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?

activities section

How to Write A Unique Activities Section for the Common App

It’s time to talk about everyone’s least favorite and most annoying part of the Common App: the activities section. Why is it annoying? Well, first of all, they give you extremely limited space to talk about your extracurriculars. We’re talking less than half a tweet’s worth. Well, only if you’re a regular Twitter user and you don’t give Elon $8 a month, because then it’s like 1/100th of a tweet.

What Is the Activities Section (Supplement) of the Common App?

The Activities section of the Common App is deceivingly straightforward. It asks you to report 10 activities (arts, athletics, clubs, employment, personal commitments, and other pursuits) that are of importance to you. Of course you’re going to report everything that you’ve been up to for the last 3 and change years. This is not optional. Students and parents alike struggle with the activities supplement because you have to condense your activities into a few short sentences and rank them in terms of importance. Fear not. We’re here to help.

How to Write the Best Activities Section of the Common App in 2021-2022

On our blog, we talk a lot about essays, but they aren’t the only section on the common app. If you are looking through the common app, you will see another big section: the activities section. This section is made for you to show off your extracurriculars and more. Everyone (hopefully!) does something outside of school and this is your time to show it off.

How To Fill Out The Activities Section of the Common App:

We get a fair amount of questions about the activities section of the common app. Our first piece of advice is to start a running log (on a google document and a saved word file) of all of your extracurricular activities starting freshman year. If you’re reading this as a junior and missed the boat, it’s not too late. Think back and type out everything that you’ve done in order. This will be especially helpful when you start writing a resume.