1 / 10

Welcome to Day 23 of Summer Academy (aka COLLEGE DAY)!

Welcome to Day 23 of Summer Academy (aka COLLEGE DAY)!. What writing opportunities are available in the 2013-14 Common Application? The Essay. Required of all applicants.

nessa
Download Presentation

Welcome to Day 23 of Summer Academy (aka COLLEGE DAY)!

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Welcome to Day 23 of Summer Academy (aka COLLEGE DAY)!

  2. What writing opportunities are available in the 2013-14 Common Application? • The Essay. Required of all applicants. • Additional Information. Optional for applicants who wish to report circumstances or 
qualifications not reflected elsewhere in the application. • Required Explanations. Conditionally required for applicants based on responses to 
application questions about school discipline, criminal history, military discharge, or an interrupted education. • The common app in the past has asked, “Please briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences in the space below.”

  3. Supplemental Application Questions • USC • Amherst • Tufts • Harvard: Occasionally, students feel that college application forms do not provide sufficient opportunity to convey important information about themselves or their accomplishments. If you wish to include an additional essay, you may do so. Possible Topics:Unusual circumstances in your life, Travel or living experiences in other countries , A letter to your future college roommate, An intellectual experience (course, project, book, discussion, paper or research topic) that has meant the most to you, How you hope to use your college education, A list of books you have read during the past twelve months

  4. THE RHETORICAL SITUATION • A text (an actual instance or piece of communication) • An author (someone who uses communication) • Audiences (recipients of communication) • ADMISSIONS OFFICERS • Purposes (why the author is communicating) • TO PERSUADE – LET ME IN! • TO SUPPLEMENT WHAT THEY ALREADY KNOW • A setting (the time, place, and environment surrounding a moment of communication) • THE REST OF THE APPLICATION • THE READER’S EXHAUSTED STATE

  5. Advice from Admissions Officers • “Introductions are nice, but the whole essay has to work.” • “[We] are reading the essay more for content…so many kids obsess about the writing style instead of worrying about the actual content and that’s a mistake.” • “It’s not just the essay that counts. It’s the whole application.” • “It’s important to tell a good story. Think about the stories you listen to in your life that your relatives tell or your friends tell. If they’re well told, that’s what catches your attention.” • “The more specific examples you can use, the more you can make it a story with very specific details, the better.”

  6. When I was four years old, I fell in love. It was not a transient love-one they stayed by my side during the good times and vanished during the bad-but rather a love so deep that few would understand. It was not the love for a person, but the love for a language. It was the love for Spanish. Having been born and raised behind the Iron Curtain, in a country where Western influence was limited and the official and only language was Romanian, I was on my own… [Stanford]

  7. People say that inner beauty matters more than outer beauty. But when I looked in the mirror and saw my face covered with unsightly blemishes, it was hard to tell myself that and believe it. By the time I entered high school, my acne had gotten worse and my self esteem was at an all-time low. So in the summer of ninth grade I embarked on an unexpectedly difficult and emotionally trying quest for clear skin, an experience that culminated in one of my proudest achievements. [Yale]

  8. Video supplement – “Enjoy the Show” • Video supplement – “In My Shoes”

  9. Show, Don’t Tell/Be Specific • I’m a hard worker • I’m intellectually curious

  10. PROCESS • Consider every possibility – ask people who know you well for ideas • Free write • Don’t worry about the beginning when you start writing • Read it out loud • Have other people read it • Don’t delete/get rid of anything • Try out different introductions (starting with our packet) • Talk to yourself, video/audio record it, transcribe it • Get the content down and then worry about form and style • Do structural revision – CUT IT UP • Write more than one essay on different topics • Write lots of drafts • Start now.

More Related