College Specific Supplemental Essays: Strategy/Tips

College Specific Supplemental Essays: Strategy/Tips

By Brittany MaschalJul 18, 2022

One of the reasons that we like students to have a sense of their college list when they start essay writing is that each essay does not exist in a vacuum. Everything submitted with a college application needs to work together to tell the fullest story possible about who you are, what you are all about, and the value you will add to the school that’s reading your application.

Complement your Personal Statement—don’t compete with it. You should aim to make sure all of your supplemental essays are as separate from the personal statement as possible. For instance, if my personal statement is about my passion for dance (my main extracurricular), and a school requires what we call a creativity supplement in The Complete College Essay Handbook, I would choose to write about something other than dance for the PS because I might want to focus on that in the supplement.

Present a rounded picture, even if you are narrow. Notice that I didn’t say be well-rounded. I don’t advise that! But imagine you apply to a school that requires two supplemental essays. One prompt clearly calls for an academic and intellectual interests (AII) essay, and the second is open-ended. You wouldn’t want to write a second AII essay for that school. Although college is first and foremost about academics, you want the opportunity to present as many parts of yourself as possible; go with any one of the other three types of supplemental essays that we outline in detail within The Complete College Essay Handbook! Every single college applicant should be able to write an impact and influence and community and identity essay.

Consider the school’s values. Sticking with the same example: if a school asks for two supplements and one prompt clearly calls for an AII essay, and the second is open-ended, in addition to writing a different type of supp, you should also take the school’s mission and values into consideration. For instance, since Jesuit schools like Santa Clara, Fordham, and the University of San Francisco tend to value service more than some secular schools, an impact and influence essay would be the best choice for the second prompt. Conversely, a liberal arts college with a long history of political activism, such as Wesleyan, Smith, or Oberlin, might react more favorably to a community and identity essay with an impact twist.

Use your best story. Imagine you have one just incredible story, and it fits perfectly into the impact and influence type. You write the essay—it’s great, and you love it! Then you realize that your top-choice school asks for a community and identity essay. What should you do? If your story is really that good, you are actually better off turning that impact and influence essay into a community and identity essay—even if it feels like a bit of a stretch. Admissions officers will remember how you made them feel—not that you didn’t answer the question quite as accurately as another applicant.

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Common Application Summer 2022 Refresh and Rollover

Common Application Summer 2022 Refresh and Rollover

By Brittany MaschalJun 30, 2022

Each year on August 1, Common App launches the refreshed application with updated information, including any new questions and new colleges. Students will need to sign in and refresh their Common App accounts for the new cycle. 

Many colleges change their questions from year to year, so if students started working on responses to college-specific questions, they will be deleted. 

For more details about how account rollover works, be sure to reference these Solutions Center articles for first-year and transfer students, as well as tips located in the CA application guide.

Mark your calendars for the system refresh dates:

  • The first-year application will close to applicants and recommenders at 5 pm ET on July 28, 2022.
  • The transfer application will close to applicants and recommenders at 5 pm ET on July 29, 2022.

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The Purpose of & How to Tackle College Specific Essays (Supplemental Essays)

The Purpose of & How to Tackle College Specific Essays (Supplemental Essays)

By BMC BloggerJun 21, 2022

The supplemental essays (or “supps” as we call them) are a chance for you to “supplement” your personal statement (aka the Common App essay) with more information about who you are and what makes you tick. Although many supps ask you to write about seemingly straightforward topics, like your extracurriculars or academics, they are not merely an opportunity to rehash your résumé or the activities section of the Common Application. They are, like the personal statement, an opportunity to tell another deeply personal story—not to brag about your brag-worthy accomplishments. Remember: it is stories, not accomplishments, that will make your application memorable.

For your essay to count as a story, it needs to tell a narrative that charts personal progress and change. Maybe your résumé is full of community service, and though you love it now, when you started, it felt like a chore. Tell that story. Maybe you played piano for ten years only to quit in tenth grade so you could devote more time to your real passion—computer science. Tell that story. Maybe you founded a club, and no one came to the first meeting, but you decided to keep going, and now you have a small but devoted core group. Tell. That. Story. In other words: Tell the unvarnished true story, even if that story isn’t neat or pretty. Those are the best stories!

Although supps present a valuable opportunity to make yourself even more memorable to your favorite schools, they also present a daunting amount of work: the majority of schools require at least one supplemental essay, and some, like MIT and Wake Forest, ask you to complete five or more. Many students we work with end up having to complete, on average, ten to fifteen sets of supps, or anywhere from eight to twenty additional essays. This is an insane amount of writing, and it can seem especially challenging because the prompts for these essays appear to vary greatly from school to school.

Don’t be daunted. You don’t have to write twenty unique essays!

Over the years, we have identified four types of essays that admissions officers most commonly look for. The students we work with write, on average, these four essays that they are then able to adapt and repurpose for different word counts and prompts.  They are:

  • Academic and Intellectual Interests
  • Community and Identity
  • Creativity
  • Impact and Influence

And following our method, you can do this too! In The Complete College Essay Handbook, we provide:

  • An overview of the type, with writing advice
  • Sample essays to show you how it’s done at different word limits
  • Both obvious and less-obvious prompts, so you can get a sense of the ways colleges phrase each question
  • A brief brainstorming questionnaire targeted to that type

We also show you how to adapt your essays for higher or lower word limits and how to repurpose your essays for the few prompts that fall outside of the four types. Using our methods, you’ll be able to maximize your time by writing fewer, but more effective and widely applicable, supplemental essays.

Get a copy today (paperback or ebook option), or if you are interested in working with us 1:1, reach out via email!

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Break Into Law School™ Conference June 25-26

By BMC BloggerJun 14, 2022
S. Montgomery Admissions is hosting a free virtual 2-day conference on June 25-26, “Break into Law School,” that will provide information to law school applicants, current law students, and young lawyers at no cost.

Counselors and high school students are more than welcome to attend! They currently have 8 panels planned with roughly 24+ panelists for the entire event. Panelists include law school deans and professors, the Vice President and Chief Diversity Officer of the LSAC, judges, corporate attorneys, and more.

– Equity in Law School Admissions
– Financing Your Legal Education
– Conquering the LSAT Exam
– Surviving 1L Year
– Climbing the Corporate Law Ladder
– Entering Academia
– The Judiciary: From Clerkships to the Bench

– Branching Out with Your Own Firm

There will be a networking hour where registrants can network with attorneys, judges, legal professors, current students, and applicants. Thanks to generous sponsors they will also have LSAT courses, free hours of consulting, pre-1L support, and wealth management sessions to give away!

Register at bit.ly/joinbils
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College Admission: Data, Transparency, And Match

College Admission: Data, Transparency, And Match

By BMC BloggerJun 03, 2022

Does it matter whether Princeton was ranked the number one or number three university in the country this year? Do you really care if Stanford’s overall admit rate was 3.95% or 2.16%? What does it mean to you if the University of Pennsylvania denied 94.32% or 95.74% of all applicants?

News flash: these institutions are uber selective. You could be the most qualified student in the country with perfect grades and test scores, an exceptionally written college essay, glowing recommendations, and impactful community involvement, and still be turned down by the most selective colleges.

Brennan Barnard’s recent Forbes piece explores colleges’ lack of transparency and so much more. Give it a read!
The reality is, you are rolling the dice when applying to these schools. They could select a full class of new students, throw it out, take the runners up, and guess what…the overall profile of the accepted class would look nearly identical. In fact, schools with low single-digit admit rates could do this many times over. This you cannot control. What you can control is how YOU approach the college search and application experience, and the quality and usefulness of the data you seek.
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Focus on the next fours years, not the last.

Focus on the next fours years, not the last.

By Brittany MaschalApr 06, 2022

The class of 2022 is resilient. They’ve weathered a pandemic, the confusion of test-optional, okay at best online schooling—the list goes on. 

Great read in Charter by S. Mitra Kalita. “Bottom line: You’re going to be fine. Let’s focus on the next fours years, not the last!”

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Ask the Experts Day/Boarding Schools – A Conversation with Private School Admissions Directors

Ask the Experts Day/Boarding Schools – A Conversation with Private School Admissions Directors

By Brittany MaschalApr 05, 2022

  

Please join Dina Glasofer Consulting for a conversation with a panel of admission directors from several selective day and boarding schools. A Conversation with Private School Admissions Directors will cover popular topics on the minds of parents considering private schools for their children.

This webinar will take place on Wednesday, April 20th at 7:00 p.m. (EST) and you must register below to receive a link for the event.

Please submit your questions for panelists through the registration link. You must register in advance to attend, and a Zoom link will be sent out prior to the webinar. Register here!

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Helping Teens Weather College Rejection

Helping Teens Weather College Rejection

By Brittany MaschalMar 29, 2022

Rejection stinks! But it’s a normal part of life and college admissions. This short article is for parents. Hang in there. In six months from now, the college application process will be very far in your rearview!

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Colleges That Are No Longer Test Optional

Colleges That Are No Longer Test Optional

By BMC BloggerMar 28, 2022

And so it begins…

MIT is no longer test-optional.

Will other schools follow in the name of transparency (because—let’s be honest—although test-optional policies do have merit at some institutions, they do not increase transparency around the admissions process)?

After careful consideration, we have decided to reinstate our SAT/ACT requirement for future admissions cycles. Our research shows standardized tests help us better assess the academic preparedness of all applicants and also help us identify socioeconomically disadvantaged students who lack access to advanced coursework or other enrichment opportunities that would otherwise demonstrate their readiness for MIT. We believe a requirement is more equitable and transparent than a test-optional policy. In the post below —  and in a separate conversation with MIT News today —  I explain more⁠ about how we think this decision helps us advance our mission. 

Some popular schools that have also rolled back COVID-era test-optional policies include UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Wilmington, UNC-Charlotte, East Carolina, Georgia Tech, the University of Georgia, the University of Florida, New College of Florida, FSU, UCF, and USF (all State University System of Florida). 

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Get Involved with jGirls+ Magazine!

Get Involved with jGirls+ Magazine!

By Brittany MaschalMar 16, 2022

Now accepting applications for 2022-2023 teen editor and staff photographer positions!

The application is open to self-identifying Jewish girls, young women, and non-binary people across all backgrounds and across North America who will be in 10th-12th grades in the 2022-2023 academic year. 

They actively encourage applicants who are diverse in their Jewish identification, sexual orientation, gender expression and identity, race, ethnicity, and abilities. If you’re unsure whether jGirls+ staff positions are open to your specific Jewish and/or gender identity, they encourage you to read the FAQs for those answers and more. Applications are open now through April 14th.

jGirls+ editorial board members and staff photographers make a difference in the world by:

  • Building an online community of future Jewish leaders.
  • Providing space for Jewish teenage girls, young women, and nonbinary teens to make their voices heard.
  • Engaging in discussion across differences of background, opinion, and perspective.

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