A compelling card or letter serves as a follow-up to an application, reinforcing a student’s interest in an institution and reminding admissions officers of their strengths. This guide outlines key components, structure, and expert tips to help students craft an impactful letter that enhances their application.

Meet Alisa. She brings a compassionate and patient approach to tutoring. With extensive experience as a peer mentor and undergraduate teaching assistant, she excels in creating affirming learning environments tailored to neurodiverse students. Alisa’s academic background and dedication to inclusive education make her an invaluable asset to students striving to understand complex mathematical and scientific concepts.

Meet Arek. He specializes in nurturing the academic growth of neurodivergent students and those with learning differences. With a psychology degree and robust experience in diverse teaching settings (incl. chess and unicycling!), Arek brings patience, creativity, and a deep understanding of individual learning needs to each session. His gentle approach ensures that every student feels valued and empowered to succeed.

Meet Patrick. As a credentialed educator with extensive experience teaching AP subjects in the classroom and leading speech and debate teams, Patrick specializes in test preparation. His innovative teaching methods and commitment to academic excellence have consistently fostered high achievement, making him a trusted mentor to scores of high-performing students.

Starting college applications is exciting, but writing a personal essay can be intimidating. The good news is that the best personal essays all share certain traits, and with practice, you can write your own show-stopper.

Learn how your essay can stand out by utilizing attention-grabbing hooks. Let’s dive into what makes a good hook and review some college essay hooks examples. 

Meet Mamie. With a decade of experience, Mamie guides students in crafting impactful admissions essays. Having graduated with a degree in literature, she brings a love of language and narrative expertise to the coaching process. Drawing from her professional background in copywriting, manuscript editing, and journalism, her goal is to help students identify unique perspectives and hone their story.

August is upon us! For many high school seniors, that means one thing – college application season. Like most things about senior year, the college application process challenges you to look forward and backward simultaneously.

Struggling to write the perfect college essay? Here are some of the most effective strategies that can help you master your essay & get into your dream school.

The first thing to know about writing a winning private school application essay is that yes, you can do it! This application component might seem daunting, but considering two critical strategies can shift your student’s perspective and evade writer’s block.

With that said, grades and SSAT (or HSPT) test scores are important, but the personal essay is your student’s best opportunity to demonstrate maturity, intellectual curiosity, and a unique perspective. Here is where a strong voice and a vision make them memorable!

How does your student write this fantastic essay? They need to tell their own story with their own voice. Here’s how.

The contemporary college admissions landscape is treacherous. Schools are reporting record application numbers since test-optional policies have gone mainstream, yet the number of available seats remains constant. There aren’t many things seniors can control at this point in the application process, considering GPAs are nearly finalized and suddenly joining four new extracurricular activities is bound to raise red flags for admissions committees. The college essay, though, is the one piece that still needs to be added to the enormous puzzle of lists and numbers that composes your academic portfolio.

Being able to closely read a text is a skill that will serve you in high school, college, and beyond. It’s also one of the hardest abilities to master. In this post, we will explore what close reading is and how to improve your expertise.

There is no doubt that COVID-19 has disrupted your high school experience and college plans in some way. For the 2022-23 admissions cycle, The Common App will continue to include this question on their application portal as an opportunity for you to elaborate on how the pandemic has affected your life.

The IB English Exam requires complex analysis and an incisive understanding of rhetorical skills. In this blog, we will provide you with a general overview of the IB English exam and helpful tips for preparation. After all, May is right around the corner. Let’s start, then, with an introduction to the structure of the exam itself.

The IB Extended Essay, rather than a single-day exam, is a mandatory, year-long research project that IB students write with a faculty advisor’s guidance. The essay, which is typically at or around 4,000 words in length, falls within one of the following thematic groups: Studies in Language and Literature, Language Acquisition, Individuals and Societies, Sciences, Mathematics, or the Arts. The IB resource center contains sample essays highlighting the “diverse range of topics” students may cover.

Unlike back in the day when your application was a simple envelope sealed with spit and sent by snail mail, in today’s world, you can apply to multiple colleges at once and have your application information organized and stored at your fingertips. There are two primary platforms that facilitate this expedited process: the Common App and the Coalition for College. If you are pushing to meet an ED deadline or are just getting prepared and you don’t yet know which platform to use and why, read on!

The process of applying for college so often feels uniquely impersonal – application forms are rote, recommendations seem almost formulaic, and your standardized test scores and GPA are literally numbers. The college essay provides everyone with a much-needed break from statistics. And the cliché is true: it’s your opportunity to show admissions officers that you are “more than a number.”

According to FairTest, roughly two-thirds of U.S. universities are now test-optional or test-blind in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Across the country, school districts converted grading systems to pass/fail while students had extracurriculars and volunteer opportunities cancelled.

As a result, colleges will have to rely on only a handful of application components for admissions decisions. The dreaded college essay holds more weight than ever before.

I’ve been teaching college undergraduates for about ten years now, reading thousands of pages of their writing. I also coach high school students to write better essays. As end-of-term essays from my undergraduates pile up, awaiting commentary, I’ve started wondering, how can high school writers “graduate” to college-level writing?