College Advising

This is the final installment in a series of posts I’m doing about the Common Application essay prompts. Now that summer is here, it’s a great time to work on your essay so that you can take your time, let your mind wander and put together something that truly compliments your applications.

I’ve already talked about the first four essay prompts and what they’re asking you to do. If you missed them, here they are:

Writing Your Essay For Common Application Prompt #1

Writing Your Essay For Common Application Prompt #2

Writing Your Essay For Common Application Prompt #3

Writing Your Essay For Common Application Prompt #4

Today, I wanted to talk about the fifth and final prompt:

Prompt #5. Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.

This prompt allows you a lot of flexibility because the keywords are so broad. Having said that, it’s the transition part of this prompt that is important here. Transition means there was a before (the childhood piece) and an after (the adult piece). There was a change. Without it, your essay will not fully answer what this prompt is asking of you and will fall flat.

Because while we’ve all had accomplishments, not each of them has helped us to think and act more like an adult. And that’s the key here: you need to show that whatever it was that you achieved, completed, performed or produced – it was an important event in your process of becoming more mature, more responsible and more dependable. It doesn’t mean you have to be an adult, just that you are on your way to being more adult-like.

Going to college is a major transition in your life and one that will rapidly draw you into adulthood as you face critical decisions about your immediate and long-term future. An admission counselor will be pleased to see that you’ve gone through other transitional phases in your life and that you are on your way to becoming the person you were meant to be.

One former student wrote about her experiences as an EMT and how, as a young teenager, she remembered getting frustrated when a car accident had caused a traffic delay and she ended up missing the first couple minutes of a new movie. Several years later, after earning her EMT license and going out on emergency calls, she was faced with life and death situations and had to think quickly and clearly in order to help injured people in need. She had most definitely transitioned from an inwardly thinking child to a more mature, outwardly thinking adult-in-the-making.

So, if you’ve ever experienced a change in your life where you realized that you were thinking or acting more adult-like, this could be a great prompt for you to explore. If not, I’ve already covered the other four essay prompts, so consider going in another direction with your essay.

If you would like some assistance with it or any other aspects of your college search, contact me today for a free 60-minute consultation.

Here’s what other families like yours are saying about how Dobler College Consulting made a difference for them.

This is the fourth installment in a series of posts I’m doing about the Common Application essay prompts. Now that summer is here, it’s a great time to work on your essay so that you can take your time, let your mind wander and put together something that truly compliments your applications.

I’ve already talked about the first three essay prompts and what they’re asking you to do. If you missed them, here they are:

Writing Your Essay For Common Application Prompt #1

Writing Your Essay For Common Application Prompt #2

Writing Your Essay For Common Application Prompt #3

Today, I wanted to talk about the fourth prompt:

Prompt #4. Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma-anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

This prompt is brand-new this year and I love it! It’s so open-ended and allows you the room to really get into something that has personal significance for you.

Of course, you have to start out by talking about a problem. Whether you’ve solved it or you are trying to solve it, this prompt is all about your effort to effect change. Now, you have to be careful not to dwell on something that’s too big or vague like poverty or racism – an approach like that will sink your essay quickly – and, instead, focus on something specific and, as the essay asks you to do, get PERSONAL.

I think college admission counselors will like this prompt as it allows you room to talk about your problem-solving skills and what’s college if not one series of problems to solve after another? The prompt also allows you to shed light on your values and your willingness to take action for something you believe in.

So, if you’ve ever taken the initiative to do something about a problem or are even in the process of doing it, this could be a great prompt for you to explore. If not, there’s five essay prompts, so consider going in another direction with your essay.

In my next post, I’m going to talk about the fifth Common Application essay prompt which asks you to write about a transition from childhood to adulthood. Stay tuned…

If you would like some assistance with your college essay or any other aspects of your college search, contact me today for a free 60-minute consultation.

Here’s what other families like yours are saying about how Dobler College Consulting made a difference for them.

Last week I introduced you to the new Common App essay prompts. If you missed the post, here it is:

Introducing the 2015-2016 Common Application Essay Prompts

At the end of the post, I said I would share some tips on how to approach each of the prompts. Without further ado, let’s talk about the first one:

Prompt #1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

This is what I call a “big-picture” prompt because it’s about you and your identity.  Because of that, it’s also a prompt which you can completely whiff on if you don’t pay attention to the keywords. First, whatever story you are going to share, you have to make certain it is truly CENTRAL to your identity. This means the story needs to be something big, something that has shaped you as a person, something that sits at the very core of who you are.

The second part of this prompt asks you to demonstrate how your application would be incomplete without the reader knowing this story. This means that, without telling this story, colleges aren’t going to understand the full picture of who you are and why they should admit you.

So, write down the prompt and then start making notes on everything that makes you who you are. What are your VIPS and how did they come to be that way? Has anything happened in your life – again, big-picture ideas here – that admission counselors should take into consideration? Remember, you’re trying to let them in on something about you that will help them say “Yes!” to your application.

A former student of mine wrote a fantastic essay for this prompt. During the winter of his freshman year in high school, he had suffered a rather severe concussion which resulted in intense headaches, short term memory loss, an inability to focus and a complete loss of direction. At times, to get away from it all, he would go on nature walks with his camera trying to capture unique shots of the trees, railroad tracks – anything that caught his eye. For the first time in over a year, he had found something in his life that was both calming and inspirational. He started manipulating the images, turning them into pieces of art and a budding interest in graphic design had been born.

So while majoring in graphic design is no more unique than majoring in English, nursing or accounting, how my student arrived at this place in his life is unique. It’s personal, it’s meaningful and it is absolutely central to his identity. Without knowing his story, you have no idea just how much his design work means to him. As he often told me, finding design changed his life.

Now, not everyone is going to be able to come up with such a story, and that’s okay. There’s five essay prompts so if you’re doubting whether or not you have something that is so revealing, then consider going in another direction with your essay.

In my next post, I’m going to talk about the second Common Application essay prompt which asks you to write about a failure. Stay tuned…

If you would like some assistance with your college essay or any other aspects of your college search, contact me today for a free 60-minute consultation.

Here’s what other families like yours are saying about how Dobler College Consulting made a difference for them.