College Application Essay Tips

You have a couple of minutes at most to impress the admissions team at any school/program. Mostly, they want to know that you can follow rules and articulate coherent thoughts in reasonably correct English. However, if you annoy them with a poor essay, it will count against you. If you bore them with a standard essay, it won’t help you. If you really do something interesting, it may push your application over the edge and get you in.

Obviously, I am not going to give away all of my secrets here, but the following are some important rules that applicants writing personal statements and application essays for college/grad school should follow:

1. Answer the question. This sounds obvious, but you should always make sure you answer the question in your college’s essay prompt. The answer to the question should come in the form of a thesis. If your college/program does not supply you with any specific questions, you still need to have a thesis. In that case, your thesis should answer a question of your own choosing. Read the rest of this entry »

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Online Tutoring

Professional Writing Help via Email and the Web

Clearly, many of my writing lessons require in-person meetings for full efficacy. It is difficult to work on long-term skill-building without face-to-face contact. Students usually learn better through direct contact that allows them and their teachers to ask questions, interpret body language, and follow up with each other over a period of time.

That said, there are certain projects that definitely lend themselves to eTutoring: short term and single assignments, and simple editing/feedback. For these types of assignments, I can act in the clients’ long-term best interests, provide good value, and help my clients succeed over the web.

Recently, while in New Orleans, I have served clients from New York City and Connecticut via email in the following two areas:

Read the rest of this entry »

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Good News

A client whose college application essays I edited got into Bard College today.

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////