of people they’re a part of better as a result of their presence. Contributors are the connective tissue of a college campus and any organization, enabling colleges to fulfill their missing by creating a great community.

• Students with diverse experiences help other students develop their own perspectives. And students with diverse experiences tend to want to do many different things upon graduation, enabling colleges to fulfill their mission of having an impact across many communities, countries, and industries.

How students can use the 5 Traits

Students prove they have one or more of the 5 Traits by explaining their experiences in their essays, activities list, and additional information section. After all, the best signal of future success is past success. 

For example, students explaining experiences where they overcame a challenge will prove they’re driven. Students describing experiences where they learned a lot about a subject or engaged with new information will show they’re intellectually curious.

Students must brainstorm content for their applications by considering which of the 5 Traits are their strengths. Then, the content across an application mustang focus on these 2 or 3 strengths. While students can touch on all 5 traits, showcasing 2 or 3 strengths makes it more likely for a student to set themselves apart from other applicants (e.g., be unusually driven in a pool of driven applicants).

Using Prompt’s Essay Planning Tools

Prompt’s free Essay Planning Tools help students identify which of the 5 Traits are their strengths. Then, the tools guide students through brainstorming questions to help them identify content they should write about. 

Tens of thousands of students use the tools each year to write more compelling essays. You can visit our homepage for high school counselors to set up an Application and Essay Resources page for your students to access the Essay Planning Tools. Or if you’re a MaiaLearning user, you can access the Tools for free from within MaiaLearning.

In our next issue, we’ll be focusing on how colleges score applications!

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And if you enjoyed this newsletter, forward it to other counselors!

Yet, when we ask high schoolers, “What is the purpose of the college application?” – we’re met with blank stares, or get stammering answers like, “It’s just something I need to do to get into college.” Or when we ask, “What do admissions officers want to know about you?” – we’re frequently met with, “I don’t know, maybe something about who I am.”

This issue is about the single most important thing you can do to improve your students’ college applications and admissions chances – help your students understand their audience. We’ll cover:

• What colleges care about

• The purpose of the college application

• A guide for talking with your students about their audience (admissions officers)

What colleges care about

Colleges are selfish. Every acceptance or rejection relates to one or more of a college’s priorities:

1. US News Rankings. The higher the rank, the more revenue a college makes. Highly-ranked colleges are more desirable to families (i.e., families are willing to pay more money to attend). As such, colleges prioritize having good stats for what the US News uses to determine the rankings (click here for the criteria). This means accepting students who are likely to attend, likely to graduate, have good test scores and class ranks, and support social mobility. 

2. Tuition. Colleges are non-profits, but they still seek to increase their revenue. And they need to make more money than their expenses. As such, colleges accept a mix of students that get them to the total tuition revenue they’re looking for (e.g., full-pay students, scholarships, Pell Grant recipients). Oh, and more financial resources also help that ever-important US News Ranking.

3. Alumni donations. Alumni donations are revenue. It’s important for colleges to keep their alumni happy. This can mean increasing social mobility (i.e., accepting more low-income students), positively impacting the world, or even accepting kids of alumni (legacies). As an added benefit, more alumni donations also help the college’s US News Ranking.

4. Mission. Colleges are trying to impact positive change in the world. While rankings and revenue are important, colleges try to fulfill their mission while meeting their ranking and revenue targets. 

The purpose of the college application

Students can’t control everything in college admissions. But we’ve distilled what students can control into a single phrase:

“To prove you’ll be successful in college and beyond.”

Colleges want students who will:

1. Graduate. A higher graduation rate leads to a higher US News ranking. And graduating means more revenue – students pay tuition for 4 years (or longer).

2. Positively contribute to the college’s community. Colleges know their value is classmates and experiences – not just academics. Students who like their college experience graduate at higher rates, recommend the college to their friends, and eventually become alumni donors.

3. Have a positive impact on whatever they choose to do in the future. Successful alumni enhance a college’s prestige and help a college fulfill its mission. 

Students prove they’ll be successful from both their academic history (grades, strength of curriculum, test scores) and their experiences. A student’s experiences demonstrate their traits that the student will call upon in college and beyond. A future issue will focus on the 5 Traits College Look for in Applicants: drive, intellectual curiosity, initiative, contribution, and diversity of experiences.

A guide for talking with your students about their audience

A 15 to 20-minute discussion can help students understand their audience – which helps them:

• Write about the right things on their applications

• Select more balanced school lists

• Be more accepting of rejections

The best discussions let the students develop an understanding of what admissions officers are looking for themselves, with an educator nudging the discussion as needed. Here are some questions and guidance we use when speaking with students.

• What makes a college successful? What do colleges care about the most?

  • Most discussions include “educating students”

  • Consider nudging about “making money” or “mission”

• What if I told you the college’s US News Ranking is one of the things that matters the most to them. Why would that be? How would that change what colleges care about?

  • May need to nudge on specific things that the rankings consider: selectivity (test scores), social mobility, graduation rates, reputation (among peer administrators), financial resources per student, faculty resources (class size), alumni donations, and graduate debt.

• Let’s say a college accepts you. What makes accepting you a good decision for them?

  • Most discussions include “graduating” or “grades”

  • Consider nudging about “tuition” or “community” or “after graduation”

• When deciding who to accept, what do you think matters the most?

  • Most discussions include “grades” and “test scores”

  • Consider nudging about ability to pay, likelihood to accept admission, social mobility, athletics, legacies, geography, potential to contribute positively to the student community, likelihood of graduating, likelihood of contributing positively to the world.

• Now that you have a sense of what colleges are looking for, how will this change your approach to applications, such as where you apply and what you write about?

  • Lead to the phrase “prove you’ll be successful in college and beyond.”

Thanks for reading. If you’re interested in learning more about Prompt’s application and essay resources, please visit our page for high school counselors.

In our next issue, we’ll focus on the 5 Traits Colleges Look for in Applicants.

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And if you enjoyed this newsletter, forward it to other counselors!

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In 2021, we reviewed 54,000+ essays, supported 10,000 students, and partnered with 250+ high schools. 3 in 4 of our one-on-one students got into one or more of their reach colleges.

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College Essays Matter: Here's Why

Let’s take Harvard as an example.

We parsed through and analyzed thousands of pages of documents from the 2019 Harvard admissions court case. Here’s what we found: 

Strong college essays have a 10x improvement on admissions chances at highly-selective (or rather highly-rejective) colleges.

In other words, applicants with similar academics have a 10 times higher chance of acceptance to Harvard with an excellent personal score (and yes, essays are an essential component to that score).

In contrast, applicants with strong academics are only 3x more likely to get in than students with standard academics.

Strong personal scores are far more important than strong academics. 

83% of Harvard applicants are above their academic bar, meaning Harvard believes they’re capable of succeeding academically at Harvard.

At nearly 60,000 applicants per year, that means Harvard believes 50,000 applicants are academically capable for only 2,000 acceptances. (Yikes!) 

So, admissions officers have to consider factors other than academics to distinguish their applicants.

Writing strong essays is the #1 way to raise your personal score – that's how you'll prove to admissions readers that you'll be successful at their school, and beyond.

Only 1 in 5 applicants have strong personal scores – and all students have self-selected to apply to Harvard and are probably in the top at their schools for being leaders and involved in activities. So how do you set yourself apart in a pool of driven applicants as being unusually driven?

When essays matter and when they don’t matter as much

Essays matter more for:

• Highly-selective colleges (under 15% admit rate)

• Selective colleges (15-50% admit rate) where your academics are sufficient but not strong compared with other applicants

• Colleges where you’re applying to highly-desirable programs (e.g., Computer Science) or out-of-state

Essays matter less for:

• Selective colleges (15-50% admit rate) where your academics are strong compared with other applicants

• Large colleges where you’re applying in-state or applying to less competitive programs

How many essays will you write across your applications?

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