11 Guaranteed Ways to Ruin a College Essay

The best college essay tells a story that builds on but doesn’t duplicate what’s already in your application. It’s in your voice, relaxed and clearly written, and it’s totally free of “mechanical” errors.

Keep in mind that the essay is your opportunity to introduce yourself, suggest what kind of student you will be, and provide evidence of “fit” with the community you seek to join.

An essay probably won’t get you into a college your record doesn’t support, but it could push your application from “maybe” to “admit” if your reader is captivated or amused.

And if you’re really smart, you’ll make sure you avoid the following 11 guaranteed ways to ruin a college essay:

1. Dashing it off at the last minute. Colleges post topics early enough for you to take time to thoughtfully consider, draft, and finalize your essay. None of this will happen if you’re up against a deadline and working in panic mode.

2. Not answering the question. Questions are crafted to elicit specific information the admissions office thinks is important to their decision. Yes, you can reuse essays. But be careful to edit or make appropriate adjustments along the way. And don’t be too quick or cute with the cut and paste function.

3. Failure to have a point. An essay should have a central idea or a thesis. It doesn’t have to be overly complex or deep. But whether by statement or inference, the point you’re trying to make should be obvious to the reader.

4. Ignoring the word limits. Word limits are sometimes suggested and sometimes imposed by the amount space or characters allowed before truncation occurs. Regardless of level of enforcement, respect the limits. Make the best use of the time you have to impress your reader—it’s limited.

5. Trying to sound impressive. Nothing turns off a reader faster than a pompous kid using flowery language and vocabulary. Toss out extra modifiers. Those that add “color” are good; those that are there to make the essay sound important are not. And be careful with the thesaurus. Stick with words you know and ordinarily use.

6. Resorting to an overused or well-worn topic. If your essay could have been written by any one of your 10 closest friends, then figure that may happen. You can always put a new spin on or take a fresh approach to even the most ordinary story but avoid submitting the essay anyone could have written.

7. Offending your reader. Certain topics are off limits. Politically insensitive or embarrassing material is unlikely to find a sympathetic audience. Leave adolescent humor and potty jokes in the locker room, and resist the urge to use your essay as a cathartic moment in which you relieve your conscience of a potentially explosive secret.

8. Including irrelevant material. Over-anxious applicants have a hard time leaving out extraneous detail. Your writing should be concise and to the point. Resist the urge to free-associate and go wandering off topic.

9. Not writing in paragraphs. One long, meandering blob not only looks bad but it also diminishes the impact of your writing. On the other hand, formal essays aren’t like some newspaper articles in which each paragraph is just one sentence. Paragraphs are the building blocks of an essay—use them.

10. Making avoidable errors. Admissions readers can’t help but form opinions based on work that suggests carelessness. Use automated spelling and grammar checks. And while you’re at it, proofread the old fashioned way—with your eyes. No spell checker will catch homonym errors or poor word choice.

11. Not writing your own essay. Essay mills and other professional editing services populate the internet. It’s possible—but totally unacceptable—to take someone else’s words and submit them as your own. Be careful about lifting ideas or giving in to heavy-handed editing. When all is said and done, you should “own” your essay.

2011 Engineering Expo and College Fair Set for October 22

Prospective engineering majors and area high school students interested in learning more about careers in engineering are cordially invited to the 4th annual Engineering Expo and College Fair, sponsored by Chantilly High School, in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Scheduled for Saturday, October 22, the Expo will feature a number of workshops including

• A Cyber Academy by Northrop Grumman
• Systems Engineering by the SI Organization
• Advanced Manufacturing and Semiconductors by MICRON
• Innovating New Technnologies by Blackboard
• Intelligent Transportation Systems by Noblis, Inc.

In addition, a panel of undergraduate engineering students will be on hand to provide perspective on engineering studies as well as a few insights on successfully applying to a college engineering program.

The Engineering Expo will include faculty members and students from George Mason University, James Madison University, Old Dominion University, VCU, Virginia Tech, and UVa. Also participating will be Auburn University, Franklin Olin College of Engineering, George Washington University, Johns Hopkins, Purdue University, the University of Maryland, among other fantastic engineering programs.

The Engineering Expo and Engineering College Fair are made possible through support from Northrop Grumman, ExxonMobil, Micron Foundation, Noblis, and SRC. A complete agenda for the day is provided on the FCPS website.

National Merit Scholarship Corporation® Penalizes DC Public School Students

DC can’t get a break. Not only are residents barred from full Congressional representation, but DC students attending public schools are victims of an arbitrary policy that effectively limits them from fairly competing for one of the most prestigious scholarships in the county.

By rolling commuter and boarding students into the pool of DC merit scholarship candidates, the National Merit® Scholarship Corporation (NMSC) holds students attending District high schools to the highest standards in the country to qualify for college scholarships in the National Merit Scholarship competition.

Once again, DC tied with Massachusetts and received a national merit qualifying score of 223—exactly the same last year. Students in North Dakota, West Virginia, and Wyoming only needed to score 204 points on the PSAT/NMSQT® to qualify for the same prize money and prestige, according to an unofficial list published by Barbara Aronson on her College Planning Simplified website.*

Even on either side of the District, the bar wasn’t as high. The qualifying scores for Maryland went up a point from last year to 221, and Virginia increased by two full points to 220.

Students may only qualify as “merit scholars” by taking the College Board’s PSAT/NMSQT in the fall of their junior year. For this year’s group of merit scholarship candidates, this was October of 2010—a long time ago.

In the spring after the test was taken, 50,000 high scorers are contacted for program recognition as commended or semifinalist based on a selectivity index generated by a combination of math, critical reading, and writing scores.

High scorers are notified whether they qualify for the next level of competition in September of senior year—twelve full months after the initial test date. Students who receive a score of 202 or better will be “commended.” Those above the cutoff—about 16,000 students according to the NMSC—are invited to continue in the competition as semifinalists. Approximately 90 percent of this group eventually earns finalist status.

But each state has a different cutoff. As luck would have it, DC’s cutoff is usually the highest in the country. And to add insult to injury, the majority of merit scholarship winners don’t attend public schools or even live in the District. They attend expensive private schools and commute from the suburbs. The mysterious NMSC formula for anointing finalists credits a student by the location of their high school and not by the location of their home. So DC’s allotment of merit scholarship finalists gets consumed by tuition-paying outsiders.

“The very high PSAT/NMSQT National Merit Semifinalist eligibility cut-off score for DC reflects the large number of children from the nation's most privileged elites enrolled in the District's private day schools,” said Bob Schaeffer, public education director for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing. “It is highly likely that few, if any, Semifinalists, are from DC's open-enrollment public schools, particularly those which serve the greatest percentages of low-income and minority students.”

So far, executives from the NMSC have brushed off calls to rethink the qualifying process. In letters to both the College Board and the NMSC, the National Association for College Admissions Counseling (NACAC) advised that eliminating 99 percent of test-takers from the National Merit Scholarship competition solely on the basis of a single standardized exam was “at odds with best practices in the use of admissions test scores.” NACAC’s Commission on the Use of Standardized Tests in Undergraduate Admissions concluded that “the time has come to end the practice of using ‘cutscores,’ or minimum admission test scores, for merit aid eligibility.”

As a result of these concerns, a number of colleges withdrew their support for the National Merit Scholarship program. Notably, the entire University of California system and the University of Texas no longer offer scholarships specifically for national merit scholars.

And yet, the process remains unchanged as students in area high schools, including those in District of Columbia, start the first step of the competition this week with the administration of the 2011 PSAT/NMSQT®.

Schaeffer sadly concludes, “Because of its misuse of test scores—which correlate very strongly with family wealth and income—as the sole criterion for Semifinalist status, the National Merit selection process guarantees that a lion's share of its awards go to the children who least need financial assistance to attend college.”

There’s definitely something wrong with this picture.

*Note: The National Merit Scholarship Corporation does not officially release a complete list of qualifying scores for reasons known only to them.

Financial Aid Season Starts with the CSS PROFILE

October 1st marked the official launch date for the 2012-13 College Scholarship Service (CSS) Financial Aid PROFILE. The less familiar financial aid form, the CSS PROFILE is an online application that collects information used by a relatively small number of colleges and scholarships to award institutional aid.

Locally, the CSS PROFILE is used by American University, George Washington University, Georgetown University, Goucher College, Johns Hopkins, Loyola of Maryland, Patrick Henry, the University of Richmond, St. John's College, and the University of Virginia.

Over the next few months, the word will go out that every college-bound senior and his or her family should complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to qualify for federal financial aid. The online FAFSA form will become available on January 1st at midnight and should be completed as close to the start of the New Year as possible.

But the CSS PROFILE requires an entirely separate filing and evaluation process. For those needing to submit the additional form, it amounts to another wall to scale in the process of securing sufficient funds for college. And it can be a headache—an expensive one at that.

While the FAFSA is a free service brought to you by your federal government, the CSS PROFILE is a program administered by the College Board and involves a fee. Unlike the FAFSA, which uses the same application for everyone, the PROFILE is specifically tailored to meet the needs of individual colleges. Extra questions may appear on a student’s form depending on the colleges listed when registering for the PROFILE.

It’s not all bad news. There are some tradeoffs in the data collected by the PROFILE. While taking into account all the sources of income and assets used by the FAFSA, the PROFILE asks for some additional information such as home equity, the income/assets of a noncustodial parent, or the cash value of insurance plans. On the other side of the ledger, the PROFILE takes into consideration expenses such as medical, dental, or private school tuition.

And then there’s the fee. The cost for submitting an initial application and sending one college or program report is now $25. Additional reports are $16 each. These charges are subject to change each year, and they don't tend to go down.

For very low-income students, fee waivers for up to six colleges or scholarship programs are available and granted automatically based on information entered on the PROFILE application. International students are not eligible for fee waivers.

The PROFILE may be filed any time after October 1st, and colleges typically want to have the paperwork completed at least two weeks before posted “priority” filing deadlines. Because these can come surprisingly early in the application process, the PROFILE is usually completed with estimated numbers. Applicants definitely need to pay attention to deadlines.

For example, Johns Hopkins wants a completed PROFILE by November 15th for early decision candidates; Georgetown requests that all financial aid applications (including the FAFSA) be completed by February 1st; and American asks that all materials be submitted in advance of March 1st.

The College Board directs all questions to Customer Support, which may be reached at 305-829-9793 or by emailing help@cssprofile.org. You might notice there is no “toll-free” number. Unfortunately, most everything about this program costs.

2011 Davidson Institute Fellowship Awards

Tonight the Davidson Institute for Talent Development honors 18 very special high school students at a reception taking place at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Each student has completed a significant piece of work or a project demonstrating unusual talent, creativity, or originality, and each will be presented with a scholarship of $10,000, $25,000, or $50,000—with very few strings attached.

Since 2001, Davidson has awarded more than $4.5 million to 184 brilliant young scientists, mathematicians, musicians, and writers. This year’s awardees include a student who designed an efficient yet inexpensive method for detecting landmines as well as another who created a yangqin or Chinese hammered dulcimer portfolio that will contribute to the preservation of ancient Chinese music.

Similar to the MacArthur Foundation “genius grants,” Davidson fellowships are awarded on the basis of “significant work” that experts in the field recognize as having potential to make a positive contribution to society. According to the Davidson website, the work may be:

• an exceptionally creative application of existing knowledge
• a new idea with high impact
• an innovative solution with broad-range implications
• an important advancement that can be replicated and built upon
• an interdisciplinary discovery
• a prodigious performance
• another demonstration of extraordinary accomplishment

Applications may be submitted in any one of seven different categories, including science, mathematics, technology, music, literature, philosophy, and “outside the box.” Group and team projects are not eligible.

The Davidson fellowships are made possible through the generosity of Bob and Jan Davidson—the geniuses behind children’s educational software such as “Math Blaster” and “Reading Blaster.” The scholarships are one component of a multifaceted program intended to support extraordinary talent among young people.

The deadline for next year’s competition is February 1, 2012, and application forms are now available from the Davidson Institute. To learn more about the fellowship or download the 2012 application, go directly to the Davidson website.

‘Early Action’ Isn’t Always As Simple As It Looks

It’s getting increasingly difficult to keep all the early decision (ED) and early action (EA) rules straight, particularly when a handful of colleges tinker with definitions and come up with narrow interpretations designed to suit particular admissions goals.

In general, binding ED programs require that applicants relinquish all rights to consider offers from other colleges in exchange for the possible privilege of being admitted early—typically before the first of the year. ED is the least flexible of the options because it locks you in.

Then there are the early action policies—restricted and not restricted. This is where things get tricky. Although both kinds of EA are non-binding—allowing applicants to choose from among all colleges to which they are admitted—restricted early action (REA) dictates which other early action programs are off limits to applicants.

For example, at Yale a student applying early must comply with Yale’s single-choice early action terms, which read as follows:

• You may apply to any college’s non-binding rolling admission program [this is new this year].


• You may apply to any public institution in your home state at any time provided that admission is non-binding.


• You may apply to another college’s Early Decision II program, but only if the notification of admission occurs after January 1. If you are admitted through another college’s Early Decision II binding program, you must withdraw your application from Yale.

But Harvard puts it another way:

• You may not apply simultaneously to Harvard’s Early Action program and another Early Decision Program. However, after you receive notification from Harvard’s Early Action program, you are free to apply to any institution under any plan, including binding programs such as Early Decision II.


• You may apply to any college or university with a non-binding rolling admissions process.


• You may apply [Early Action] to any public college/university.

Confused yet? If so, you’re not alone. Professionals in the field were equally surprised and confused by the subtleties in this year’s early action rules.

Harvard’s EA policy allows students to simultaneously apply early to any public institution. But at Yale, you may apply early only to public institutions within your home state. This is particularly nice for Virginia residents, who are free to apply under UVa’s new early action policy as well as Yale’s single-choice early action program.

Stanford and Princeton agree with Harvard. The Georgetown and Boston College restrictive early action policies only prohibit students from applying binding early decision at other schools. Other early application programs are fair game.

Under all policies but Yale’s, students may apply early to UVa or UNC or any other public college or university in the country.

“With our return to Early Action (which we had for many years before the three-year hiatus), we reinstated the policies that we had used before,” explained Harvard Dean William Fitzsimmons. “Given the fact that over 80% of college students attend public institutions, we have always wanted to offer students the flexibility of applying to public institutions throughout the nation, not simply the ones in their home states.”

Thankfully, the Common Application published a chart designed to get at some of the nuances of the various “restricted” early action policies colleges put in place this year.

The question remains, however, why such a chart should be necessary.

Can't Miss College Fairs

Now that you understand why you should attend college fairs and have absorbed a few tips for making them successful events, here are some local fairs you should consider visiting. Choose from among the options and mark your calendar accordingly!

Colleges That Change Lives
The 40 Colleges That Change Lives typically kick off their tour in May and make Washington DC one of the first stops. The program begins with a 30-minute panel presentation on completing a college search, which is followed by a college fair lasting about 1.5 hours. Watch the CTCL website for information on next year’s schedule of events.

FCPS College Fair and Night
Students and their families are invited to help celebrate the 36th annual Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) Annual College Fair and College Night Programs. Both events provide opportunities for college-bound students and their families to gather information from several hundred participating colleges and universities. This year’s college fair will be held on Sunday, October 16th, at Fair Oaks Mall. College Night will take place the following evening at Hayfield Secondary School and will also feature a series of very useful workshops. For more information or to download a College Fair Ticket with barcode, visit the FCPS website.

Go-To-High School Go-To-College Fair
Over 65 colleges and universities are expected to attend this free college fair, sponsored by Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity. The fair, scheduled for November 12 from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m., will feature financial aid seminars, a panel discussion, scholarship raffles, laptop computer giveaways and more. The event will be held at the Stephen Decatur Community Center, 8200 Pinewood Drive in Clinton, Maryland.

Harford County Public Schools ‘Education after High School’ College Fair
Parents and students in all grade levels are invited to attend and meet representatives from more than 100 colleges and universities, on Tuesday, October 11, at Edgewood High School. This year’s event will include a college-bound student athletes eligibility seminar scheduled to run from 6:30 to 7:15, in the high school auditorium.

JET College Nights
Twenty-eight Jesuit colleges and universities located in 19 states work together to schedule "regional" Jesuit Excellence Tour (JET) College Nights. In the coming months, the tour will be in every corner of the country including Las Vegas, Cincinnati, Boston, Chicago, and New York—to name a few host cities. Locally, two events are being scheduled for the beginning of March—one in Baltimore and the other in DC.

Knights of Columbus Catholic College Fair
This year’s event will be held the evening of October 6, in the school gym at the Church of the Holy Spirit, in Annandale. The fair is open to the public and starts at 7:00 p.m. Typically, between 30 and 35 Catholic colleges and universities participate including Santa Clara University, Villanova, University of Dayton, Creighton University, and many other familiar names.

Korea Daily College Fair
Since 2006, the Korea Daily College Fair has brought together Koreans and other Asians interested in learning more about colleges and the admissions process. Each fair features keynote speakers or seminars covering a variety of topics including curriculum, admissions requirements, financial aid, campus life, and more. Fairs are held in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington DC. This year, the DC fair will take place on Saturday, October 1, at the Korean Central Presbyterian Church in Centerville VA.

Montgomery County Regional College Fair
Montgomery County Community College will host the annual Montgomery County Regional College Fair on Wednesday, October 12, from 6:30 to 8:30 in the Physical Education Center at the Central Campus. More than 150 colleges and universities will be available to speak with students and their parents about admissions criteria and procedures. Financial aid officers from local colleges and guidance counselors from MCPS will also be on hand to answer questions. In addition, two special workshops will highlight the evening and provide students with an in-depth look into the admissions process.

NACAC’s National College Fairs
Free and open to the public, NACAC’s National College Fairs are organized to promote interaction with admissions staff representing a wide range of postsecondary institutions. During the day, workshops are scheduled covering a variety of topics including financial aid, essay writing, NCAA eligibility, and students with disabilities. In addition, college counselors are available to answer questions and help with college search. Online registration is available for many National College Fairs, including greater Washington, DC, scheduled for Tuesday, October 18, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, and Baltimore, scheduled for November 7-8, at the Baltimore Convention Center.

NACAC’s Performing and Visual Arts (PVA) College Fairs
PVA College Fairs are specifically targeted to students interested in studying theater, visual arts, graphic design, music, dance or other related disciplines. In addition to providing information on educational opportunities, admission requirements, and financial aid, staff is available to provide advice on portfolio development and auditions. PVA College Fairs require no pre-registration although the opportunity to register is offered online for many fairs including the one scheduled for Sunday, November 6, at the Washington Convention Center.

National Hispanic College Fair
Partnered with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, these fairs are organized to help minority students gain access to a broad range of colleges/universities and vocational training institutions. These events are typically scheduled during the school day and require release from school. This year, the Montgomery County Public Schools are hosting a National Hispanic College Fair on Wednesday, October 19, at the Shady Grove Conference Center.

Portfolio Days
National Portfolio Days are specifically for visual artists and designers. These events are not so much college fairs as opportunities to meet with representatives from colleges accredited by the National Association of Schools of Art and Design. Portfolio Days require no registration and operate on a first come, first served basis. Local events are scheduled for Saturday, November 5, at the Hartford Art School in Richmond; Saturday, December 3, at the Corcoran College of Art & Design; or Sunday, December 4, at the Maryland Institute College of Art .