By Amy T. Let’s be honest—college applications are stressful at best, and if you feel uncertain on your college major or are considering 2 majors in different fields, they can feel even more overwhelming, especially when faced with “Why this major?” essay prompts. Here’s the good news: you’re not alone. Studies show that up to 80% of students will change their major at least once during their bachelor’s program. Admissions
by Amy T. So, you’ve landed on a topic for your college essay and you’re ready to get started. The only issue is that you’ll be writing about an academic subject or major that happens to be complex, and you’re not quite sure how to approach it. How much do you have to explain the topic for your intended audience—the admissions reader? Since admissions readers come from diverse academic backgrounds,
by Kathleen M. Figurative language adds a lot to your writing by making what you say more relatable, showing something about you and your creativity, and making the examples you offer more concrete. But figurative language can go astray if you use it incorrectly. How can you not overuse figurative language in your essays? 1. Be sure to choose figures of speech that make sense in the context of your essay
by Kathleen M. So, here is the thing. There is no magic formula to “sound smart.” The best way to accomplish this is by sounding confident. And how do you sound confident? Write about something you know well. Once you select a topic you know well, plan an essay on that subject. Make sure there is a main point, evidence, and focused organization. Then write what you know. You will
by Kathleen M. Making decisions about when and how to use semicolons is more often about style than it is about grammar. Your sense of writing style comes through when you decide how to punctuate complex and compound sentences. Your writing style also comes through when you showcase your ability to write a variety of sentence types. These kinds of considerations come in the later stages of your writing process,
by Kathleen M. It is time to write an essay, and you’ve read all of the prompts and have selected the one you want to respond to. You do the brainstorming, look at your activity list for inspiration, and choose the story you want to tell. Then you sit down to write, and somehow, you come up short. Your essay draft is well below the requested word count, and honestly,
by Kathleen M. It is time to start learning a few shortcuts to help you in reading and writing for college. When you read, if you take notes, you will be better able to remember the details of what you read. This is important because not only will it help you with readings in college classes, it will also help you to understand your own point in your writing, such
by Kathleen M. Your life is full of writing opportunities every day. Taking a minute to recognize these opportunities and to start to take advantage of them is a good first step in training yourself to improve your writing in a nearly unconscious fashion. So first, take a deep breath. We are creating a new habit here, not anything more. Look around for a way to practice writing that feels
by Kathleen M. Always remember that your college application essays are about you, and why you would be a great fit for a particular university. So your interests, goals, and intentions should come together to give a full picture of you. But what if your interests were related to something you worked on with social media, like Instagram or YouTube? Can you mention social media topics in a college essay?
by Kathleen M. Yes and no. How is that for an answer? As with many things you are considering as you prepare to write a college admissions essay, the answer is maybe. It depends on what example you are using and why you want to use that answer. If the pop culture reference shows the reader something about you, then the answer is more likely to be yes. But remember
by Kathleen M. The main problem with most writing is clarity. And teachers will mark all sorts of things to help you try to clarify your meaning. One of the things they may have suggested you learn about is vague pronoun reference. One of the problems with having to look up things that will aid in your writing is that the grammar terms might be confusing. In order to understand
by Kathleen M. In order to avoid sentence fragments, you have to know what they are. And it is really pretty simple: a sentence fragment is a sentence which is missing one of its main parts – either the subject or verb. The problem with missing one of these essential elements is that first of all it is incorrect, but additionally, a sentence fragment rarely makes sense on its own.
by Kathleen M. There are a few tried and true ways to make personal writing sound more conversational, and less academic. This tonal change in your writing for application essays can be made with just a few easy changes. The first thing to pay attention to is the audience. This is true in all kinds of writing but to make your writing more conversational, you have to imagine an audience
by Kathleen M. You selected your dream school, you applied and …. wait list! Now what? If this school is still the school you want, now is the time to refocus your energy and writing skill and send a letter of continued interest (if the school has asked for one, or as long as they didn’t say don’t write!). What are some tips you should know for writing a waitlist
By Kathleen M. So you are a STEM student who has lots of application essays to write and are struggling to write about all of the work you have done. You have a list of projects and internships and summer programs that you have participated in and are unsure of how to move from list to essay. How can you write about a STEM project? Here are a few ideas:
by Kathleen M. One of the most difficult questions that students have to answer in essays is the question that asks you to think about how you know what you know – or what you learned from an experience. It is easy to describe what you know or the experience itself – but much harder to explain how you are different now that you have that knowledge. So as with
by Kathleen M. If you are stumped about how to present your achievements in an application essay for a summer program or for a college application, think about what you want to highlight about you. What makes you different? What makes you a good applicant? One articles suggests that what may be important to link to your achievements are character traits you might not initially think of a part of
by Kathleen M. If you have to tell people that they have reached the end of your personal statement, you may have a problem with your personal statement. So my first piece of advice when writing your conclusion is to not open with “in conclusion.” My second piece of advice is to re-read your introduction and see what connections you may make to show you how to write your conclusion
by Kathleen M. Now that you have a draft of your Common App Essay written, it is time for revision. “Revision” means seeing it again – hopefully from a new perspective. So as you work on polishing and revising your own essay, here is one way to be sure the HOCs and LOCs are all locked in! Supplies needed: Your essay, sticky notes, pens. Step one: Read your essay one
by Kathleen M. We all know what a paragraph is. But do we? We can agree that a paragraph has one main idea, has a topic sentence, evidence, and a link to the thesis. But when writing a personal essay, the thesis and topic sentence may not be as obvious as they are when you are writing an expository essay. So how do we know when to end one paragraph
by Kathleen M. One of the main challenges in writing a Common App Essay is writing something that isn’t boring or cliched or overused. How can you avoid writing a boring essay? Let’s go over some examples that may be more boring or expected. For example: My aunt was the one who always babysat me ever since I was five years old. I always remember her love for the outdoors,
By Kathleen M. One of the key lessons to learn as you write your personal narrative as a part of your college application is to be specific. Two of the words that get in the way of that specificity are “it” and “that.” Sure they are handy words to use and work in all kinds of ways in all kinds of sentences, but if you are working to make your
by Kathleen M. As you write, you may find yourself googling questions that are stressing you out. You know that your English teacher told you not to use personal pronouns in formal writing and here you are trying to write a personal narrative for your college application. How are you supposed to write about your authentic self without using I? You aren’t. Use “I” – you have to use “I”
by Kathleen M. You have been working on college applications essay and trying to come up with an idea but are drawing a blank. Do you feel like you should have your Common App essay outlined but can’t come up with any ideas? Remember that you have loads of resources at your fingertips and try to relax! First, what have you done for brainstorming? Did you consider a few values
by Kathleen M. You had a wonderful summer internship or extracurricular where you learned a lot about tech or STEM, and you would like to showcase that as part of your college application essay. Perfect! Now take a minute to remember that the audience for your personal essay and the audience who might understand what you did related to CS or programming or AI may not crossover. Here are 3
by Kathleen M. As Oscar Wilde famously quipped, “Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.” If only this advice were easy to follow when you are writing a personal essay to be included in your college admission portfolio. But it is necessary because the college of your dreams wants an authentic and honest sense of who you are. Authentic you. When you write and add in words you don’t fully
by Kathleen M. Have you ever tried to convince someone that you can multitask? If yes, you probably need to work on limiting your distractions while writing! Or at least considering these elements of your work/distraction balance will help you to be more efficient and write more effectively. Designate time for writing. Then turn off notifications, set a timer, and work. If your phone lighting up is distracting, then turn
by Kathleen M. Congratulations! You finished exams and have taken a little time off and now you want to know how to proceed with getting your college application together. There are two main questions to consider: Why are you writing a personal essay? When should you begin writing? You should write your purpose down. Why are you writing a personal essay to the college of your dreams? What do you
by Kathleen M. When do you write your introduction? Is it the first thing you write or the last? Or does it happen in the midst of writing your essay? Different online writing sites offer a variety of advice for when it is best to write your introduction. But it is your essay, do what works for you! And remember that what works for you may vary from one writing
by Kathleen M. Ever wonder how to add more life to your writing? Sometimes writing is correct and clear but lacks any emotion or life; these types of essays are often difficult for the reader because they lack energy. These “boring” essays are a struggle for writers because like all personal writing, if it’s yours, it is probably clear and interesting to you. Here is a list of ways you
by Michelle P. From earlier posts on originality to values, students understand why it’s important to write a strong and unique college application essay. But what if a student still feels stuck? Everything they like, or the main experiences and stories they want to share—all of it feels pretty normal to the student. How can they write an interesting college application essay about a normal topic? Connect the ‘what?’ of the
by Kathleen M. One of the challenges of the personal essay is writing effective transitions. When we are writing essays, we know to refer back to our thesis statement in order to create transitions, or to look for the connection between ideas and make that connection clear. These same lessons apply to the personal college application essay. Just remember that transitions are the glue that hold the essay together. In
by Michelle P. One essay for college applications can already be an intimidating task for many students. Multiply that by the variety of essay prompts required from colleges, and the writing work required looks like a very tall mountain indeed. How can students write more quickly for a personal college application essay, especially when you want to get that first draft out on paper? And no, we are not talking
by Michelle P. Instead of detailed business spreadsheets, perhaps you are most used to examining new versions of code. Or, instead of scrutinizing variables for a science lab, you feel most at home testing out solutions for coding bugs. While Computer Science is a fascinating area with many applications within your daily life, it can prove a challenge to write about for a college essay or summer program application. What
by Molly R. Good writing is engaging and captures the attention of its readers. As we have shared before, writing a good college application essay means writing an essay that is meaningful, uses descriptive language, and is emotional. Repetitive sentence structures can bore your readers and make them lose interest. One way to keep your readers engaged is by utilizing a diverse range of sentence structures. Sentences are composed of
by Sarah M. When you write your college essays, whether a personal statement, a supplemental, or anything else, it’s important to be as descriptive as possible. This is what can truly set you apart from the crowd: your ability not just to narrate an experience, but to make it come alive to the reader, to explain convincingly what was unique about it. There are a lot of ways to tackle
by Michelle P. Do you get excited about the chance to take apart and repair a gaming computer? Or what about working on robots for NASA and scientific discoveries? If your future college interest is towards engineering or robotics, how can you write a strong essay about it for college applications, either in the supplements or the main essays? See what you can learn with these 3 tips from the
by Drew C. As a concept, “style” can be hard to pin down. In writing, style is technically the result of diction (the words you choose) and syntax (the shape of your sentences). In essence, it’s how you express yourself on the page—how you come across. You can think of writing style in terms of fashion, since the process of choosing the right clothes to suit your personal taste is
by Michelle P. Our previous essay blog post focuses on how to write a great personal essay on a business or entrepreneurship interest if you’re a student. Building off of that, what are some great examples of writing that students can look at, to inspire themselves when writing personal statements for summer business programs of a business major? You can analyze 3 examples of writing from articles below which focus
by Michelle P. Have you ever finished a draft of an essay, after hours and hours of thinking, then sat back and looked at it? Did you ever think that the story of the essay was there, but somehow read as stiff and a little boring? One big issue that comes up for students writing a personal essay, whether for college applications or a summer program, can be understanding how
by Molly R. Many college essay students don’t want to seem conceited or egotistical in their college essays. At the same time, it is also important to not diminish your skills and achievements in these essays. Use your college essays as a place to shine and as an opportunity to highlight all of your high school success. If you are gearing up to write your college essay next year or
by Molly R. As you probably know, it’s imperative to write concisely in your college essays. Every word matters when there is a small word count and it is important that you share relevant details to make your essay compelling. Oversharing can make your essay confusing and hard to read. Yet, undersharing leaves holes in your story and will be confusing for an admissions officer. Therefore, it’s crucial that you
by Michelle P. What is the career that you imagined you would have as a kid? An action movie star? A fashion designer? It would be very likely your career interests have changed and developed as you’ve grown through high school. Colleges you are applying for would also be interested to know what kind of career interest you have as a student. Your essay is a strong chance to show
by Michelle P. Common App prompt #6 asks: Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more? A lot of students find it fun to write for this Common App prompt, seeing as the entire focus of the prompt is about a
by Molly R. Previous Essay Narwhal blogs have shared tips and tricks for Common App Prompts #1 and #2. This week, we’re pleased to share some insights for lucky #3: Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome? As with other Common App questions, it’s best to be specific and share positive growth. Admission officers want to
by Molly R. At IvyBoost, we know how important college essays are because they display something more than just test scores and grades: They share your story. One way to tell your story and to present yourself authentically is make sure that you’re writing in the right tone. When it comes to creating a memorable and effective college essay, use a conversational and courteous tone. Imagine you are telling the
by Sarah M. The stakes are high when you sit down to write your personal statement for the Common App (or any college essay, for that matter), so it can be easy to get a little carried away. Writers sometimes get too caught up in big ideas, and end up writing grandiose essays inspired by the most pressing issues of our time. While behemoths like climate change or world peace
by Nick L. Writer’s block. These two words have plagued writers ever since ancient Mesopotamians began scrawling ideas into clay tablets, and the advent of a long list of helpful writing tools— from the typewriter to the modern computer—haven’t made things any easier for writers who find themselves searching in vain for the next word. Whether you’re just beginning and trying to come up with an exciting subject for your
by Michelle After days of typing and staring blankly at a computer screen, you’ve managed to complete a first draft of a college essay! But upon rereading your draft, your brow furrows. Something seems to be missing—but what? What are some important details that students can miss and forget to include in their college essays? 1.Name of an event Once, a student working on an essay wrote a paragraph on
by Michelle One popular prompt that pops up often for college essays would be a question like ‘Describe a community you are a part of’ or ‘Describe how you have contributed to your community.’ These prompts can prove puzzling to many students, who may be unsure how to describe a community. Beyond the TV-perfect image of a community being made up of a group of friends in a fancy New
by Albert L. It. No, I’m not talking about the killer clown that preys on your deepest fears. However, overreliance on the word “it” in your writing should scare you. This seemingly harmless pronoun is the antithesis of clarity in writing. I understand the allure of this word for writers. It is a catchall to mean almost anything. You might say, EssayNarwhal Blogger, you just used it. And yes, I
by Michelle At some point, an Essay Narwhal may find themselves needing to describe a setting in their essays. For prompts like ‘Why would you choose this college?’ (when you’ve had a chance to visit) or ‘describe your community and a problem you fixed in it’, knowing how to give readers a sense of place through your writing can be especially important. An earlier post, Chewing the Scenery, does give
by Michelle Pick up your pen and cross out those lines about a 1st place science award or winning a statewide music competition. While accomplishments and academic awards may have been hard-earned, they may not show the most attention-grabbing or important parts of your personality in the college application essays. So what are some stronger tips on how to stand out in college essays and show your unique self? 1.
by Michelle This April Fool’s, want to know a nice way to show a little more personality in a college essay? Humor. Does a college essay have to be serious all the time? No. Do you have to use humor in your college essays to make it a good essay? No, not necessarily. But reading this post can also help boost your writing techniques in general for any kind of
by Michelle You may still be finishing up a few last-minute college supplements for deadlines! Or you may have found this post while intrigued by how you can prepare for your summer activity essays or college essays in the future. Every year, there are 4 cliches that constantly show up in students’ college essay drafts like an inevitable flock of seagulls swarming over spilled french fries. No matter the topic,
by Sarah M. Students are often advised to stay away from essay topics that might be too generic, and one common example of that is athletics. Since so many high school students play sports, it can seem like it might be too difficult to write a unique essay. But there’s no reason to throw out an entire genre, especially one so potentially rich and interesting. Athletics can provide excellent experience
by Michelle It’s 8pm on a weekday and you’re sitting in front of your computer, ready to keep going with your drafts on your essays for your college application. Instead of sitting uncomfortably in a creaky desk chair with the white light of the screen burning your eyes, you imagine yourself somewhere else. Maybe a beach, on a warm, lazy afternoon. You’re looking out at the water, watching the ocean
