College Blog
You did it! Your family got to the other side of the application deadlines, and you survived! But now, if you applied early action or early decision anywhere, then decisions have begun rolling in. And while a deferral may be disappointing, it’s worth remembering that a deferral is not a no! Here, we’ll unpack the difference between a deferral and a waitlist, how deferrals and waitlists work, and where you should go from here.
Which prompt you pick matters less than the story you choose to tell and how you tell it. When you begin to get ready to write, you should employ a process that begins with understanding the questions being asked. Turn over all your cards. For some people that involves brainstorming, for others it doesn’t. Whether you brainstorm or not, write with no regard for length; just get all the ideas on paper. Then organize the parts of the story that are really important or the parts that came out well, and begin trimming irrelevant content, shortening sentences and fixing verbs, getting rid of unnecessary adjectives and adverbs. At the end of the process, you should have an essay that tells the reader something about you. It should be a story that no one else could tell but you. And hopefully the writing sounds like you—a polished version of you, a you in a suit-and-tie or blouse-and-blazer, but you nonetheless.
Insight. That’s the whole point of this essay. Colleges are looking to better understand your student: Who are they? What do they care about? What are their passions? Their dreams? What have they experienced in life, and how have those experiences shaped who they are? These are all questions that students seldom ask themselves. Amid the bustle of high school: the classes, the AP tests, the SAT or ACT, extracurriculars, volunteering, sports, who has the time to stop and think about these things?
