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506, 2015

Applying to an Ivy League College? Common App Essay Advice from a Former Harvard Interviewer!

By |June 5th, 2015|Categories: Brown, College Admissions, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Ivy League, Princeton, UPenn, Yale|Tags: , , , , , , , , |1 Comment

1. What are some of the common misconceptions/mistakes you see regarding students’ Common App Essay Ivy League? Do you have any general advice for the Common App? The biggest mistake I see students repeatedly make with the Common App Essay Ivy League, is not understanding what makes them unique. Schools are looking for “original thinkers”…. “original doers” and in your Common App Essay Ivy League you want to show off just what makes you different from your peers. It may be something you don’t even realize, or pay much attention to, so look for it! I had one student for example, who had spent her life studying ballet at a very high artistic level, where she was even asked to join a big city ballet company as an apprentice, and yet she didn’t think this was something worth mentioning, and instead wrote her essay on a science fair she participated in (wrong approach). Another student of mine had had an extremely interesting life growing up in a town where he and his brother were the only Jewish kids in their entire school system in the rural South. He (again, wrong approach) wrote about going on a summer trip to Mexico

3105, 2015

How to Prepare Your Kids For An Ivy League College Education

By |May 31st, 2015|Categories: The Harvard Admissions Interview|2 Comments

If you have always dreamed of having your son or daughter graduate from an Ivy League college -- which, to define the term, are the eight schools that make up the Ivy League and including: Harvard, Princeton, Yale (the "Big Three"), as well as Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, Columbia, and the University of Pennsylvania --  there are many thing you can do that will help your teen succeed in the Ivy League college admissions and college application process. Here are the steps of How To Prepare Kids For An Ivy League College: #1.  Make sure they take as many AP courses as possible:  College admissions officers, especially Ivy League college admissions officers want to see that your student is not only challenging themselves by taking the most challenging courses possible at their particular school, but they want to see that they are ALREADY fully immersed in college-level classes, before they even get to college. So, if your student's high school DOESN'T offer any AP course work, make sure they get it somewhere else (like enrolling in a community college at night). This shows that they will be able to handle the work-load once they get in to a highly competitive school.  It

2302, 2015

Thinking About Transferring to Another College? What You Need to Know…

By |February 23rd, 2015|Categories: Berkeley, Boston University, Brown, College Admissions, Columbia, Common App, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Emory, Harvard, Ivy League, Michigan, MIT, NYU, Princeton, Standford, UCLA, UGA, UPenn, Yale|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments

Thinking about transferring colleges? Know what to expect with my top tips!

210, 2014

Common App College Essay Prompts and How to Master Them for Your Ivy League Application!

By |October 2nd, 2014|Categories: Brown, College Admissions, Columbia, Common App, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Ivy League|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |1 Comment

So, it's official.  You've decided it's time to start working on your Common App. Good for you!  Great even.  You're not procrastinating!  That is, until you looked at the prompts and thought, "I have absolutely NO IDEA what to say, let alone guess what the colleges are even looking for."  This thought perhaps made you panicked, sick, ill, malaised (i.e. good SAT word, write it down), and forced you to have visions of working at a donut shop for the rest of your life, (not that there's anything wrong with that). Get more information on How to Master the Common App Essay! Perhaps you had plans though of potentially setting off for Harvard, Princeton, Yale, or some other picturesque U.S. school to watch football games, meet great life-long friends, STUDY and get an excellent education, and just do something incredibly solid and interesting with your life...but then messed it all up with the Common App and destroyed the dream.  Done.  OVER.  Donut? Well, stop worrying.  We're going to go through the prompts one by one, and if you take away my key points from each of the questions, you're going to do more than fine. Prompt #1: Some students have a

2109, 2014

The Common App: How to Write a Great College Application

By |September 21st, 2014|Categories: Berekeley, Brown, college, College Admissions, Columbia, Common App, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Ivy League, Ivy League Advice, Ivy League College, MIT, NYU, Princeton, Standford, Stanford, UCLA, UPenn, Yale|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , |3 Comments

The Common App Essay How to Write a Great College Application! The season is upon us: college applications, and right now is a good time to start working on your Common App.  You're a month into the new school year, you've settled in, and now the Common App essay is staring you in the face. Here is what should you know about How to Write an Ivy League College Application Essays: Where do you begin?  You know you have to start writing it...but HOW? You try to forget about it, but you can't.  How can you write the absolutely best college admission essays possible when you have no idea what to write about or where to begin?? Similarly, neither do you know what the college admission committee is even looking for, nor what will make a really strong college essay and application.  This holds true for all colleges and universities, but ESPECIALLY if you're applying to the Ivy League. Oh yeah, and did I mention your entire future appears to depend on this? Don't worry though, because I am going to walk you through the process. I'm a former Harvard admissions interviewer + Harvard grad, and I know how to

1906, 2013

How Important Are Extracurriculars for Your College Application?

By |June 19th, 2013|Categories: College Admissions, Common App|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |0 Comments

  How Important Are Extracurriculars for College Application? Do schools really care what clubs you joined, what sports you played, what charity you may have volunteered for, or what musical instrument you possibly tried to master? How Important Are Extracurriculars For College Application? What exactly are colleges looking for when they ask you about your participation during your high school? I would like to answer this question today, based on my own experience as a former Harvard University interviewer (and as a Harvard graduate, myself). In terms of extracurricular activities, admissions officers are looking for a point-of-entry into your personality. They want to find something they can focus on, that will differentiate them from the many other applicants. Admissions committees use your extracurricular activities to paint a picture of who you are. As a student and as a person -- to develop a fuller understanding of how you spend your time when you are not studying or at school, and to access your level of intellectual and cultural interest, background, and depth. In other words, your extracurricular activities are like the paint a painter paints with while creating a portrait of YOU. Your goal is to make those colors, that paint

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