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?

bad grades

Explaining a Low Grade on Your Transcript 

We all want to live in a world where there are no low grades, but that’s not the universe most of us live in. For the vast majority of students, low grades happen here and there. Whether it’s an awkward transition to high school freshman year that took a toll on your science grade, or a teacher you simply didn’t meld with for junior year English, there are lots of reasons why you might have a dip on your transcript that isn’t representative of what you’re capable of. Ideally, these situations are anomalies — not the norm.  

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.