Caroline Koppelman
Official Common App Essay Guide 2025-2026

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.

Caroline Koppelman
How to Write Common App Essay Prompt 7: Example ...

We’ve been waiting for this one: it’s finally time to dig into Prompt #7, the crown jewel of the Common App essay prompts.

Caroline Koppelman
Ultimate Guide to Letters of Continued Interest ...

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.

Caroline Koppelman
Ultimate Guide to Getting Waitlisted 2025

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.

Caroline Koppelman
Best Early Decision II (ED2) Schools 2024-2025

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.

legacy

Yale Legacy Guide

You went to Yale and now your kid is dreaming of following in your footsteps. That’s great. However, you might be wondering to yourself, “Since I went there, is that going to help their chances?” We hear this all the time from alumni parents. It’s not as simple of a question to answer as you might think. We do a ton of research every year. We talk to admissions officers, compile data from class statistic reports, we read alumni newsletters and school papers. Even with all that, the weight of legacy in admissions can still be a difficult question to tackle. We wanted to break down everything we know about legacies at Yale and try to answer some of the most common questions we get from parents. So let’s dive in.

Princeton University Legacy Guide

“I went to Princeton so I’m pretty sure my kid will get in.” This is something we tend to hear from time to time and it always makes us nervous. Mostly because it’s not necessarily true. Legacy admissions can be a lot trickier than 80s teen movies seem to always suggest. We are constantly looking at admissions numbers and class breakdowns so trust us when we say, not all legacies get into a school like Princeton. Because of this, we wanted to break down legacy admissions to ensure that parents and students know what to expect when applying as a legacy to Princeton.

Legacy Admission Guide for Harvard

We hear it all the time. “I went to Harvard… does that mean my kid will get in?” It’s an important question for a lot of the parents of students we work with and it’s a harder question to answer than some might think. Every year we work with legacy students whose parents have realized that simply being a legacy isn’t enough to get into a top school. Being a legacy isn’t everything, but it can help. Your next question is probably, “But how much exactly does it help at a place like Harvard?” We wanted to break it down and talk about the ins and outs of legacy status at Harvard.

Harvard Acceptance Rate for Legacy Students

Students work hard their entire high school careers with their eyes on the Ivy League. But while they might be busting their behinds to break the single-digit entry rate barriers, what they may not realize is the odds might be even less in their favor. According to data published in the Harvard Crimson, legacies are given a significant amount of preferential treatment. While we don’t know how many seats are reserved for legacy students each year, we can tell you that legacy students are typically represented disproportionately in every freshman class.