You cannot beat a one-on-one brainstorming session.  Many a book has been written about how to write “winning college essays” but they can’t hold a candle to a carefully placed question asked at just the right time and in person.  When a student is thinking through an idea and I can ask, “What do you mean by that?” or “Why do you feel that way?” Or “Can you prove it to me?”  That is when you can see the wheels turning and progress being made.  It is hard work and it takes true focus and maturity to write honestly about yourself.   It is not something that many of us have experience with and is particularly foreign to seventeen year olds.  It is not like writing a paper for history class – there will be no sources to quote or facts to site.  This writing has to come from within and it may just take awhile.

So, the other day my husband kindly put the air-conditioner in my office window.  Summer is here and brainstorming has begun.  Bring it on.

Take some time to figure out what conditions are best for you to do your “best thinking” and make sure that you set yourself up this way when you go to write your essay.  For example, I do my best thinking when I go for a run by myself.  Some people like to listen to instrumental music, while others like to walk.  Some like to have a completely clear table to work at and others feel stymied by such sterile surroundings.  Discover what exactly will set you up for success as you search for your perfect, creatively inspiring essay writing conditions.

Your essay needs to be very personal and revealing about who you are and how you think.  This is not the kind of writing that very many of us have experience with. It is difficult and will take effort.  Don’t expect to sit down and whip off an essay in an hour and expect that it will hold up for you.  Expect to work at it and anticipate rewrites and experimentation rather than settle on an essay with which you are not completely thrilled.

At some colleges, particularly the large ones that don’t offer admissions interviews, the essay is the only opportunity the admissions folks have to get to know you.  Use this opportunity wisely and put some effort into writing it, it will be well worth it.

College admission folks are charged with several goals and one of them is to help ensure that their college campus is an interesting and dynamic place to be.  How does one do that?  Invite people to attend that are sure to get involved in activities on campus.  Who is likely to get involved in something on campus?  Somebody with a passion for whatever it is they do.  Here is where the pay off comes for sticking with what you enjoy.

So, don’t worry about whether a college is more impressed by a field hockey player or a flute player.  The activity does not matter.  What does matter is how much enjoyment there is.  If the activity is enjoyable it will stick and that is what matters most.

Sometimes my reply elicits a hoot or a pumped fist until I ask what they would like to take instead.  When I say that study hall and basket weaving are not viable substitutes the mood quickly changes. A viable substitute would need to be another course in one of the other four core subjects (English, Math, Science or Social Studies).

There is often confusion over what is required in terms of course selection versus what is recommended.  For example, many high schools require two years of a foreign language as a graduation requirement.  This doesn’t mean that colleges only want to see two years.  The graduation requirements are next to meaningless for college admissions, the college standards are usually more rigorous and it is these recommendations that matter when competing for a place at a competitive college.

John (the name has been changed to protect his privacy) had done really well on his PSAT exam in both 10^th and 11^th grade.  In fact, in 11^th grade he had perfect scores of 80 in two of the three sections.  He went in to the SAT reasoning test in March with an understandable degree of confidence and in fact came out of the exam thinking that things had gone well.  When the scores came back (on-line) two weeks later, he was disappointed to find that in all three sections his scores had plummeted (by 100 to 140 points per section compared to his equivalent PSAT scores).  I remembered he had mentioned that he had gotten “off” by a place and had to erase and re-do one section. Could it be that the eraser marks threw off the machine scoring?  I thought, maybe this is a case where it would be worth paying the $52. the Collegeboard charges for the hand-score service. I tried not to get his hopes up but said it was worth having it done, for his piece of mind if nothing else.

Three weeks later, John receives a short and sweet e-mail that indicates that his originally reported scores match his hand scored results.  I realize this may not be the climax of the story that we were all hoping for but there were still things to learn from this experience.  For one thing, it confirmed at least anecdotally that it is rare indeed  for a testing service to make an error in scoring.  Two, aside from the $52 charge, the process of requesting a hand-scored test is not all that painful.  And three, even smart and confident students can have an off day when it comes to standardized tests. Do I wish I had advised John not to exercise the hand-score option?  No.  I think we both benefitted from the lessons learned and there is value in piece of mind.

One of the great things about these workshops is that I can confirm what is happening with my students versus national trends.  I have been hearing, in greater numbers than usual this year, about students being placed on college admission “wait-lists”. I learned just how long these waitlists can actually be and the numbers are staggering.  One admissions dean that we heard from said that he hopes he can keep his waitlist to a size that does not exceed the size of his entering class!  This is at a very elite, small liberal arts college.  This sent me doing a little research on the matter.  Sure enough,  many colleges had waitlists that were two and three times larger than the size of their freshman class!

So, I decided to do a little more digging with an unscientifically random sample of some nearby colleges.  How many of those waitlisted at colleges in our area last year actually got in?  Last year Amherst college had put over 1,000 people on its wait list (for a class of about 450) and they didn’t invite a single person off the waitlist to attend.  Babson put over 700 students on their waitlist in 2010 and also invited zero to attend.  BU had put 2,370 students on its waitlist in 2010 and invited 8 of those students to attend.

It confirms a couple of important things.  For one, I will stand by my advice to treat a waitlist like a denial (but first reply that you would like to remain on the waitlist if you are truly interested).  And two, reply to the invitation to be on the waitlist!  If you don’t bother to reply to the waitlist invitation, you will definitely not be invited to attend.  If you have decided on another college and are no longer interested, reply with a short and sweet “no thank you”.  The colleges typically are left wondering about the status of their waitlisted students which is exactly why they put so many students on the waitlist in the first place.

So, waitlists are better than denials; but just barely keep that good news in perspective.