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?

target school

What’s The Difference Between A Reach, Target, and Safety School?

There is very little randomness in the college application process. And while everyone seems to believe that they just might be the single outlier, there comes a time when you need to make decisions about how to best spend your time. This week, we’ve been focusing on creating and refining your college list. This blog post will help you categorize your list into reach, target, and safety schools.

How To Build a Balanced College List

Building a balanced list is about research and knowing what you want. The first component has to do with identifying the school’s numerical range that you’re interested in--the average SAT/ACT scores are available on the schools’ websites, and from there you compare your own score. If your scores are above, it’s a safety, if they’re around the same, a target, and if you fall below numerically, then the school is a reach. Before we delve into building your list, make sure that you read up on the difference between reaches, targets, and safety schools in our blog post on the topic. This post builds on that knowledge.