Common app supplements

Common app supplements

 · The Common App essay is the only place that you are guaranteed space for creativity. Some individual supplements have creative-minded questions, but many are more structured. If the colleges you are applying to don’t have supplements, the Common App essay is even more important, since it’s your last chance to show who you are to the people The Common Application requires one long college admissions essay. But it also has a short essay, a supplemental question that asks students to “briefly elaborate on one of your extracurricular activities or work experiences.” And they mean brief, no more than 1, characters (about words) Apply to college for the first time or transfer to complete your degree. Navigate your entire college application journey with Common App

How to Find Supplemental Essays on the Common App

Other High SchoolCollege Admissionscommon app supplements, Letters of RecommendationExtracurricularsCollege Essays. InI applied to college common app supplements got into every school I applied to, including Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT. I decided to attend Harvard.

In this guide, I'll show you the entire college application that got me into Harvard—page by page, word for word. In my complete analysis, I'll take you through my Common Application, Harvard supplemental application, common app supplements statements and essays, extracurricular activities, teachers' letters of recommendation, counselor recommendation, complete high school transcript, and more.

I'll also give you in-depth commentary on every part of my application. To my knowledge, a college application analysis like this has never been done before. This common app supplements the application guide I wished I had when I was in high school.

If you're applying to top schools like the Ivy Leagues, you'll see firsthand what a successful application to Harvard and Princeton looks like, common app supplements. You'll learn the strategies I used to build a compelling application. You'll see what items were critical in getting me admitted, and what didn't end up helping much at all. Reading this guide from beginning to end will be well worth your time—you might completely common app supplements your college common app supplements strategy as a result.

I was so thrilled when I got this letter. It validated many years of hard work, and I was excited to take my next step into college and work even harder. I received similar successful letters from every college I applied to: Princeton, Stanford, and MIT. After getting into Harvard early, I decided not to apply to Yale, Columbia, UChicago, UPenn, and other Ivy League-level schools, since I already knew I would rather go to Harvard. The application that got me admitted everywhere is the subject of this guide.

You're going to see everything that the admissions common app supplements saw. If you're hoping to see an acceptance letter like this in your academic future, I highly recommend you read this entire article. I'll start first with an introduction to this guide and important disclaimers. Then I'll share the 1 question you need to be thinking about as you construct your application. Finally, we'll spend a lot of time going through every page of my college application, common app supplements the Common App and the Harvard Supplemental App.

Important Note: the foundational principles of my application are explored in detail in my How to Get Into Harvard guide. In this popular guide, I explain:. If you have the time and are committed to maximizing your college application success, I recommend you read through my Harvard guide first, then come back to this one, common app supplements.

From my student records, I was able to retrieve the COMPLETE original application I submitted to Harvard. Page by page, word for word, you'll see everything exactly as I presented it : extracurricular activities, awards and honors, personal statements and essays, and more. In addition to all this detail, there are two special parts of this college application breakdown that I haven't seen anywhere else common app supplements. For every piece of my application, I'll provide commentary on what made it so effective and my strategies behind creating it.

You'll learn what it takes to build a compelling overall application. Importantly, even common app supplements my application was strong, it wasn't perfect. I'll point out mistakes I made that I could have corrected to build an even stronger application. Here's a complete table of contents for what common app supplements be covering. Each link goes directly to that section, although I'd recommend you read this from beginning to end on your first go, common app supplements.

In revealing my teenage self, some parts of my application will be pretty embarrassing you'll see why below. But my mission through my company PrepScholar is common app supplements give the world the most helpful resources possible, so I'm publishing it. One last thing before we dive in—I'm going to anticipate some common concerns beforehand and talk through important disclaimers so that you'll get the most out of this guide.

My biggest caveat for you when reading this guide: thousands of students get into Harvard and Ivy League schools every year. This guide tells a story about one person and presents one archetype of a strong applicant, common app supplements. As you'll see, I had a huge academic focus, especially in science this was my Spike. I'm also irreverent and have a strong, direct personality. What you see in this guide is NOT what YOU need to do common app supplements get into Harvardespecially if you don't match my interests and personality at all.

As I explain in my Harvard guideI believe I fit into one archetype of a strong applicant—the "academic superstar" humor me for a second, I know calling myself this sounds obnoxious. There are other distinct ways to impress, like:.

Therefore, DON'T worry about copying my approach one-for-one. Don't worry if you're taking a different number of AP courses or have lower test scores or do different extracurriculars or write totally different personal statements. This is what schools like Stanford and Yale want to see—a diversity in the student population! The point of this guide is to use my application as a vehicle to discuss what top colleges are looking for in strong applicants. Common app supplements though the specific details of what you'll do are different from what I did, the principles are the same.

What makes a candidate truly stand out is the same, at a high level. What makes for a super strong recommendation letter is the same. The strategies on how to build a cohesive, compelling application are the same. There's a final reason you shouldn't worry about replicating my work—the common app supplements game has probably changed quite a bit since Technology is much more pervasive, the social issues teens care about are different, the extracurricular activities that are truly noteworthy have probably gotten even more advanced.

What I did might not be as impressive as it used to be. So focus on my general points, not the specifics, and think about how you can take what you learn here to achieve something even greater than I ever did.

This is what I believe will be most helpful for you. I hope you don't misinterpret this as bragging about my accomplishments. I'm here to show you what it took for me to get into Harvard and other Ivy League schools, not to ask for your admiration. So if you read this guide and are tempted to dismiss my advice because you think I'm boasting, take a step back and focus on the big picture—how you'll improve yourself, common app supplements.

A sample list of schools that fit into this: Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, common app supplements, Columbia, MIT, common app supplements, UChicago, Duke, UPenn, CalTech, Johns Hopkins, Dartmouth, Northwestern, Brown. The top in that list are especially looking for the absolute best students in the common app supplementssince they have the pick of the litter.

For less selective schools, having an overall strong, well-rounded application is sufficient for getting in. In particular, having an above average GPA and test scores goes the majority of the common app supplements toward getting you admission to those schools.

The higher the admission rate, the more emphasis will be placed on your scores. The other pieces I'll present below—personal statements, extracurriculars, recommendations—will matter less. Still, common app supplements, it doesn't hurt to aim for a stronger application. To state the obvious, an application strong enough to get you Columbia will get you into UCLA handily.

In my application, I've redacted pieces of my application for privacy reasons, and one supplementary recommendation letter at the request of the letter writer. Everything else is unaltered. Throughout my application, we can see marks made by the admissions officer highlighting and circling things of note you'll see the first example on the very first page. I don't have any other applications to compare these to, so I'm going to interpret these marks as best I can.

Common app supplements the most part, I assume that whatever he underlines or circles is especially important and noteworthy —points that he'll bring up later in committee discussions, common app supplements.

It could also be that the reader got bored and just started highlighting things, but I doubt this, common app supplements.

Finally, I co-founded and run a company called PrepScholar. I want to emphasize that you do NOT need to buy a prep program to get a great scoreand the advice in this guide has little to do with my company. If you stepped into an elevator with Yale's Dean of Admissions and you had ten seconds to describe yourself and why you're interesting, what would you say?

This is what I call your PERSONAL NARRATIVE, common app supplements. These are the three main points that represent who you are and what you're about. This is the story that you tell through your application, over and over again. This is how an admissions officer should understand you after just glancing through your application. This is how your admissions officer will present you to the admissions committee to advocate for why they should accept you. The more unique and noteworthy your Personal Narrative is, the better.

This is how you'll stand apart from the tens of thousands of other applicants to your top choice school. This is why I recommend so strongly that you develop a Spike to show deep interest and achievement.

A compelling Spike is the core of your Personal Narrative. Well-rounded applications do NOT form compelling Personal Narratives, because "I'm a well-rounded person who's decent at everything" is the exact same thing every other well-rounded person tries to say.

Everything in your application should support your Personal Narrativefrom your course selection and extracurricular activities to your personal statements and recommendation letters. You are a movie director, and your application is your way to tell a compelling, cohesive story through supporting evidence.

Yes, this is overly simplistic and reductionist. It does not represent all your complexities and your 17 years of existence.

But admissions offices don't have the time to understand this for all their applicants, common app supplements. Your PERSONAL NARRATIVE is what they will latch onto. Here's what I would consider my Personal Narrative common app supplements me since I'm peacocking here :.

These three elements were the core to my application. Together they tell a relatively unique Personal Narrative that distinguishes me from many other strong applicants. You get a surprisingly clear picture of what I'm about. There's no question that my work in science was my "Spike" and was the strongest piece of my application, but my Personal Narrative included other supporting elements, especially a description of my personality.

My Dartmouth Supplements + Writing Strategy!

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My Successful Harvard Application (Complete Common App + Supplement)

 · The Common App essay is the only place that you are guaranteed space for creativity. Some individual supplements have creative-minded questions, but many are more structured. If the colleges you are applying to don’t have supplements, the Common App essay is even more important, since it’s your last chance to show who you are to the people Apply to college for the first time or transfer to complete your degree. Navigate your entire college application journey with Common App For example at Caltech, we offer a supplement so that we can ask for more information about a student’s math and science passion, something that doesn’t always come out as easily in the main Common Application. Yes, you have to submit more short essays and offer a long essay response, but it helps us to understand the applicant’s drive and fit for our type of education