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COLLEGE CONNECTION’S GUIDE: HOW TO CRAFT DYNAMIC, DETERMINATIVE COLLEGE ESSAYS AND, WHERE APPLICABLE, UCAS PERSONAL STATEMENTS

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Crafting compelling college essays and personal statements is never easy, which is why College Connection recommends that its students commence the college application process during the Spring semester of the students’ junior year of high school.  Thereafter, the students must work diligently throughout the summer months, with the goal of completing all, or most, of the students’ college applications before the start of the students’ senior year of high school. [Please See: "The Mechanics of Applying to College."][Please See: "College Connection’s Guide: Helping Students Craft Stellar College Applications."] [Please See: "College Connection’s Guide: The Dynamics of Helping Students Craft Perfect College Lists."]

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EXCITING NEWS: STAY TUNED FOR COLLEGE CONNECTION’S APRIL 15, 2024 LAUNCH OF ITS 58 PAGE, COPYRIGHTED: "COLLEGE CONNECTION’S COLLEGE ESSAY WRITING MANUAL"

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Unfortunately, in the world of college advising, it is often extremely difficult for students to find the type of assistance they require in order to produce the types of dynamic, determinative college essays and personal statements that will help the students get noticed by College Admission Officers, and, ultimately, gain admission into the students’ respective dream colleges.  The reason for this is that, far too often, most public, as well as, some private, high school college counselors, and, even some private college advisors, provide, at most, minimal assistance, to their students, in the form of checking the students’ college essays and personal statements for grammar errors, while offering their students, at best, formulaic, substantive college essay and personal statement revision advice.

 

AT COLLEGE CONNECTION, WE DO SO MUCH MORE FOR OUR STUDENTS…

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For the past fifteen years, Sam has been helping his students craft compelling, dynamic, determinative college essays and personal statements. Indeed, over the years, some of these essays and personal statements have been praised by high school professors and College Admission Officers as being among the best college essays and personal statements that these individuals had ever read.  Furthermore, over the years, a number of Sam’s tutoring families were told by College Admission Officers that their children had been accepted into the respective colleges based, in large measure, upon the college essays and personal statements that Sam helped his students craft.

 

NOW, LET SAM HELP YOU CRAFT DYNAMIC, DETERMINATIVE COLLEGE ESSAYS AND, WHERE APPLICABLE, UCAS PERSONAL STATEMENTS

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Step One: The student must craft an attention grabbing opening paragraph. Why?  Because College Admission Officers —especially those working at the more prestigious domestic and international colleges— have to review, at a minimum, tens of thousands of college essays and personal statements, during each college application season.  (In this regard, initial data for the 2022-23 college application season has indicated an overall substantial increase in the number of students applying to colleges: public colleges and universities (+44%), private colleges (+28%), and most selective colleges (+45%).  A number of these colleges, UCLA (approximately 149,815 college applications) and NYU (approximately 105,000 college applications), for example, have witnessed exponential growth in the number of college applications.  This trend is also apparent in the increased number of college applications at international colleges.  For example, LSE, which typically receives the highest number of college applications in the UK, has seen a recent uptick in the average number of college applications each year to 26,000 applications per year.)  Consequently, if a student fails, within the opening paragraph of the student’s college essay or personal statement, to capture the imagination of the College Admission Officer, reviewing that student’s application, that application, in all likelihood, will be summarily rejected.

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Step Two: Never write the type of college essay or personal statement you think the College Admissions Officer wants to hear. Why? Because your essay may be deemed inauthentic by the College Admissions Officer reviewing your application. Think about it: These College Admissions professionals must read through tens of thousands of college essays each college application season. As such, these individuals can more easily detect when a college essay is not genuine. More importantly, when a student writes about a topic that touches the student deeply, that student's college essay will be far more engaging because the student will be more fully invested in the subject matter of the essay.

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This is why, whenever Sam is hired to assist a student in crafting a compelling, dynamic, determinative college essay or personal statement Sam typically commences the process by conducting an exhaustive two to three hour interview with the student.  During this interview, Sam, along with the student, probe the student’s experiential history, searching for the proverbial key that will unlock the student’s essence.  Thereafter, Sam, and the student, work hard to craft a first draft of the essay, which is further refined, sometimes countless times, until Sam, and the student, feel the essay captures the student’s essence, providing the college with an unobstructed view of the type of student the college is considering for admission into the college’s first year class.

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But, do not merely take Sam’s word for it: Instead, please feel free to peruse through the four dynamic, determinative sample college essays and the one dynamic, determinative personal statement featured below, which helped my students secure places, respectively, in the freshman class, at: Yale, MIT, NYU, Brown, and Imperial College London: