We’ve spent the past few weeks breaking down each Common App essay prompt one by one, and now it’s time for the grand finale: our ultimate guide to writing the Common App essay. Sure, there are seven different prompts, but at the end of the day, every school is looking for the same thing: a story.
Getting waitlisted or deferred from your dream school is hard. We know it’s hard! You feel rejected, but it’s this weird non-rejection rejection that can leave you feeling lost and confused. And while a lot of things in college admissions are totally out of your control, there is something you can do if you’ve been waitlisted or deferred to give yourself another chance. A letter of continued interest, sometimes known as a waitlist letter or deferral letter, is one of the few, actionable things you can control when admissions decisions seem so out of your control. It’s your only chance to make a good second impression, and we help students write them every single year.
Getting waitlisted is the ultimate limbo – it’s not not a rejection, but it’s not a full-on denial, either. And depending on your circumstances, you could be feeling everything from mild disappointment to full-on panic. Don’t get yourself into a tizzy just yet, because there are things you can do to give yourself a shot at getting off the waitlist and make sure that you have a plan in place for the next year.
Hey, look, sometimes ED doesn’t work out the way we want it to, and we have to change strategies. If you just got rejected or deferred from your ED/EA option, we’d like to introduce you to our good friend, Early Decision 2. ED2 is just as binding as ED, and it signals to the school that you are serious about attending that school, and guess what? Schools like when you’re serious about them.
Dear Moms & Dads,
Congratulations! Your baby just got into college, or is about to. You’re probably feeling a flood of conflicting emotions. Relief comes alongside anxiety, joy can collide with a feeling of impending loss, and excitement crashes into “Wait, this is real?!?” The arrival of any college acceptance, whether a dream school or a safety, should be a day of celebration, but for a huge number of parents, it is equally, or even more, terrifying.
Dear High School Senior,
CONGRATULATIONS! You recently got into college or will get into college soon, and that is totally awesome. You are probably feeling elated, but it’s also ok to be scared of what’s to come and confused about what to do next. All of high school can feel like a build-up to this moment, and now it’s here, and you still have to go to class. Weird, right?
Acceptance letters are rolling out, along with dreaded rejections and often even more stressful waitlist notices. With Ivy Day (March 28th) creeping up, there will be more waitlisted students than ever before. Why? Well, it isn’t only because there are a ton of students applying to college, and that the average student is applying to more colleges than ever. Sure, that’s part of it, but there’s a lot more going on than just millions of kids competing for coveted spots. You see, college admissions is a game — and not just for the applicants.
We’re onto Princeton with our “School Like” series. In this series, we’re taking schools that are considered (yes, for everyone—no matter what your GPA or ACT scores are, any Ivy or equivalent ), breaking them down into their most distinct parts, and giving you a list of schools that possess those same qualities, “vibes,” or personality. These are schools that you may not have heard of before, or perhaps that you have heard of but hadn’t previously considered. Consider this your charge to think outside the box and have an open mind.
Our “Schools Like” series is where we take a school—a “dream” or a reach school—and give you a list of schools that are similar to that one school. “How could they be similar AT ALL?” you ask, when you’ve been wearing your mom’s Dartmouth sweatshirt since you were 4? Here’s a secret: there are only so many qualities that a school can have, and there is inevitably a ton of overlap when there are literally thousands of institutions of higher education in the U.S.
Columbia University is next up in our “Colleges Like” series. We’re starting with all of the —you know, all of the classic —breaking them down into their essential parts, and giving you a list of schools that we’ve found share those qualities. We know what makes a based on years of experience helping hundreds of students enroll in college.
We’re continuing our “Schools Like” series with Brown—the crunchy, liberal, social justice-warrior of the Ivy League family. We’ll take your , boil it down to what makes it most unique, and give you a slew of schools to contemplate that also possess some of those same qualities. Over and above its culture (one that tends to attract ), what makes Brown stand out is its open curriculum. It’s not for everyone, but those who work well with flexibility and desire creativity within academics truly thrive and love the lack of definitive structure, core classes, or even the requirement to choose a major (though students must choose a “concentration). It’s a free-spirited, liberal arts-focused, creative intellectual student’s Disneyland. The only requirement that Brown imposes on its undergraduates is that they must pass a writing course.
Ah, yes. Spring break: the time to lounge poolside, visit your camp boyfriend in his hometown, or finally give into the guilt and take a trip to visit your nanna and poppy. Well, that’s if you’re some other kid. But you are not some other kid. You are a high-achiever who plans to attend a great university. While it may be a tough pill to swallow, spring break is really just an opportunity for you to build a fool-proof and become the best candidate for admission you possibly can. And hey, we’re sure nanna and poppy would love to join you on the tour, too.
The spring of sophomore year can be fun. You feel more confident about your place in school. Perhaps your parents are granting you more freedom and depending on where you live, you might even be revving up to get your driver’s license. We hate to be the bearers of bad news, but you’re also hitting that point in which everything starts moving faster and before you know it, you’ll blink and be in college. So, while it may seem a little early, there is no time like your sophomore year of spring break to start preparing. Admit it. We know you’re kind of excited.
So, juniors. Spring break is coming up. And let us guess: you haven’t toured any colleges yet. You have two options: 1) or 2) . That was a trick because those two things are the same. This is the time to take advantage of your upcoming break and start visiting colleges, doing your research, forming opinions, and making decisions. If we’re being honest, it’s late for you to be starting the college visit process (you should have already visited at least a couple of schools by now), but here we are. You can do it.
So, you’re a little bit of an over-achiever and you got into all of the summer programs to which you applied. Congrats! Not a bad problem to have. Now, how are you going to choose between them all? The bottom line is, you want to create a singular message to send to these schools, kind of like how companies align on a singular brand identity. Some might say that JetBlue is all about a fun and friendly in-flight experience. Tesla was the first eco-friendly, luxury vehicle, and Toms is all about comfort and community. So, take a moment to identify the brand identity you’ve been developing in yourself for the past three or so years.
As is often our prerogative at 91̽, we’re going to be real with you; this is not the smartest question and if you’re asking it, you’re probably already in trouble. Consider that asking, “how many summer program applications are too many?” is the same asking You’re missing the point. When applying to summer programs (and college for that matter), it’s all about quality, not quantity.
It’s time to pick your safety schools. And while you’ve tried different ways to imagine that you’re not going to have to resort to going there, it’s all the same: your test scores are what they are and each school has an average range. The good news is, there are THOUSANDS of schools in this country. There are bound to be three to five you don’t hate.
To state the obvious, we often think of target schools as being that beautiful sweet spot between so-called “reaches” and “safeties.” While target schools are a crucial component towards achieving matriculation success, they’re a little more semi-sweet than totally milk chocolate. In fact, what you need to know is that target schools are not a guarantee. At all. While the whole college process can, at times, feel like nothing but a heartache, we’ve come up with a strategy to help you develop your target list.
Some of you might read the headline of this post and think “Forget spicing up my life! I just want to get in somewhere…anywhere!” Others might think, “Rules are for fools. Harvard’s my fallback.” For the duration of this post, we encourage you to set aside your fears, your ego, and relax your mind. In fact, conventional wisdom would lead us to believe that applications, like harmonies, are nicer when diversified. Au contraire, mon frère. Adding more reach schools to your list ensures nothing. Fun, right? Okay, so what’s the point of even trying if applying to more reach schools doesn’t mean you have a shot at getting into any of them? We’ve come up with a simple guidebook on how to hedge your bets. So, here’s the story from A to Z: