Anna Ivey gives you ruthlessly practical admissions advice
A substantial percentage – upwards of 60% of selective colleges that use holistic admissions – have either a “Why College X” or “Why Major X” question on their applications. Some have both. Most of these types of questions require a short answer (50-250 words), while others require an essay (250-500 words). These questions offer you a great opportunity to persuade an admissions officer that this college and its programs are exactly the right match for you.
Hello end of summer! Everything is accelerating and intensifying as you go back to school, and if you’ve been following our week-by-week plan, you are well underway with your college applications. You are ready to finalize your first essays, revise your second set, and get started on your third! That puts you in good shape and will keep you from being too stressed out as you start your senior year.
Every U.S. law school application asks about some mix-and-match of criminal disclosures. This post is all about helping you figure out what the key words in the disclosure questions are, and how to figure out what a particular school is asking you to disclose. (They are law schools, after all, so the precise language they use does matter.)
Now that you have your strategy, have done all your pre-work, and prepared your Writing Map, it’s time to choose topics for your writing. The best way to ensure that you produce compelling essays is to choose the right topics for those essays, and that’s what you’re going to do this week using our tips and tricks.
Now that the Common App is open for the coming application cycle, it’s time to work on your Writing Map! Yes, one more thing before you start writing.
“Work smarter, not harder,” is one of the strategies that we encourage students to use, but there is a risk that you might get so focused on minimizing your work that you sabotage yourself.
When you're sitting down to start drafting your law school personal statement, you might feel a strong temptation to write a think piece, or an opinion piece, or a position statement. All about a Big Issue that shows you're a Big Thinker who thinks Big Thoughts and proposes Big Solutions. And no wonder.
