Imagine being a college admissions officer, and your job is to say no to 75 percent of the applications you see. You’re supposed to decline students, and when you accept students or give your approval, you must have a very good reason. When you decline a student, there are no questions asked. So, admissions officers’ jobs are easier when they decline students, and some are just looking for reasons to decline you. If you claim to volunteer for 100 hours of community service every week or your application is full of typos, you’re probably not going to make it to the next round. Avoid these following pitfalls to improve your ap ... Read More About How To Avoid College Admissions Red Flags

How cool would it be if you could start your college application essay with: “I’m a nationally published writer”? That is possible, and it would definitely wake up whoever is reading your application essay. The Huffington Post and the Patch (a network of over 800 hyper-local news sites), both owned by AOL, are currently recruiting bloggers (age minimum is 13). Right now, you can easily become a blogger and actually publish articles on the Patch’s website, which is read primarily by local audiences. The content provider has about 800 full-time writers, and it has asked all of them to recruit at least 10 writers each f ... Read More About How Students Can Become National Bloggers

It’s really not that hard. Step one: Lead off the essay with the most interesting/impactful thing you have ever done or will do. Example: “Years from now I will save people’s lives every week, every day, every hour – perhaps even your life.” Step two: Make sense of your lead sentence. Example: “At ___________ I plan to study engineering and ultimately launch a career, specializing in automobile safety." Step three: Tell the reader why this was/is important to your growth as a person and student. Write about how this has/will affect you, the people around you or even the world. You’re probably askin ... Read More About How Summer Experiences Craft College Essays

Scholarships – a college student’s best friend, one of the few things to actually mitigate the seemingly insurmountable amount of college tuition, the simplest way to reduce debt after college graduation. Yes, scholarship applications are important, and sometimes it can be hard to find that extra motivation to apply for them, especially when you’re not even sure if you’ll get any money out of it. Below are six common mistakes to avoid while writing a winning scholarship essay, from the US News & World Report. 1. Hurried writing: Sure it’s great if you can work quickly and well under pressure. But, there is ... Read More About Six Application Essay Mistakes

Young people interested in writing have a new home, and it’s Figment.com. The site launched in early December, calling itself an online community for young writers to share work samples, receive feedback from other young writers, read and explore new, young fiction writers.  Jacob Lewis, a former managing editor at the New Yorker, and Dana Goodyear, a staff writer at the New Yorker, created the site, originally envisioning it to be a similar to a social network site, like the young adults’ literary Facebook. However, the two noticed that young adults didn’t want another Facebook. What they wanted, “was to read a ... Read More About Online Community For Young Writers