Hi Ajay,

The Common Application opens tomorrow, August 1.  Senior year of high school for 2025 graduates is only a few weeks out.

If your kiddo's college essay writing efforts are, ahem, less than stellar and/or less than productive, you may want to do something about it before it's too late.

Otherwise, you're in for a month of three of stress, high blood pressure and fighting with your child over the d-mn essays and applications. 

Not fun.

We currently have five (5) spots left for the College Essay Lab, our service that is focused on helping your son or daughter write an essay that "sells".

An essay that advocates, persuasively, why he or she should be picked out of the "sea of sameness" of tens of thousands of near-identical (on paper) competitors.

The personal statement, and supplemental essays, are your child's last, best chance to make the case why he or she deserves to get in.

The Invisible Question

You won't find it anywhere on the Common Application, but this question ...

The College Essay Lab | ACT Update

Here's a big hangup I hear from our college advisory students, year after year: 

"I can't come up with anything original."

To that I say, "Balderdash!"

Because that's not THE THING.  Not your job.   

A college essay writer's task is not to be "original." 

Think about it, the average admissions officer reviews 1,000 applications each year.  Some applications have two-five supplemental essays, each.

If the admissions officer has three years' career experience, that amounts to at least 3,000 essays, perhaps triple or quadruple that amount when supplemental essays are part of the equation.

Your chances of surprising your admissions officer?

Approximately the same as Joe Biden pulling a Tom Brady, "un-retiring" and winning the presidency.

That is to say, zero.

Ah, so what IS your task?

To write something fresh.  Unusual.  Something INTERESTING.

How do you do this? 

Generally speaking, an interesting essay is so because it shares details inste...

The College Essay Lab

Things went pretty, pretty well, judging from the reviews and the chat for last night's webinar, Top 10 College Essay Mistakes -- How to write an essay so compelling that college admissions officers will practically crawl naked over broken glass to admit your student.

I did my best to walk everyone though exactly what needs to go into a strong, persuasive personal statement and a few of the more common supplemental essays, as well as a bunch of mistakes to avoid.

Some of my advice was fairly conventional, some was definitely out of the box, like my comments on "writer's block" and how to defeat it.

Approximately 45% of the 200 folks who registered for the webinar couldn't make it, so I decided to post the recording. It will be available here, later this morning.

At the end of the presentation, I made a one-time, "exploding" offer to get our help brainstorming, editing and polishing your child's essays (not "writing it for you", mind you) for a 20% off "schola...

I was talking with one of my essay editors yesterday about a draft that one of our clients put together.

"I don't know, the essay checks a lot of boxes, but there's just something about it that's lacking," my editor said.

"Agree. It's like there's no there, there" I said.  "Just, first I did this, then I accomplished that, etc."

To be fair, that's kinda sorta your task in a personal statement, to talk about yourself. 

But a good essay is about more than what you did. You can't merely regurgitate other parts of your application.

What about failures?  Embarrassing situations that you resolved, eventually?

Self-deprecation counterbalances the braggy stuff and makes the essay more HUMAN sounding.  You don't want to come across as an arrogant d-bag, at least on paper. :)

So what you write is important, but what your reader FEELS is super-duper important too.

Tomorrow night, I'm conducting a free online class, called Top 10 College Essay Mistakes -- How to write an essay so compellin...

What goes into a "good" college essay, anyway?

Does it have to be about some enormously dramatic, Lifetime Move-quality event that occurred in a young lad's or lass's life?

Some gigantic, breathtaking obstacle that the young chap or damsel overcame before going onto accomplish scholastic glory?

Or an abundance of wicked smaht-sounding, multi-syllabic words such as "myriad" and "plethora" stuffed into every sentence?

I bet you know the answers to those questions.

What about "good" and "bad" essay topics?

Getting cut from a team, then working out extra hard over the summer in Rocky's old gym, coming back, making the team and kicking the winning goal or making a buzzer beater from half court?

Writing about grandpa's words of wisdom?

Or oing political?

This Thursday night, I'm conducting a free online class to answer all of these questions. Some of my answers should confirm what you knew or suspected, but then again, some may surprise you, come to think of it.,

The class is calle...

These days, I'm derriere-deep with college essay editing for our clients, and have noticed certain repeated, widespread and repeated mistakes.

(Repeated twice in the same sentence was an intentional joke. Alrighty, as you were.)

I figured I'd share a few of them, to help your child come up with a winning personal statement and persuasive supplemental essays.

This Thursday night, I'm conducting a free online class, Top 10 College Essay Mistakes -- How to write an essay so compelling that college admissions officers will practically crawl naked over broken glass to admit your student.

This class is for kids and parents alike.  Please feel free to share this with anyone you know who will soon be staring at that blinking cursor on their laptop, wondering "What the devil do I have to write about" (or 2024 equivalent expression)?

I'm here to help.  Go here to get the details:

Essay Class

- Andy Lockwood

P.S.  Just to get this out of the way, I'll be making a special, one time only...

Good morning!

We're hitting the airwaves this morning -- 10:00am EST --  for College Coffee Talk, our live show about college admissions and financial aid news that you can use!  

Here's what's on tap for today:  

How Not to Screw Up Your College Applications and Essays This Summer.

Tune In!

Feel free to pass this note along to any of your friends who could use this info!

Grab a cup of joe and we'll see you at 10am EST (recorded if you can't make it)

- Andy Lockwood

Good morning!

We're hitting the airwaves this morning -- 10:00am EST --  for College Coffee Talk, our live show about college admissions and financial aid news that you can use!  

Here's what's on tap for today:

College Essay Mistakes; and

The College List and Magical Thinking

Tune In!

Grab a cup of joe and we'll see you at 10am EST (recorded if you can't make it)

- Andy Lockwood

Can your English teacher help you write a winning college essay?

On one hand, If your high school English teacher (or guidance counselor, for that matter) is a former college admissions officer, then he is absolutely qualified to help brainstorm, strategize and edit your son or daughter’s essay.

Otherwise, he's just guessing.

College essay writing is different than the expository or other type of (boring) papers students write in high school.

Which is why your typical, garden variety English teacher has NO CLUE what a winning college personal statement or supplemental essay should look like, because she's never been inside an admissions office, deliberating the pros and cons of thousands of applicants.

In my 20+ years of college advising experience, I’ve employed several former college admissions officers from the University of Chicago, known for its quirky supplemental college essay topics (“Define X”) and other competitive colleges.  Plus I’ve read every book I could get my hand...

A week ago, the folks at the Common Application announced that their essay prompts will be the same as last year's.

On a related note, Class of 2025 students will write the same crappy essays as last year's college applicants.   

One big error revolves around choice of prompt.   I'll share which one is the worst in a moment, but first let me give you a little overview if you're new to the wonderful world of college essays and applications.

The Common Application comes out August 1.  The overwhelming majority  of the colleges your son or daughter will apply to accept the Common App (Georgetown University is one notable exception that has its own application).

The Common App really isn't that big a deal.  A lot of it is rote - name, address, parent info, list of honors, etc. 

However, the areas that require thought and attention are 1. essay writing (the personal statement and supplemental essays) and 2. the Activities Section.

In my experience, the amount of time and emotional ene...