The Pond

Guide for Parents: Understanding the Role of College Essays in Your Child's Admission Process

Navigating the college admission process as a parent can be daunting, particularly when it comes to understanding the pivotal role college essays play. These essays can be the deciding factor, especially for applications teetering between acceptance and rejection. Let's explore why these essays are gaining prominence and how you, as a parent, can guide your child in crafting an essay that stands out.

Why Are College Essays Gaining Importance?

With the increasing trend of grade inflation, the average GPA has skyrocketed, and the traditional metrics for student evaluation, such as class rank, are being phased out. This scenario complicates the differentiation process among students. Furthermore, the variability in academic rigor across high schools and the gradual sidelining of standardized tests like the SAT and ACT have propelled colleges to weigh application essays more heavily. Our data indicates that for top-tier colleges, essays can influence 15-35% of the admission decision.

Selecting an Essay Topic: It’s the ‘How,’ Not Just the ‘What’

Your child doesn't need an extraordinary story; they need an extraordinary way of telling their story. It’s not just about what they write but how they express it, showcasing their personality, thought process, and resilience. Whether it's a story about overcoming shyness, exploring folk medicine, or a deep dive into a hobby like robotics, what matters most is the perspective, emotional intelligence, and self-awareness your child demonstrates.

Essential Qualities to Highlight in the Essay

Colleges seek well-rounded individuals who will enrich their campuses. Encourage your child to weave these elements into their essay:

Intellectual Curiosity: Does your child demonstrate a passion for learning, not just in academic achievements but in daily life?

Leadership: This isn’t limited to formal positions. Initiating a project, helping others, or assuming responsibility in any aspect of life can all illustrate leadership.

Diversity and Awareness: Unique experiences or insights gained from engaging with different cultures or perspectives are valuable. Acknowledging their own privileges or advantages can also be insightful.

Commitment and Consistency: Long-term dedication to a cause or activity, especially with steady progress, is often seen favorably.

Collaboration: Colleges value students who show they can work well with others, balancing their own views with an openness to differing perspectives.

Originality: Encourage your child to share unique experiences or innovative thoughts, especially if they’ve tackled challenges in unconventional ways.

The Power of Self-Reflection: Writing About Personal Growth and Challenges

The essay is a space for your child to reflect on their experiences, not just narrate them. Colleges are keen on students who can introspect, learn from their experiences, and articulate their growth process. This can include sharing struggles, whether personal or academic, and illustrating how they've learned or grown from them. Perseverance through setbacks can be particularly compelling.

Practical Tips for a Polished Essay

As your child gets down to writing, here are some practical tips you can offer:

Encourage them to choose a topic that genuinely matters to them, one that they’re excited to write about.
Remind them to be vivid in their storytelling, to help the reader visualize and feel their experiences.
Ensure they’re addressing the essay prompt and connecting their story back to it clearly and cogently.
Suggest having their essay reviewed by people they trust, to catch errors and receive feedback.
Advise them to read the essay aloud, to ensure it conveys their intended tone and style.
Lastly, encourage your child to start early, giving ample time for reflection and revision. This essay is their chance to show the human behind the grades, scores, and extracurriculars. And while it’s important, remind them that it’s just one part of their journey.

© Letitu Corp. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use of any Letitu trademark or any other trademark listed is strictly prohibited without express written consent.

Are you prepared for your early decision or early action application? Visit 'The Pond' to see where you stand in the college application race!

https://diveintothepond.com/

🔍 The Pond Survey 📊
Ever wonder which career is your perfect match? Dive into The Pond Survey! It aligns your passions with the right career, major, and college. Get answers tailored just for you! 🚀

🗺️ Roadmap 🚀
Feeling overwhelmed? We've mapped out a personalized guide, showing you the academic and extracurricular steps to your dream college. Step confidently with The Pond's Roadmap! 🛤️



🏢 Find a College 📚
Skip the endless searches! Discover your ideal colleges, all in one spot. Your perfect fit is a click away! 🖱️

📝 My Pond 🦆
Stay on top of your game! From application deadlines to prep activities, My Pond organizes everything. College prep? Sorted! ✅

🌱 Dive into The Pond! 💌
Your college dream is unique. So, receive advice that's crafted just for YOU! Set, chase, and achieve your college goals with us. 🌟

Swipe right ➡️ to dive into The Pond!

https://diveintothepond.com/

Feeling lost in the college admission maze? We've got your back! Based on advice from thousands of students like YOU, we've crafted The Pond to guide your journey.

https://diveintothepond.com/

🔍 The Pond Survey 📊
Ever wonder which career is your perfect match? Dive into The Pond Survey! It aligns your passions with the right career, major, and college. Get answers tailored just for you! 🚀

🗺️ Roadmap 🚀
Feeling overwhelmed? We've mapped out a personalized guide, showing you the academic and extracurricular steps to your dream college. Step confidently with The Pond's Roadmap! 🛤️



🏢 Find a College 📚
Skip the endless searches! Discover your ideal colleges, all in one spot. Your perfect fit is a click away! 🖱️

📝 My Pond 🦆
Stay on top of your game! From application deadlines to prep activities, My Pond organizes everything. College prep? Sorted! ✅

🌱 Dive into The Pond! 💌
Your college dream is unique. So, receive advice that's crafted just for YOU! Set, chase, and achieve your college goals with us. 🌟

Swipe right ➡️ to dive into The Pond!

https://diveintothepond.com/

How to Write the "Why us?" College Essay

Many colleges, such as Tufts University, Bowdoin College, and Cornell University, assign the “Why us” or “Why this college” prompt as a supplemental essay. The purpose of this essay is for you to demonstrate, through concrete details and examples, why you are a great match for the school. It is also an excellent opportunity to demonstrate interest.

Colleges look for 3 main things in your “Why us” essay:

1. You understand the school and the opportunities it offers.

2. You have a plan of how you will make the most of these opportunities.

3. You can identify spaces where you can contribute to the school and its community.

Colleges rely a lot on this type of essay to determine how likely a student is to attend their school, which is a critical factor in their decision-making process as it affects their yield rate and other related statistics (acceptance rate, ranking, etc.). It is therefore important that you pay special attention to the way you craft your “Why us” essay. Read on for some Do’s and Don’t’s to help you get started.

Don’t’s

Let’s start with some common mistakes and things to avoid.

#1. Treat this as a “Why them” essay.

A lot of students make the mistake of only talking about the school and its cool opportunities. Great, that addresses number 1 on the list of what colleges look for in the “Why us” essay. However, it only addresses number 1, and not much else. The school knows it’s awesome. You don’t have to tell them how beautiful their buildings are, or how cool this one tradition is. They know.

Here are some common, stereotypical “Why them” statements:

1. Everyone tells me that attending your school will improve my job prospects.

2. Your faculty is world-class, and your facilities are state of the art.

3. I admire the prestige of your amazing institutions and professors.

4. Everyone knows your school and as a result I started looking at your YouTube videos and fell in love.

The reason why these statements are lacking is because they show no insight into 1) what the school is about (their values), 2) what the school offers (their resources), 3) how they would benefit you (connection to your values and interests) or 4) how you would benefit them (your contributions).

It is better to think of this essay as “Why us,” with us = college + you. Why are you perfect for each other? We provide concrete action items for how to avoid a “Why them” essay and craft a strong “Why us” essay below.

#2. Write about school ranking, location, size, reputation, and weather.

Truth is, everyone notices those surface-level things right off the bat. Everyone knows Harvard is an Ivy League school with a reputation for academic excellence. Everyone knows Silicon Valley is in Stanford’s backyard. Chances are many other students are writing about these things, too, and you don’t want to blend in. Also, by dwelling on these things, you risk coming across as lazy for not doing deeper research.

#3. Copy and paste from the school website or brochures.

It is critical to do careful school research, including reading the website and brochures carefully. However, don’t just simply copy and paste straight from their website. There is a chance that the person reading your essay is in fact the person who wrote the material on the website, and you don’t want this to happen. Instead, think about how you can rephrase key information in your own word, or better yet, elaborate on what these things mean to you.

#4. Get niche information or proper names wrong.

Proofread, again and again. It already looks bad if there are typos or grammatical errors, but it would look much worse if a mascot name is misspelled, or if a niche information (such as a major) is inaccurate. If you are writing about how you are excited to work with a particular professor, triple-check that you got their name down correctly. Getting unique things wrong is the quickest way to reveal insufficient research.



Do’s

Now that you know what to avoid, let’s get on with some concrete steps to write a “Why us” college essay that stands out.

#1. Research extensively and carefully

Diligent research should be a given for any college essay, but especially so for the “Why us” college essay, as you must be able to provide specific examples for how you and the school would be a great fit for each other. While doing your research, here are a few topics you can dive into:

1. School culture (school values and vision, what the study body is like, spaces for specific identities, etc.)

2. Academic opportunities (majors, classes, professors, research opportunities & facilities, study abroad opportunities, initiatives, etc.)

3. Co-curricular activities and student organizations (student clubs, pre-professional organizations, internships and externships, fellowships, etc.)

4. Residential life (housing options, networking opportunities, food and dining, etc.)

Here are some ways you can learn more about a college:

1. Study their websites.

2. Talk to a current student or alumni. You usually can write to the college’s admission email address to ask to be connected with a student.

3. Talk to an admission officer, local rep, and/or professor.

4. Read expert reviews. Some resources you can check out are:

1. Princeton Reviews

2. Fiske Guide to Colleges

3. Colleges That Change Lives

5. Read student reviews

Unigo.com has great question prompts and a host of answers that can help you understand students’ perspectives if you don’t have the chance to talk to an actual current student or alum.

Reddit often has a subreddit that is specific to the school. You can get a lot of unfiltered thoughts about a school there.

6. Do an in-person or virtual tour

7. Attend college fairs.

8. To know about specific classes, read syllabi.

#2. Fill out this chart (courtesy of The College Guy)

As explained above, an excellent “Why us” essay should be as much about how the college would be a good fit for you as how you would be a good fit for the school. This chart will help you organize your information and match the opportunities available at each institution with your interests, goals, and contributions.

The link itself contains columns that include a list of what you want, socially, academically and personally along with what the institution offers. This helps you correlate what you want with what the college offers, so you can connect the two in an essay. This kind of deep connection can sometimes be the make or break of acceptances at selective institutions. It will serve you well to pay attention here.

#3. Use this opportunity to highlight your significant qualities and interests

Think of this essay as another place for you to really reiterate your significant qualities and interests, but in the context of a particular school environment. Does the college have a strong Education program with a lot of opportunities for research, student teaching, and hands-on experience? Awesome. However, this information is only relevant if you are passionate about education and want to engage in that field.

To really illustrate how you and the college would be a good match, first note down 2-3 things that you absolutely want colleges to know about you. This could be your academic interests, your personal characteristics, your niche hobbies, among other things.

Then, using your information in the chart and your 2-3 crucial things above, practice writing “Why us” statement using this formula: School feature + Connection to You = Why Us.

Example 1: The school’s emphasis on global engagement and diverse offerings of study abroad programs (School Feature) provide a platform for me to nurture my intercultural competence, which is vital to my identity as someone who has lived in four different countries (Connection to You).

Example 2: Project-based courses such as “Design Thinking & Communication” (School Feature) will help me grow as a designer (Connection to You) in developing, testing, and prototyping creative solutions while giving me the opportunity to make meaningful social contributions (Connection to You) by working with a local client to address a in the community.

#4. Be specific

As much as the word count affords you, be specific. Provide concrete examples. Don’t just talk about general area such as “the Economics major” or “the various student clubs on campus.” Tell them what exactly about the Economics major interests you. Is it a particular class? A professor? How about research opportunities? Similar things can be asked about the “student clubs” feature.

Expand on your “Why us” statements above with more specificities. If you have mentioned your plan to pursue a particular major, follow up with a handful of classes that interest you and why, such as Example 2 above. If you are discussing the variety of student organizations, name 2-3 clubs you’d like to join that center around different interests. If you want to do research, name a center you want to be part of, or an opportunity you want to seize. In reviewing your writing, the key is to scan for capitalizations: you (almost) want to name drop!

Last Note

If you only take one thing away from this blog, let it be that the “Why us” college essay should be about you and college together.

ⓒ Letitu Corp. All rights reserved Use of any Letitu trademark or any other trademark listed is prohibited without express written consent.

Key Factors in How Colleges Select Applicants

When thinking about college admissions, it is important to consider multiple factors. People involved in college admissions point out that there is a mix of hard factors and soft factors involved in US colleges’ evaluation criteria of applicants. There is no single answer but educating yourself on how this combination of factors applies, can help you significantly increase your chances.

Hard factors

Hard factors refer to aspects like grades and scores. This can be categorized into three main groups: GPA (Grade Point Average), college preparation course scores (AP, IBDP, A-level), and standardized test score (SAT/ACT).

GPA

Let’s begin by doing a deep dive into GPA. It goes without saying, the higher the GPA, the better. But it is hard to determine an applicants’ quality by only looking at GPA, no matter how high their scores are. There is a lot of context to grades. For instance, GPA standards can differ depending on the school’s student pool or the grading system. That is why colleges, especially high-ranked colleges, focus more on the student’s GPA percentile and their rank. If a high school tends to give out As easily, it will be difficult to gain the upper hand in the admissions race as it loses its credibility.

To expand on GPA, there are “Unweighted GPA” and “Weighted GPA.”

GPA grade scales differ depending on the school - it could be 4.0, 4.3, 5.0, or even something else. The most common scale is a range out of 4.0. In that case, an A is 4.0, B is 3.0, C is 2.0, D is 1.0, and F is 0. When the school does not curve grades for courses that are more challenging than regular high school courses, it will give you your unweighted GPA. It is calculated based on high school course categories. For the Weighted GPA, AP courses you’ve took will be taken into consideration. In this case, the GPA will be evaluated on a scale out of 5.0 scale instead. That is why you may have seen some GPAs that are 4.2 out of 4.0. Given that the average weighted GPA of Harvard students is 4.19 out of 4.0, we can’t help but acknowledge the importance of weighted GPA.

Students should aim to maintain a high rank in their GPA percentile and concentrate more on their weighted GPA. This is especially relevant if you plan to apply for an early decision. For early decisions, your GPA will include all your grades from freshman to junior year, however, the junior year grades will be given more weight. As your senior year’s first semester grade will be also included in a regular admission, it is important to not lose focus and continue to keep your eyes on your GPA. In general, you must maintain a C or above in the second semester to enroll in your accepted college. For IB, they may give you a Conditional Offer where you must maintain beyond a certain GPA to enroll. If not, your acceptance can be rescinded.

College Preparation Courses

The Advanced Placement is an American curriculum while the IBDP and A-level are part of the British curriculum.

APs allow exceling high school students to take college freshman level courses. IBs are two-year courses where classes will be as rigorous as what would be expected for a college freshman or sophomore level course. It is also divided into SL (standard level) and HL (higher level). You must select three courses from each category, and you may additionally select to do TOK (Theory of Knowledge) or an EE (Extended Essay).

SAT and ACT

What are they and which one should you take? SAT is divided into four sections: Reading, Writing (Grammar), Math (without calculator), and Math (with calculator). Similarly, the ACT is divided into four sections: English (Grammar), Reading, Math, and Science. One big difference between the two is that the ACT includes a science section.

In order to decide which one is a good fit for you, let’s explore each section of the SAT and ACT in greater detail.

For the SAT, the reading section is where most student’s stumble. Many of the questions require students to make quick conclusions about hidden or inferred meaning. You’ll have to rapidly pick up the nuances to find the right answer. That is why it is very difficult to raise your SAT reading section score in a short period of time. The writing section consists of comprehension and grammar which is comparatively easier to improve. The math sections are quite similar. The biggest difference is that section 3 does not allow a calculator while section 4 allows one to be used. In general, section 3 includes shorter word problems than the section 4.

For the ACT, the reading section is a lot more straightforward than the SAT reading section. However, the time allocated for this section is shorter and the questions are not asked in the order of the passages. This results in a lot more time pressure on the test taker. For the science section, you’ll have to read six passages and refer to included scientific information to answer the questions. The ACT math section is not very different from SAT math except the length of the word problems. They tend to be longer than SAT section 3 but shorter than section 4.

It is very important to choose the test where you can maximize your strengths. Either one of these tests can be a critical factor in admission’s evaluations. Soft factors like extracurricular activities and college application essays vary greatly from student to student. As a result, colleges tend to value criteria that is more objective. This is even more so the case for top ranked colleges which receive a flood of applications every year. SAT and ACT scores are used as important qualifiers for theses institutions.

Soft factors

Not all evaluations are quantitative though.

Soft factors can generally be categorized into three groups: college application essays, extracurricular activities, and recommendation letters. Each factor is important yet if I were to rank the importance, it would be in the following order: college application essays, extracurricular activities, and recommendation letters. These factors are all connected to each other. To write a good college essay, it is helpful to have participated in many extracurricular activities, and if you have actively participated in such activities, it is more likely your teachers will write you an amazing recommendation letter.

Now, the question is how to approach all of these.

The reason why you should participate in a variety of extracurricular activities, such as student council, volunteer work, sports, different kinds of research, and internships, is to express your social skills, leadership, and commitment to service. Top colleges have the ability to be selective about who enters. Simply being smart is not enough. They want smart students who can enrich their community as well.

Using your experience in extracurricular activities will help you create outstanding college essays. What you learned in the process and how you’ve grown is a crucial topic to write about. College essays can be broken down into two parts: the common essay and supplementary essays. For the common essay, you should describe major events in your life and who you are as a person. For the supplementary essays you will write about information related to the major you are applying for. It is important to take time to brainstorm, write, and revise the essay as many times as you need. Do not think of college essays as high school assignments. You cannot finish these at the last minute! This is the last step in college admission. You should take these essays very seriously. They matter significantly to college admission’s officers reading your essay.

Who should you ask to send your recommendation letters?

Typically, students request recommendation letters from a teacher who taught a course or courses that are relevant to their intended major or a teacher for a course they’ve excelled in. You should ask a teacher who knows you well enough to write a detailed, high-quality recommendation. Also, you will have to request one from your school’s counselor as well. In total, you will have two recommendation letters. Even though this will not be the only factor in determining your acceptance, a good recommendation letter will help colleges view you in a positive light and add credibility to everything else.

By now, you may be wondering, “What should I prioritize among these hard and soft factors?”

Based on all my experiences, the order appears..

1. GPA

2. Extracurricular Activities

3. AP Enrolled than AP scores

4. SAT

If I were to break things down even further, it would look like this:

1. Grades in all courses

2. Grades in college prep courses

3. Difficulty of curriculum

4. Admission test scores (SAT, ACT)

5. Essay and writing samples

6. Student’s demonstrated interest

7. Counselor recommendations

8. Teacher recommendations

9. Class rank

10. Extracurricular activities

11. Portfolio

12. Subject test scores (AP, IB)

13. Interview

14. Work experience

15. State graduation exam scores



ⓒ Letitu Corp. All rights reserved Use of any Letitu trademark or any other trademark listed is prohibited without express written consent.