Caroline Koppelman
Why This College Essay Question Guide and ...

Why do you want to go to school here? If there’s one prompt you are certain to write more than once, it’s this one. This prompt comes in a few different flavors, but at the end of the day, they all want to know why their school is the perfect school for you and why you’re the perfect student for them. No pressure or anything.

Caroline Koppelman
Official Common App Essay Guide 2024-2025

We’ve spent the last few weeks breaking down the Common App essay prompt by prompt, and today we’re going to give you our ultimate guide to writing the Common App essay. There might be seven different prompts, but ultimately, all schools want the same thing from their applicants’ Common App essays: a story.

Caroline Koppelman
Rejected Early Decision from Columbia 2023

Getting a rejection in the Early Decision round is definitely not easy. But the good news is, it’s really just the start, and that one rejection has no bearing on how you’re going to do with other, similarly competitive schools. The thing about Early Decision is it comes alone and it comes first. It’s sometimes easier to tolerate a rejection when it’s preceded by several acceptance letters. College admissions are extraordinarily competitive these days and the Ivies are just more competitive than any other time or place in history. That’s it. It doesn’t get harder. And Columbia in particular has just a 4% acceptance rate! So, if you’ve been rejected in the Early Decision round, don’t despair. We have some advice about how you might go forward. (And don’t worry, it’s really not that much more work!)

Caroline Koppelman
Deferred by Harvard — Now What? (2023-24)

If you’ve been deferred by Harvard, you are not alone. Harvard is notorious at this point for deferring an enormous percentage of early admission applicants. While most elite colleges with early admissions programs, like early decision and early action, only defer students they are seriously considering for the next freshman class, the statistics Harvard has released on early admission suggest that they take a very different approach.

Caroline Koppelman
Writing the “Why This College” Essay

Even though every college has slightly different supplementary application materials, you’ll likely run into a variation of one question more than any other: “Why do you want to attend this school in particular?” It’s every institution’s way of saying, Let’s cut to the chase. Why us?

UNC

Rejected Early Action from UNC Chapel Hill 2024-2025

If you’re here, we’re guessing you’ve just been rejected EA from UNC and are feeling unsure of what to do next. Right now, you’re probably reeling and looking for a way to keep yourself busy. Let’s take a moment to acknowledge that UNC Chapel Hill is a highly competitive school, especially for out-of-state applicants. The overall acceptance rate is around 20%, with out-of-state acceptance at 8%. The EA acceptance rate (and we don’t know the in vs out-of-state breakdown here) lasy cycle was 23%. This puts UNC in the “far reach” category for most out-of-state students, and we’re telling you this because sometimes numbers like this make us feel better. Not getting in doesn’t mean you won’t find your place at another amazing school. With decades of experience (both in college stuff and general life stuff), we can confidently say: you will go to college, and you will be successful!

How to Get into UNC Chapel Hill

The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, sometimes just called UNC, is a public research university. You have probably heard of their Basketball team, the UNC Tar-Heels… Come on, Michael Jordan went there. But there is a lot more going on at UNC. It’s one of the oldest public universities in the US. They offer over 70 courses of study for their about 20k undergrads. The school is also serious about research and is part of the North Carolina Research Triangle with Duke and NC State.