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!
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:
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?
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!
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:
Just as importantly are the four things a personal statement is NOT:
Keep these guidelines in mind and PRESS ON!
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:
We're making today a quick one. I'm taking a good look at how to help families understand how college loans work, and what they'll be like to pay off after college.
Here are some quick resources for your home calculations:
Information about the Federal Direct Loan Program, including publications and tools to help manage Direct Loans
Calculators and information on loan repayment estimates and comparing federal and private loans
Repayment information including calculators to estimate repayments & salary based borrowing levels
Information displaying average amount of debt assumed by parents at various institutions
School is about to begin, if it hasn't already. Seniors: are you ready?
A close colleague of mine recently coined the term "The Labor Day Divide" to describe a phenomenon that roughly coincides with the start of senior year.
New seniors split fairly neatly into two camps: those who have crossed off most of their Summer College Checklist...and those who have barely begun.
The divide becomes most evident toward the beginning of November when Early Application deadlines ...and it's not a pretty picture (such as the one below) for Camp #2.
Credit: Jeff Drahota / USFWS
It's never too late, though, and we still have time before Labor Day. Check your college task list against this one:
With its main campus in the heart of Boston and a new, state-of-the-art campus in LA, Emerson College is an institution dedicated to the arts and communication in the context of a liberal education.
In this virtual hangout, Nick Soper of Creative College Prep chats with Amy Mitchell, Director of Admissions, about some of the exciting things happening on campus. Check it out!
We all have a story (many stories, in fact!) to tell. We are living one that's unfolding moment by moment, year by year.
But why are stories so vitally important? What is it about codifying our lives in terms of stories that makes our experiences so much more meaningful and more compelling?
WHAT TO CHECK OUT:
RELATED COLLEGE QUESTIONS:
You have narrowed your college list, you're doing your research, and you know that you want to stay in touch with your top choices all the way through application season.
Beyond the fact that many colleges want to gauge your level of interest in attending, cultivating a relationship and opening a direct line of communication with your regional admissions counselor at a college can help you get answers to questions you might not be able to find elsewhere.
Here are three tips for crafting a great introductory email (remember that these are principles that can apply to nearly ANY email you write):
Tip #1: Use the Subject Line Wisely
Most people who use email addresses in an official capacity have very limited time to get through their inbox and respond. Help your reader out: use the subject line to get your request across clearly and concisely. Don't make them have to guess what the email is going to be about.
Tip #2: Use Space to Make the Body of the Email Reader-Friendly
Imagine that you're sitting down to do your homework, and the first page you open up to in your textbook is one solid block of text, covering the page. Sigh. We've all been there. Whatever resolve we MIGHT have had instantly drains away. Boring. So much work for my brain.
So do your reader a favor: let in a little air. See if you can think about your message in three parts: the intro, the body, and the call to action. The intro establishes the context for reaching out. The body provides more in-depth information, and sets you up to make your request. And the call to action asks for something specific.
Tip #3: Strip Away Any Words that You Don't Absolutely Need
A good rule of thumb for this is that all the text of your email fits on one window, even with spaces. If you have a number of different questions, you might want to consider sending multiple emails. Make sure that you're only including information that is directly related to the request that you're making.
Other than that, keep the tone polite, respectful and upbeat (remember, this is about showing off your excitement!), and make sure that your email demonstrates that you are a competence writer. Use good grammar, spell check the text, and make sure to proofread carefully.
Many families get stuck in trying to dig up the real differences between colleges. The basic distinctions are out there: size of the student body, public versus private, research university versus liberal arts college, location, name brand, etc.
But there are so many schools thinking just a bit outside the box -- doing something just a little different, which many families have often never even heard of.
I thought I'd use this post to toss out a list of the specialized offerings out there that might dramatically change the college experience for a student considering the options:
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 Emily Davis, Regional Assistant Director of Admission for the West Coast at McDaniel College:
Many of what colleges are evaluating in applications is students' future leadership potential: it will fuel their contributions to the campus community. For applicants thinking about their interviews and college essays, here is some food for thought on the subject.
Describe an example of your leadership experience in which you have positively in influenced others, helped resolve disputes, or contributed to group efforts over time.
Please describe a time in your life (academic, co-curricular, or otherwise) where you had to collaborate to accomplish more than you could alone.
Describe a time when you made a meaningful contribution to others in which the greater good was your focus. Discuss the challenges and rewards of making your contribution.
You have the funding for your own start-up or organization. What will you launch and why?
For one week in January, students upend the traditional classroom hierarchy and teach classes about any topic they love, academic or otherwise. What would you teach that would contribute to the community?
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 Darnell Epps, Senior Assistant Director of Admission at Allegheny College:
In putting the finishing touches on the CollegeAppRoadMap program before its launch this Friday, I've found my favorite part of the whole thing.
Each year, I have students do free-writing exercises to help brainstorm their essays. This time, though, we're doing it according to different themes.
The first theme? Making Difficult Choices.
Download the handout here. I think it speaks for itself. But here's how the writing works:
GUIDELINES FOR REFLECTION WRITING:
THEN:
Do NOT delete, cross out, erase, go back, read, edit or stop until the timer has finished.
(If you get stuck, write “I can’t think of anything to write” over and over until a new thought comes.)
You can write about whatever is in the forefront of your mind that day. You could respond directly to the videos or podcasts, you could vent about a crappy day, or you could use one of the fun and interesting questions on the following pages as a springboard.
MOST IMPORTANTLY…
Let your mind wander—see where it wants to take you.
The best college writings often come from the ideas that surprise you the most.
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 Bob Baldwin, Director of Admissions at Southwestern University:
Now that the video has been approved by the TEDx committee and published for the public, it feels like a real thing:
I gave a TED talk!
And wow, I learned a lot in the process. During the first speaker "bootcamp," when I put an early draft of the talk on its feet for the first time, I discovered not only how much I tend toward long-windedness, but also an obsession with Star Wars references. (My heart broke a little when I trimmed them out.)
But the glazed-over reception made for constructive course correction. And then, about a week before the TEDx event itself, I got feedback from some dear and very sharp friends.
Future self, please listen up: never ask for open-ended critique that close to a deadline. Instead, ask questions that direct the feedback so that it's something you can manage within your timeframe.
Lesson learned.
Fortunately, I was given a single focusing question that guided all my efforts during that last week: what is the one thing you want the audience to walk away with?
Did I wind up nailing that one thing down? I developed a particular phrase that I kept repeating to myself any time I'd practice the talk in that final week, but was it as simple and clear as it needed to be?
That's a question I'd love to turn it over to you, if you find yourself with 15 minutes to watch.
What is the one thing that YOU take away?
(Also, how about the expression on my face in this thumbnail image? ;)
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 Jake Browne, Director of Admissions at Eckerd College:
We all know that senior year can induce a lot of anxiety.
Soon-to-be-seniors are taking the SAT or ACT. They're bracing for their toughest high school classes. College applications are on the horizon. And sooner or later, the reality will start to hit home: life is about to change in a big way.
College applications can be just as stressful for parents -- even for the ones who have been through this before. There always seems to be so much noise and never enough quality information that's straightforward and reasonably easy to digest.
On top of that, college counseling centers at public high schools are understaffed and overwhelmed; they're doing the best they can with hundreds of students in their caseload each year. Private college consultants can cost an arm and a leg...while you're supposed to be saving money to cut that first tuition check.
And whether you're a parent or a college-bound student, there's just no escaping the pressure, the hype, and all the anxious chatter around college admissions. You're on information overload, pulled every which way by what you "SHOULD" and "SHOULDN'T" do.
As someone who works to provide guidance through this process, I've been asking myself these questions for years: could it be simpler? Clearer? Easier to follow?
Could there be a single, step-by-step approach to not only to finding the right college but for building an awesome application?
Imagine how it would feel next year after graduation knowing you'd looked at every option, you'd put forth your best self in your college applications, and that in the end, you had absolutely made the right choice about the school you're about to make a major investment in.
You need three things:
That's what the CollegeAppRoadMap is all about. I want to share the six steps I have used to help dozens of families successfully navigate the college application process.
Come see what the six steps are all about -- grab your spot here.
This is exciting! The Creative College Prep YouTube channel is up and running with the "Nick's Picks" video collection.
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 Gaelyn Rose over at Lawrence University:
