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?

advice

Advice for Sophomore Year of High School

Some people think of sophomore year as kind of a throw-away. It’s not freshman year where everything is new. It’s not senior year where everything is your last. It’s not junior year where you’re scrambling to make it through the barrage of standardized tests. We like to think of it as an opportunity for a cornerstone year. Consider this: you’re well-adjusted to the flow of high school, but the onslaught of junior year has not yet begun. It’s the perfect time to build a solid foundation for the college application process.

Senior Year of High School Advice

Senior year is go-time. It really is the final stretch in the college application process. Hopefully you’ve been ahead of the curve and have been pacing out all of the studying, exam-taking, application-prepping, and resume-building. (If you haven’t, this one might hurt a little.) The most important part about senior year—particularly first-semester—is to get everything done early and make sure it’s done well. You’re in the home stretch. We promise, there will be time to relax second semester, but for now, keep up the effort.

How to Talk to a Teacher About a Bad Grade

We’ve all been there. And let us be the first to tell you: it’s going to be okay. But most of the time, poor grades on your transcript are avoidable. It’s not like you get As on all of your papers and then all of a sudden get a C in the class because the teacher feels like it. Course grades are a cumulative reflection on how you did over a period of time, and oftentimes, students don’t react as quickly as they should to warning signs like Bs or Cs on papers or tests before the final grades are submitted.