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?

ucla

How to Get into UCLA

The University of California Los Angeles, usually just called UCLA, is a public university in LA’s Westwood neighborhood. UCLA is one of nine undergraduate schools in the popular University of California system. UCLA has six undergraduate schools and Arts and Architecture, Engineering and Applied Science, Music, Nursing, Public Affairs, and Theater, Film and Television (and over 120 majors!) They are especially celebrated for their School of Theater, Film, and Television (TFT). Come on, it is LA, but they also have popular majors in biology, business economics, political science, psychology, and psychobiology.

The Best Majors at UCLA

UCLA is a public land grant university in Los Angeles, California…hence the name University of California, Los Angeles. The school is a powerhouse of a university, and is home to more than 33,000 undergraduate students and nearly 50,000 students total. Students at UCLA are idealistic, and feel a sense of purpose. They want to be part of something bigger than themselves in life, but also in their college experience. The campus itself is a huge community within Los Angeles, and students have access to everything they could ever want — including over 125 majors to choose from. The acceptance rate is about 9%.