How to Keep the Peace During Application Season

The stress and anxiety that accompany college application season can cause a lot of friction in the household. It often sets in full force by the end of the summer leading up to senior year.

I've seen it every year.

Students and especially parents, who start with nothing but the best of intentions, often wind up at each other's throats by the time submission deadlines arrive.

But there the thing: everyone wants the same results.

Both parents and students just want to make sure, when the dust settles, that they will have some viable options for the following fall -- ones that are the right academic, social, and financial fit.

So why can the relationship between parents and their kids go so sour so quickly?

Well...

• First, there's a lot of history. Parents know their teens, teens know their parents. Old patterns and dynamics emerge. But...
• The application process is new territory. Even for parents who have been through it before, it's a different beast with every kid who goes through it, because every individual has their own needs. And third...
• Expectations are often not as well defined as they should be. Both parties assume things of the other party. Parents expect students to take this work more seriously than anything they've done to date. Students want space, for parents to get off their backs. 

When those expectations are not met, tensions flare on both sides. 

So I have a suggestion: why not spell out your expectations now, while things are still going smoothly?

Below is one version of a contract that can help you do exactly that.

Here are my suggestions for setting up a solid agreement:

Create two copies, and before you sit down to hash out the final details -- the ones that EVERYONE can agree on -- have both the parents and the teenager sit and complete it the way they see fit. Then, when you're sitting down to negotiate, trade copies...and be ready to find reasonable compromise.

I hope you find this helpful! I'll be on vacation for the next few weeks, but look for the next blog on Tuesday, July 25th, when we start the run-up to our first application deadlines of 2017!

STUDENT: I WILL...
1. Make my best effort to complete all college applications by _________.
2. Submit each application at least _____________ before the official deadline.
3. Set aside ____ hours each week until school starts on ___________ for college prep.
4. Set aside these dates & times this summer to work on college prep: ________________________.
5. Provide updates on my progress to _____________ every ________________________.
6. Ask ________________ for writing feedback at least ____________ before I have to submit.
7. Request help (when needed) in the form of _____________________________________________. 8.
Take responsibility for making informed decisions, thorough research & clear communication.
9. Complete each task on the following page by the agreed-to date.

PARENT: I/WE WILL...
1. When requested, provide these forms of support: ___________________________________.
2. Trust that our student is on top of everything unless _________________________________.
3. Only require progress updates at our agreed-upon times.
4. Provide encouragement & help foster our student's sense of confidence & independence.
5. Be willing to seek outside support if needed.

Student Signature: ____________________________________________________ Date: ___________ Parent Signature: _____________________________________________________ Date: ___________ We'll review these terms every ___________ (days, weeks, months) & make changes accordingly.

How to Get Some Direction on College Essay Brainstorming

Last year, the University of California revamped the writing prompts on its application system.

The result was the Personal Insight Questions, where applicants choose four out of eight questions that tie directly into UC's 14 criteria for holistic application review. Previously, there had been two questions more global in their scope (much like the main essay prompts of the Common Application) leaving it up to students to determine the direction they would take their writing.

For students, most of whom have never had any guidance or training when it comes to personal, reflective writing, defining that direction can be intimidating. It's incredibly easy to fall into the "what's impressive" trap that my Teen LAUNCH colleague Kristine and I recently blogged about.

My advice has always been to start the writing and brainstorming process early, so that there's plenty of space to explore and turn up some surprise ideas along the way.

The best way to do that is to free write -- and do a lot of it. 

But some students struggle even to start filling blank pages or screens with their thoughts -- the classic case of writer's block. For those students, a little collaboration can go a long way before they're ready to hit the solitary writing zone. 

That's where the interview method comes in.

It's less formal than it sounds; basically, it's a matter of asking a lot of questions and taking a lot of notes, helping the student to tease the details out.

I've been using the interview method a long time, and so the questions that I ask come fairly intuitively. I just keep asking about whatever I'm finding most interesting in the student's responses at the time, digging for the details that are unique to them while furiously typing notes and attempting to capture their responses in their own words.

For students who want to try this out on their own with a parent or teacher or a friend, there is a great resource to jump start the process.

It's the UC Personal Insight Questions worksheet.

Here's how to begin:

1. Have the student being interviewed pick a question, 1 - 8. Suppose she chooses #3, "What would you say is your greatest talent or skill?"
2. The interviewer reads the question and proceeds directly to the brainstorming prompts, asking the interviewee to name several skills or talents. If the interviewee freezes up, then the interviewer can rephrase the question to ask about something the interviewee likes to do or spends a lot of free time doing.
3. Once there are a few ideas on the table, have the interviewee choose one to focus on. Use the follow-up questions on the worksheet as guidelines -- as the interviewer, you're working on getting the interviewee to give some examples of using that talent or skill, or share an anecdote about a time when that skill came in handy. 
4. Ask questions about that talent in terms of the past, present, and future. When did she first discover it? How does she make use of it most often these days? How might it be an asset over the next few years? The idea here is that the interviewer is helping the interviewee show some personal transformation.
5. Repeat the process for a completely different type of skill. For example, if the first skill you discussed was something more academic like the ability to argue persuasively in a debate, see if if you can dig into something that's non-verbal and perhaps even non-intellectual, like tuning guitar strings or navigating the public transportation system in a foreign city.

With those ideas and memories unpacked, students often find that they have a jumping-off point for adding more detail on their own later. Give it a try!

How to Build Your College List Quickly: One Simple Method

If you're just coming to the college search process and you haven't had much exposure to the different types of schools out there, you might asking yourself a question:

How do I get started building a college list if I don't know what I want to do in college?

Many high school juniors just have no idea how factors like campus size, location, program types, extracurricular activities, etc. factor into their college preferences. As a result, they avoid thinking about it as long as they can—until deadlines are suddenly looming.

I'm reminded of a student named Maddy. On her first day, during spring of her junior year, she came in completely stressed out. She felt like she was already behind, given the fact that several of her friends already knew their top choices of colleges they'd be applying to in fall. But she also felt paralyzed because it seemed like there was so much pressure to decide what she would study and how that would ultimately support her career.

I suggested that we start things a little more simply. Instead of creating the near-impossible task of finding the perfect college that would satisfy all of her yet-unknown needs, why not start learning about a range of different schools that she might find appealing for a variety of reasons?

That's where the Free Association Exercise came in.

We sat down on our laptops. I asked her for the name of a college her friends had been tossing around. Within the hour, we had 20 names on our list. Not only that, but we had already identified two criteria that would eventually be the defining factors of Maddy's final list in the fall.

Sometimes, the key is just to get started—even when you're not sure where it's all headed.

The Free Association List Building Exercise is the easiest place to start.

Spotlight on Students: Hadyn

Welcome back to the last in our new series of Q&A videos. This series features students who recently received their well earned early acceptances from their top colleges.

These guys worked incredibly hard and learned a lot about themselves through the application process; as a result, they have some great insights to share about how families just embarking on the journey to college can be prepare.

This fifth conversation was with Hadyn, a student who's headed to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor in fall of 2017 -- check out what she has to say about her application process below!

Spotlight on Students: Jamie

Welcome back to the new series of Q&A videos. This series features students who recently received their well earned acceptances from their top colleges.

These guys worked incredibly hard and learned a lot about themselves through the application process; as a result, they have some great insights to share about how families just embarking on the journey to college can be prepare.

This fourth conversation was with Jamie, a student who's headed to Smith in fall of 2017 -- check out what she has to say about her application process below!

Spotlight on Students: Jenny

Welcome back to the new series of Q&A videos I filmed with students who recently received their well earned acceptances.

These guys worked incredibly hard and learned a lot about themselves through the application process; as a result, they have some great insights to share about how families just embarking on the journey to college can be prepare.

This third conversation was with Jenny, a student who's headed to Penn in fall of 2017 -- check out what she has to say about her application process below!

Spotlight on Students: Finn

Welcome back to the new series of Q&A videos I filmed with students who recently received their well earned acceptances. These guys worked incredibly hard and learned a lot about themselves through the application process; as a result, they have some great insights to share about how families just embarking on the journey to college can be prepare.

This second conversation was with Finn, a student who's headed to NYU in fall of 2017 -- check out what he has to say about his application process below!

Spotlight on Students: Anya

For the next few blog entries, I'll be sharing some new Q&A videos I filmed with students who recently received their well earned acceptances. These guys worked incredibly hard and learned a lot about themselves through the application process; as a result, they have some great insights to share about how families just embarking on the journey to college can be prepare.

This first conversation was with Anya, a student whom I've had the pleasure of working with for the past couple of years. She's headed to Yale in fall of 2017 -- check out what she has to say about her application process below!

Campus Bubble on the Left

I was reading Nicholas Kristof's article in the New York Times this past Sunday, which I found particularly fascinating for the effects of groupthink that he mentions on three-judge panels, and it made me remember a piece that a student of mine last year wrote about the community that he'd been brought up in.

Through his experience growing up in Santa Monica, he's been well equipped for taking on the fairly left-leaning culture of his small liberal arts college. Check out his piece below:

Thomas Jefferson saw America as a country of the people, drawing much of its wealth from agrarian production. Alexander Hamilton saw the polar opposite: an industrious powerhouse that would be controlled by its financial elite.

The U.S. today has embraced pieces of both ideals. I enjoy calling myself a moderate, a centrist, a libertarian because I don't stick to one line of thinking; I examine every opinion or belief to see what might work best for the nation. People of modern America are too bent on polarizing U.S. policy. It is only the greatness of the swing vote that keeps our innovation alive and well.
Liberalism is defined as being open to new behavior and willing to discard traditional values. The people within Santa Monica like to think that their liberalism is what's needed to cure the ills of society; at times, it is.

Yet, as I've grown up here, I've seen liberal agenda become misguided. Liberals here automatically attack dissenters (conservatives) for believing differently. Thus, the liberalism that embraces open-mindedness has become oppressive.

My experience has led me to appreciate the idealism of liberal thinking, but to reject the conformity that its partisanship indoctrinates. Approaching a problem requires different approaches. Diversity of opinions fosters these different approaches and thus allows ideas to blossom without obstacle.

Moderates. Swing voters. Undecideds. All embrace the ideal of thinking for oneself, manifested best in the action of the swing vote.

Therefore, the swing vote needs to be energized. By doing this, gauging public opinion becomes unpredictable and politicians are forced to say what they believe in. American democracy persists in its worst mistake by perpetuating partisanship simply for the sake of taking sides. Group mentalities are detrimental to the free-thinking that fuels democracy. I do not belong to a party, because I see it, rather than as isolation, as a freedom: freedom in its purest form.

The Art of Discrimination

This presidential election brought up the memory of a question in the study guide for the old SAT test. It was a sentence-completion question, the kind where you fill in the blank with, more often than not, some obscure word you wouldn’t find in the vocabulary of most adults, let alone the average teenager. 

This particular question was the last of the section, which indicates the highest level of difficulty. And indeed it was. I’d estimate that at least four out of every five students eliminated without hesitation the correct answer: discriminating.

It was a question about a chili contest and how the judges were able to note “subtle differences between dishes that most people would not detect.” But it was often the first answer choice that students eliminated—it obviously had nothing to do with acting out of prejudice toward others, those eighty-ish percent would point out. 

At one stage, while explaining the original definition of the word “discriminate,” I went to dictionary to look up the roots. Somewhere along the line, the word had popped out of our English word “discern,” which came from the Latin discernere, from dis- (“apart”) and cernere (“to separate”). Picking apart, observing subtle differences—there’s another, all-too-familiar name for that: critical thinking. 

I remembered the SAT question not because of the rampant discrimination (in the negative sense) through the many long months of the campaign, but more so because of the alarming lack of positive discrimination when it came to the facts. I’m enough of a realist to know that all politicians sometimes spin the truth, bend the facts or outrightly lie (as we all do on occasion). But what is staggering to me is how the people of this country opened the White House doors to a president-elect with such utter disregard for truthfulness.

I understand that he and his team figured out how to use misinformation to ride a wave formed from powerful emotional undercurrents in the country. I can also sympathize with the urge to act irrationally out of anger, fear or frustration. But what common ground do we have in this free, democratic society if not an allegiance to discerning the truth from the information we have available—as muddy and complicated as that process can often be?

Without rationality, how can democratic debate exist? Without factual accuracy, how can we determine the needs of Americans who feel forgotten—let alone enact and enforce policies to address those needs? Where is there earth solid enough for us to stand upon together if objective truth is no longer one of the values we share?

We all have lessons to learn. They’re about restoring respect.

First, especially for all the smart people out there, it’s a sense of respect for the tremendous power of human emotions—starting with your own. Emotion trumps reason every time (and puns that gross aren’t easily forgotten). Only by taking your own emotional temperature can you tell when a fever is coming on. People with a fever don’t act; they react. Thought goes out the window, instincts take over, and trouble begins. There’s no control and certainly no appealing to reason at that point. 

When you’re in tune with your own feelings and the way they color your view of the world, you can start to tune into others’ and discern who’s too feverish to listen, who might be soothed back to reason, and who has the same receptivity you do.

Then, out of respect for knowledge and intellect, rebuild your world view from the ground up. Start with the good discrimination—the kind that sifts reliable data, facts and objective observations out of personal biases, competing interests and misinformation. Don’t feed preconceived notions or simply reinforce the beliefs passed on to you by family, friends or even your teachers. Question everything, and dig until you find solid ground within yourself, in light of the facts and your own experience. 

Learn how to determine which sources of information are reliable; call out the nonsense when you see it. Check your facts, strive for the truth, and inspire others to do the same. Your opinion does matter, and every person’s opinion deserves a place in the world—as long as it’s founded upon respect for human dignity. 

Understand that if your views are anchored in conviction, carefully reasoned and well communicated, they’ll resonate with more people—if they’re listening. While you cannot satisfy everyone, but know that if you engage both emotion and reason, you can learn to make more people listen.

Want to make a difference in the world? Practice the art of discrimination—for good—and make it a cornerstone of your education.

Connecting the Dots: High School, College, and the "Real World"

My Teen LAUNCH partner, Kristine, and I have been working hard on a new program as a follow up to last year's Carve Your Own Path workshop. 

It's called Ready for the Real World: How to Make the Most of College.

I actually put an announcement out about the event a couple of weeks ago, and a mother I've worked with before (who also has a current high school freshman) asked if we weren't just creating more anxiety by talking about the "real world." Her daughter has three and a half more years of high school! Aren't we getting ahead of ourselves?

I don't think so. Here's why:

This isn't a nuts-and-bolts sort of workshop; it's about asking questions and looking at the overall context of college, which I believe everyone should do. If you grew up like me, you just assumed you were going to college. But it's not necessarily the best option for every single high school graduate. (Check out this PBS News Hour testimonial as an example.) 

Understanding the underlying reasons for why and which college is the right fit for you helps you build a better case for going there. This is critical thinking, friends! Admissions officials appreciate students who are informed about the investment their family is about to make; those students are more likely to take full advantage of the opportunities that college provides.

By making the most of the college experience, then, those who graduate will be prepared to send the same, clear message to employers: if you give me the chance, I'll make the most out of my time with your company; my work will benefit all of us. 

College admissions can so easily be perceived during high school as a contest to win. But nothing ends with your acceptance; it's only just the beginning. And those who simply get into the habit of looking ahead today will be the ones who discover their path tomorrow.

Interested in learning more? Check out our Ready for the Real World Facebook group and join the discussion. We've been discussing a range of college-related questions:

• What is the point of college?
• What has been the most challenging part of preparing for college thus far? Even if you aren't there yet, talk about the stage you are in.
• Any guesses what employers are looking for in recent college graduates? Don't worry about getting this one "wrong" just because there may be some "right" answers! We want to know what you think.
• Does your student have a dream career that excites them? Yes, sort of, definitely not?
• What is it about a college education that makes it an ideal choice for your student? Have any questions ever been raised as to whether or not college is the best option?

Nick's Picks: Spotlight on the University of Delaware

Founded in 1743 (making it one of the oldest in the nation), the University of Delaware saw in its first graduating class three alumni who went on to sign the Declaration of Independence. At 4,300 students, it's on the lighter side of mid-sized research universities, with distinguished alumni coming from both sides of the political aisle.

In this virtual hangout, Nick speaks with Admission Counselor Chuck Liddiard about some of the opportunities UD provides for both its admitted and its prospective students. Check it out!

What's your personal headline?

If you stop to think for a moment about an application reader's job, much of it happens in blocks and stacks: blocks of a couple hours at a time (give or take), devoted to reading a stack of personal statements -- perhaps 40 or 50, one after the other.

From that perspective, your main college essay (aka personal statement) has a singular aim: to make a positive impression and stick in the mind of the reader long after the reading session has ended.

This application season, I've found myself asking the same question each time I read a first draft (and sometimes a second, a third...even a fourth): what is the ONE THING this piece demonstrates about you?

If you're working on your piece now, ask yourself that question. You should be able to answer it in a short phrase or sentence. Here's the key, though: the one thing should be go beyond just a topic. Instead, it should be more of a headline.

Here's the difference:

A topic is a noun. It's a simple object or idea. It's usually pretty easy to identify -- here are some examples:

1. my love of reading
2. writing plays
3. secrets

Simple, right? When you're identifying your one thing, you want to take it one step further. This means turning your topic into a headline; you're adding an action to the noun, turning it into a how statement. Examples:

1. how rejecting the concept of a "canon of literature" helped me rekindle my love of reading
2. how writing plays enabled me to discover a deeper empathy for the people surrounding me
3. how examining the secrets I'd protected unconsciously has made me more honest with myself and others

Give it a shot. What's your personal headline?

Spotlight on U of A

Flagship of the system, football powerhouse, and the oldest university in the state, the University of Alabama houses programs of study in 13 academic divisions leading to bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees.

In this virtual hangout, Nick Soper of Creative College Prep chats with James Gilbey, Regional Recruiter, about what's drawing some Californians out south.

Leave your comments below!

In Due Time

My wife Stacy and I narrowly missed an argument last night. She’s five months pregnant and was at a prenatal pilates class. It was intimate: only one other class-taker and then the teacher. Evidently, Stacy’s classmate is an old pro at the pregnancy thing; this is her third pregnancy. (This is our first, and it came after a long, grueling period of emotional and financial turmoil involving work with three separate fertility specialists.)

The teacher shared that she’s had similar struggles getting pregnant, but that it’s something she wants in the future. Stacy’s classmate piped up that it will happen—at the “right time.” That’s not something that someone who’s been through years of hormone therapy, ovarian overstimulation during egg retrievals, failed embryonic implantations, and ultimately miscarriage wants to hear. The implication, as Stacy pointed out during her rebuke to this woman, is that there is a “wrong” time—and how can you imply that I’m wrong to do everything in my power to have the child I so desperately want?

Having been half of Team Get Pregnant Already—my primary responsibilities having been attending to the mother-to-be in mourning as well as the credit card debt that wouldn’t die—I could sympathize. Who is anyone else to tell us what’s right or wrong, in terms of timing or otherwise, when it comes to growing the family?

But there was a voice in my head that spoke out, even though I chose to demur with my wife for the sake of pre-bedtime peace in the household. The corrective thought: instead of getting into judgments about the right or wrong time, I believe in *due* time.

For our internal desires for our lives to be realized (in the sense of becoming real in the external world), there is no getting around the time they must take, the stages they must pass through. Words like *marinate, percolate, incubate* all come to mind here—words that entail two things: the development of something; and the passage of time.

I’m 35 years old. It took me until I was 30 to move resolutely (more or less) into the field of college counseling. I needed most of my 20s to learn how to advocate for myself as a business owner; how to become a more effective writer and writing coach; how I could bring my own experiences, interests, and pursuits to bear on guiding young people about to step out of their family homes on their own for the very first time in their lives.

During college, I believed that writing was purely an act of will, that I needed to sit in front of the computer and think up my ideas, and then dig up some words that I’d then string together in sentences. The result: I came out of the creative writing program with such terrible writer’s block and such a diminished sense of my own agency as a creator that I’ve spent every year since then in some stage of creative recovery. The only glimpses of creative work that had any sort of pulse to it at all were in the moments when I was writing or acting fueled by some form of tumult in my personal life.

Did it need to take that long? I ask myself that question often. Part of my own recovery has been about acknowledging that my thoughts and feelings emerge on their own accord, in whatever time they take to surface. I can only give them space to breathe and grow; there is no forcing them. But that could take many lifetimes. I only have one.

And so sometimes that triggers me to swing back into the harder, more disciplinarian part of my personality, bring ye olde hammer down on myself for doing so much loosey-goosey drifting. But that kind of pressure is no good. There’s a snapping shut of the creative presence in me; I picture a sea anemone feeling out the ocean water around it does the instant it perceives a threat nearby.

What’s the solution? Where is the middle ground? And what does it have to do with going off to college?

Parents often lament that there is no longer space in the world for their kids to explore as they come of age. “Things weren’t like this when I went off to college. You weren’t expected to know what you were doing with the rest of your life. But now it feels like if you haven’t already figured it all out, you’re not going to be competitive. What do you think?”

Yes and no.

It’s true that the admissions landscape, as well as that of the job market, is broadly more competitive. Students and graduates competing for placement have to make more compelling cases for why they’re the right fit for that spot. They have to have a plan for crossing from high school to college and from college to the working world (or grad school) that includes a range of options and contingencies.

Making the best case for your candidacy and forming an exhaustive and adaptive plan are a lot of work by themselves. But here is the key ingredient: knowing the why—as far as it can be known. That’s where the real, sustained effort comes in. It requires you to make your own space.

Let me explain.

College admissions officials know better than just about anyone that students often change their minds, their majors, and their interests over the course of their college careers. You take a class in a subject you’ve never had any exposure to before, you join a new student group, and suddenly you’re in love with something you never knew existed. That’s a big part of what undergrad is all about.

What college admissions counselors admire, however, is the courage and self-awareness to take stock of what you’ve been doing over the past few years, name the trajectory you’re on at this moment in time, and do your homework so that you can articulate how their school can support the steps you’re taking for your future. Show them your determination, that you are highly organized and taking a serious, proactive, and realistic approach to managing your way through life, and they’ll understand your potential to contribute to their campus in the coming years.

The same goes for students getting ready to leave college. Show your potential employers why you’re right for the job and why the job is right for you. What relevant experience do you have? What experiences do you want? *Why*? What questions are you trying to answer about the direction you’re headed in? And then, to round it all out, what non-work experiences help to make you a relatable, interesting person?

In other words, you make space for yourself to explore by doing everything in your power to continue in a direction that fits you as an individual. You are already in motion, on some trajectory. While you can’t know everything about where it leads, you can work continually to check in on where you seem to be headed, and make adjustments according to where you want to be headed.

If human behavior interests you, for example, perhaps you’re considering a psychology major. But why rest there when nearly every undergraduate school has a psych program? What are some of the classes, areas of concentration, or experiential programs that the colleges on your list have to offer? Are you interested in the effects of drugs on the brain? Perhaps you can find a pharmacology class. The ways in which people behave in groups? Maybe there’s a concentration in organizational psychology. Are you interested in working with victims of abuse? See what internships your potential colleges offer.

The bottom line is that nothing has changed about the way in which we explore our paths through life. We need time and experience; most of what forms us is a process of trial and error. The only difference between now and “back then” is that college-bound students and graduates need the mindfulness to self-reflect, the diligence to do it consistently, the clarity to recalibrate as often as needed, and the ability to articulate their progress (in an appealing way) to the people with the power to open up doors to opportunity.

As with writing, in any creative undertaking (which includes actively exploring your future) you exercise your will not in the action of creating, but in consciously making the time and space for your creations to emerge—in due time. “Due” comes from the Latin “debere,” which means “to owe”; what you owe yourself is that space and time to take every opportunity as it comes, and adjust your plan according to whatever hand life deals you.

Looking back on my career path and on our journey to almost-parenthood, I can’t see all the time leading up to this point as anything other than due time. The struggle brought us closer, forced us to communicate more effectively and bring a higher level of order to our household. What comes when you’ve paid your dues?

Nick's Picks: Spotlight on Cornell College

Focus...concentrate...just one thing at a time. 

That's the basic learning philosophy of Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, IA: take one class at a time for a deeper dive into the learning experience.

In this virtual hangout, Nick chats with Marie Schofer and Ling Zhang, in the Cornell admissions office, about some of the exciting things happening on campus. Check it out!

Reflection: Overcoming Failure & Adversity

Some of our greatest opportunities to learn and grow come under the most challenging circumstances. How do you think about your personal setbacks? Times of failure? The obstacles you've had to overcome in your life?

What to Check Out:

1. Watch J.K. Rowling’s take on failure, which she calls “stripping away the inessential” at Harvard.
2. Listen to Skater Rodney Mullen describe the act of getting up again—in all aspects of life.
3. What stands between you & your goals? Read this article & put words to your personal obstacles.
4. Watch teenage comic Kevin Breel open up about the adversity hidden behind his funny persona.

Related College Questions:

The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

What is the hardest part of being a teenager now? What's the best part? What advice would you give a younger sibling or friend (assuming they would listen to you)?

Describe the most significant challenge you have faced and the steps you have taken to overcome this challenge. How has this challenge affected your academic achievement?

If your progression through college has been interrupted, please use the space below to explain the nature of your leave and your activities during your time away from school.

Respond to the following quotation: "Difficulty need not foreshadow despair or defeat. Rather achievement can be all the more satisfying because of obstacles surmounted."

What is the best mistake you have ever made?

Nick's Picks: Spotlight on Macquarie University

Many students love the idea of a study-abroad experience. What if it spanned your entire college experience?

An adventure down under for American students interested in taking their undergraduate experience abroad, Macquarie University is a large public university in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia.

In this virtual hangout, Nick Soper of Creative College Prep chats with Lea-Anne Allen, Regional Manager, about some of the exciting things happening on campus.

Check it out!

Four Key Attributes of a Personal Statement (and what it's NOT)

I recently came across some guidelines for the personal statement on website of the Dutton E-Education Institute for Penn State that I thought were worth sharing for students just diving into writing their main college essays.

Here's a quick share of the four main ways to view your personal statement:

1. It's a picture. Provide a snapshot of who you are as a person.
2. It's an invitation. Your job is to "bridge the assumed distance of strangers." Invite your reader to get to know you.
3. It's an indication of your priorities & judgment. Your selection of material reveals your priorities & ability to discern effectively.
4. It's a story, or more precisely, your story. The personal statement allows you room for creative, meaningful self-reflection.

Just as importantly are the four things a personal statement is NOT:

1. An academic paper with you as the subject. The objective distance of academic writing disengages the reader from you in a personal statement.
2. A resume in narrative form. Other parts of your application, which might include a resume, already tell readers about your accomplishments. A personal statement must reveal and interpret well beyond a resume.
3. A journal entry. A common mistake is allowing your personal statement to read like a diary. Share only relevant material selectively, in a voice that remains both individual and professional.
4. A plea or justification. Don't beg and don't defend the (incorrect) assertion that you are more worthy than other candidates—it only backfires.

Keep these guidelines in mind and PRESS ON!

Nick's Picks: Spotlight on Muhlenberg College

The Spotlight on Admissions series features brief conversations with college representatives from across the country, sharing a little bit of their wisdom from their time in admissions. 

Check out this conversation with Melissa Falk, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid for Muhlenberg College: