Hi! It’s February! I took two weeks off after I finished with students on Dec 30, and it was really bad! A joke I like is that there is nothing inherently dangerous about traveling 300 miles per hour. It is only when you stop traveling 300 miles per hour that you are at risk. I decelerated sharply into the New Year, and it was not pretty. But now I’m doing OK! My… Read More »East Coast kids VS Bay Area kids
I’m possibly the least well-rounded person you will ever meet. I mean it. I suck at so many things. Just terrible. I can’t do math, or draw, or cook, or sing, or act, or include the unbelievable artwork from my artist, Felicia Tzeng, on Reddit , or plan, or make a competent TikTok , or lift heavy things, or dress myself, or promote stuff correctly, or lightly edit a piece once it’s live without the entire Goddamn… Read More »You Don’t Have to be Spiky, but Please Don’t be Well-rounded
I’m a content marketer by trade. My old life involved me creating original written content for different websites. The goal of that content was not to sell a product inherently. Instead, it was to attract readers to the site and provide them value. The concept is that by offering credible content for free upfront, the consumer will come to trust, appreciate, and remember that brand when they want to make… Read More »Mattie Edits: My Own Common App Essay From 2009!
I have ADHD. I was diagnosed at age 12. What happened is I got to middle school, and my life fell apart. It came on like a typhoon. Things seemed alright as I started, but I still remember that October when my family went to sixth-grade check-in. My twin sister went first. The meeting lasted about four minutes. She and my parents left with smiles all around and talk of… Read More »What I See When I See a Student With ADHD
First thoughts: It’s aight. I see why she got in places. My biggest negative towards the whole thing was actually how calculated and polished the piece was. Yes, it’s a wacky Costco essay. But to a trained eye, it’s the work of a professional writer expertly crafting a work that will make a student come off well. One of the greatest magic tricks we as consultants play is making it seem like we were… Read More »Ok Fine. I’ll Write About the Awe-inspiring Costco Essay
There are two reasons it seems students choose to start non-profits: They want to look impressive on their college apps They want to help people Both of these are perfectly fine reasons to do something! But I would like to tackle each one and explain why I don’t think non-profits are the answer. 1) They want to look impressive on their college apps I don’t believe AOs believe/respect most non-profits… Read More »Why You Shouldn’t Start a Non-Profit (And What You Should Do Instead)
What I see a lot right now from you overachievers working on July 2nd is that it’s all about the Common App draft. It seems like your process is to write draft after draft after draft, tearing up ideas and starting over just as soon as you think you like some other idea better. Ya, don’t do that. I’m not gonna lie. The Common App essay is likely the single… Read More »Hey! You Don’t Have to Start With Your Common App Essay
Hello! I have writer’s block! I don’t get writer’s block often, but when I do, it tends to be for a particular reason: it’s because I have stuff I want to write about but don’t know how. I have never – in my life – had too few things to say. It’s always the opposite problem. I pick my blog topics based almost entirely on what I want to write that day.… Read More »10 Bonus Essay Tips I Couldn’t Stretch Into an Entire Blog Post
This is an outline for any “did a cool thing” essay. “Cool thing” is purposely vague. A lot of essays fill into this category, which is good because I find they are often the easiest and most effective essays to write. If anyone has questions or wants to know more about any section, let me know. I feel like there are ways to make this better, but I’m not sure… Read More »How to Format a “Cool Thing You Did” Essay
I have read a lot of student’s essays that I neither outlined nor edited. At my old counseling job, we had something called “final review,” where editors would get a massive stack of other editor’s students’ work and we would go through them to provide a final edit. I never liked this process because I quickly found my options to be “do nothing” or “freak out and leave like 40… Read More »How to Get Noticed and Stand Out During the College Admissions Process: Have a Weird Hobby