Instead of letter grades, students receive qualitative evaluations from their professors. All courses are taught by professors, never TAs, and research opportunities for undergraduates abound. You plan on getting a graduate degree and want to immerse yourself in research throughout your undergraduate years. You are craving direct contact with faculty.
You spent your high school years independently pursuing an area of passion—creating your own reading list, seeking out adult mentors, etc. The admissions cycle is likely to be very much like the previous one which saw record numbers of applications pour into top colleges around the country. Temporary test-optional policies adopted by institutions in response the pandemic opened the floodgates, causing a whole new crop of students to toss their name into the hat for a spot at the Ivies or other highly-selective universities.
Whether you are applying with or without test scores, applicants in need to shine even brighter to stand out in a sea of similarly-qualified young people. He has previously served as a high school counselor, consultant and author for Kaplan Test Prep, and advisor to U. Congress, reporting on issues related to college admissions and financial aid.
Despite having a degree fever and being required to stay in bed, I still completed my draft speech on the possible impacts of global warming on agriculture. The admissions officers are expecting you to celebrate yourself, to underline your strengths and personality, so they can make a quick, accurate judgment about you.
Diction word choice is the fundamental structure of writing. Your word choice reveals a great deal about your personality, education and intellect. Furthermore, as an international student, you want to reassure the college admissions board that you have an excellent command of the English language remember: they want you to succeed; they need to know that you can actively participate in English-only instruction.
With this in mind, you should replace lower-level words bad, sad, thing, nice, chance with higher-level words appalling, despondent, phenomena, comforting, opportunity.
You should also remove any slang or casual diction; the university is not interested in casual language in their admissions essays. In this instance, you want to show that you already have college-level writing skills. So, in writing your college application essays, you should write with the following features in mind:.
As with tip 7 , this serves two functions: 1 it distinguishes your essay from those that are poorly written; and 2 it reassures the admissions board of your excellent command of written English. This is one of the most important tips on this list. For this reason, you should ask a friend or a relative or an English teacher to look over your essay and check your:.
College admissions essays require a tremendous amount of work. As you work and rework the essay, pay attention to the admission deadlines and requirements. Every school has their own system for how and when to file your application. Do not assume that, because one school uses e-mails and PDFs, that another school does as well. The best way to stay organized through the college admissions process and at the university when courses begin is to rigorously maintain a calendar that includes:.
At some point, you will file your college admissions application. With these tips, and your determined intellect, you have an excellent chance of being accepted to an American university.
Take a look at our college essay samples to get an idea of what colleges are looking for in your essay. Sign in to Your Account Done. Sign in. Don't have an Account? Writing tips and techniques for your college essay. Next lesson. Google Classroom Facebook Twitter. Sort by: Top Voted. Up Next. Like good weather, beach, skiing, or some other geographical attribute? There are many schools located near these places, and they know that people enjoy sunbathing.
Either build a deeper connection or skip these as reasons. Every "why this college" essay is going to answer both the "why us" and the "why you" parts of the back-and-forth equation. But depending on which way your target school has worded its prompt, you'll lean more heavily on that part. This is why I'm going to split this brainstorming into two parts—to go with the "why us" and "why you" types of questions.
Of course, since they are both sides of the same coin, you can always easily flip each of these ideas around in order to have it work well for the other type of prompt. For example, a "why us" essay might talk about how interesting the XYZ interdisciplinary project is and how it fits well with your senior project. By contrast, a "why you" essay would take the same idea but flip it to say that you've learned through your senior project how you deeply value an interdisciplinary approach to academics, making you a great fit for this school and its commitment to such work, as evidenced by project XYZ.
Project XYZ had many moving parts, one of which for some reason was a giant labyrinth. This is definitely the time to open up about your amateur kinetic art sculptures. Pop quiz: this pretty Gothic building is on what college campus? Yup, that's right—could be anywhere. We can help. PrepScholar Admissions is the world's best admissions consulting service. We combine world-class admissions counselors with our data-driven, proprietary admissions strategies. We've overseen thousands of students get into their top choice schools , from state colleges to the Ivy League.
We know what kinds of students colleges want to admit. We want to get you admitted to your dream schools. Learn more about PrepScholar Admissions to maximize your chance of getting in.
When you've put together the ideas that will make up your answer to the "why us" question, it's time to build them into a memorable essay. Here are some tips for doing that successfully:. For more tips, check out our step-by-step essay-writing advice. Cookie cutters: great for dough, terrible for college applications.
At this point, it'll be helpful to take a look at a "why us" essay that works and figure out what the author did to create a meaningful answer to this challenging question. It was on my official visit with the cross country team that I realized Tufts was the perfect school for me.
Our topics of conversation ranged from Asian geography to efficient movement patterns, and everyone spoke enthusiastically about what they were involved in on campus. I really related with the guys I met, and I think they represent the passion that Tufts' students have. I can pursue my dream of being a successful entrepreneur by joining the Tufts Entrepreneurs Society, pursuing an Entrepreneurial Leadership minor, and taking part in an up-and-coming computer science program.
You can see more great "why this school" essays for Tufts by visiting the Tufts website. The prompt may be phrased in one of two ways: "Why us? Writing the perfect "why this school" essay requires you to first research the specific qualities and characteristics of this school that appeal to you.
You can find this information by doing any or all of the following:. Instead, focus on the details that differentiate your target school from all the others. Are you also working on your personal statement? If you're using the Common App, check out our complete breakdown of the Common App prompts and learn how to pick the best prompt for you.
If you're applying to a University of California school, we've got an in-depth article on how to write effective UC personal statements. And if you're submitting ApplyTexas applications, read our helpful guide on how to approach the many different ApplyTexas essay prompts.
Struggling with the college application process as a whole? Our expert guides teach you how to ask for recommendations , how to write about extracurriculars , and how to research colleges. We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score.
Download it for free now:. Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.
Our new student and parent forum, at ExpertHub. See how other students and parents are navigating high school, college, and the college admissions process. Ask questions; get answers. How to Get a Perfect , by a Perfect Scorer.
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