Freshman Admissions

Freshman Admissions You have narrowed that list to the three or four most important ideas â€" the ones that will get you into your preferred college/university. Reading and answering the prompt may seem a bit obvious, but it’s often the obvious that people ignore. You should take the time to read and re-read the essay prompt, so you can answer it fully. Don’t be intimidated; unlike some college exams, the college application essay prompt is not designed to trick you. However, you must demonstrate that you can read and follow directions. Brilliantly, the school also removed the space for students to put any activities from ninth grade on their application. From MIT’s point of view, ninth grade is a safe harborâ€"a year to change your mind, to try different things without regard to your track record. These three shared features are all about intensityâ€"not just participation in college life, but active engagement. In each of these essays, students were able to share stories from their everyday lives to reveal something about their character, values, and life that aligned with the culture and values at Hopkins. The admissions officers are expecting you to celebrate yourself, to underline your strengths and personality, so they can make a quick, accurate judgment about you. At this stage in the college admissions essay writing process, you have considered the goals and psychology of the college admissions board. You have produced a list of ideas/attributes/details about yourself that colleges will find appealing. I believe Derrick Bell’s legal education allowed him to offer the black community cogent insights on their political and social realities. Later in his book, Malcolm X expressed that one of his greatest regrets was his lack of formal academic education and that he believed he would have become a great lawyer but simply never had the opportunity. “I selected this career path due to my passion for defending the indigent,” said Muhammad, who also intends to raise awareness and organize against structural racism through scholarly articles and speeches. This essay highlights her personality and values and helps us imagine how she will collaborate with others throughout different spaces on campus in a diverse student body. By broadening her initial anecdote and having the majority of the essay focus on her reflections and takeaways, we were able to spend even more time learning about Callie. Below you’ll find selected examples of essays that “worked,” as nominated by our admissions committee. We need to change the culture around exams such as the SAT. They should never be more than one factor in an admissions decision. Low scores should never be a veto on a student’s life. The admissions officers are looking for a reason to disregard candidates. Don’t let them reject you because you hastily overlooked a sentence in the essay prompt. Most students want the college admissions board to view them as responsible, dependable, and academically ambitious. Interested in understanding the origins of gang violence, he began studying the history of African Americans in Chicago. “I began to see a direct tie between the lack of opportunities facing black Americans due to institutional racism and the conditions that gave rise to gang violence,” Muhammad recalled. His research led him to the writings of African American legal theorist Derrick Bell. “I was very inspired by the depth of his analysis. Students should have confidence that if they practice their math and reading skills, they will improve, which is exactly what we are seeing when students practice for free on Khan Academy. Students should take an exam once and, if they don’t like their scores, practice and take the test once more. If they still don’t like their scores, we should offer many other ways for them to show their strengths to admissions officers. MIT recently revised its application to include only four spaces for extracurricular activities, and admissions officials there are evaluating whether they can move to three. These are excellent essay goals, but you should also consider the essay in relation to your classwork. If your classwork already shows that you are studious and determined , then you may want to highlight another feature of your personality. When you have compiled all the pieces of your application and sent it to the college/university of your dreams, all of your hard work gets placed in a pile with hundreds of other applications. Then a small group of admissions officers will review each application, looking over the scores and coursework and reading the college application essays. On the other hand, during their tenures in college admissions, our specialists reviewed thousands of applications per year, each application containing four to six essays.