The “Why X school?” question on the college application is often considered one of the easiest. You research the school and find classes that catch your eye and extra curriculars that match your interests. Unlike some of the more amorphous Common App questions, there’s a relatively standard formula. Syracuse’s supplements, however, throw a bit of a wrinkle into the equation.
How to Write the Best Supplemental Essays for College
When you sit down to write your college supplements, you might struggle with having to talk about yourself. Some people can easily write hundreds of words about all of their accomplishments and “unique” characteristics, but others find writing about themselves to be uncomfortable. Since your goal in writing the supplements is to convey your qualifications and achievements in a way that is not off putting to the reader, we’ve made a list of tips that will help you to successfully accomplish this task.
Tips for Writing your College Supplements
Let’s say you’re at a party and you see the most popular girl at school. This is a person who you’re kind of obsessed with, so you’ve definitely Facebook stalked her extensively. You might compliment her outfit to break the ice. It wouldn’t be weird to say that you liked her shirt if you really did like her shirt, but you wouldn’t want to compliment everything she’s wearing. And you definitely wouldn’t want to use superlatives in every sentence. You would play it cool, because at the end of the day the most popular girl in school wants to be friends with someone who is her equal, not an overenthusiastic fan.
Successful Techniques for College Admission Essays: Avoid the Clichés
Clichés can be very tempting. Like it or not, we all use them in life. But, when it comes to applying to college you definitely don’t want to be throwing around clichés in your college essay. The essay is supposed to give details about how you think and write. It’s not a list of what cliché you feel best fits your story.
Simplify your College Admission Essay
There’s an episode of Friends where Monica and Chandler need a letter of recommendation for an adoption service. Joey volunteers to write the letter but becomes flustered. He tells Ross, “I want it to sound smart, but I don’t know any big words or anything!” Ross shows him the thesaurus and Joey proceeds to pick the “smartest sounding” word for every single word in his letter.
How to Write the Williams College Supplement 2016
Imagine yourself in a tutorial at Williams. Of anyone in the world, whom would you choose to be the other student in the class, and why?
Every year there are multiple supplements that ask you to write about a person. Whether the supplement is similar to Williams, which asks you to choose a person for your class, or Barnard where you’ll have to write about having lunch with someone, this question comes up a lot. As with all supplements, there are an endless amount of options.
The Best Colleges with no Supplements
It excites our students to find out that a school they’re applying to doesn’t have a supplement. Although supplements serve a very important purpose, they can be tedious to write because of the time and research involved in making them unique. We went through the top 100+ schools on the US News and World ranking and found all the schools that don’t have supplements. If you’re on the fence about applying to a certain school on this list, then this might be the factor that makes you apply. However, we don’t recommend applying to a school simply because it is supplement-free.
Phrases you Should Never use in a College Admission Essay, Part 2
In the second installment of “Phrases to Avoid,” we have compiled 39 more phrases sourced from real college essays that you should never use under any circumstances. They include unnecessary hyperbole, awkward word choice, and tired cliches among their many problems. In many cases phrases like these are a red flag to an admissions officer, and using any one of them can help land your essay in the rejection pile.
How To Write A Great College Supplement
After the enormous undertaking of your personal statement, supplements may not seem so bad to you. After all, they’re short and ask pretty direct, uncreative questions. Alas, they matter: for schools that accept the common app, for instance, they’re the sole writing assignment that each particular college gets to assign you. And so, a simple question like “Why our college?” can make a big difference in your application.