Common App Week: Prompt 4 Breakdown and Brainstorming Tips

Welcome back to another edition of common app brainstorming. Today we look at a classic favorite, prompt 4. Here’s what the prompt is: “Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma-anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.”

We love prompt 4, which asks students to talk about a problem and how they solved or are planning to solve it. This question is similar to prompt 2 in that it is meant to tease out your problem-solving skills and provide a glimpse into an applicant’s frame of mind when dealing with challenges. It also provides a few bonus opportunities for creative expression, leaving both the scale and the time frame for setting up a problem/solution wide open.

You should think about everything from more traditional obstacles you’ve had to overcome to the small predicaments that have inspired them to think about what they really value. Applicants should also keep in mind that this asks why this problem has significance to you. Good responses here will reveal something about yourself that helps the reader get to know you and your life better. And note that the prompt also states, “...no matter the scale.” It doesn’t have to be world hunger you’re trying to solve. It may actually be something quite personal. The key here is to pick something that you can (1) clearly identify as a problem, and (2) break down into identifiable steps you took or would take to solve it. That’s why choosing a global topic like human trafficking because you think it will sound impressive might prove to be more difficult, and less effective, to write about than something you’ve dealt with in your own life.

Some other questions to ponder:

• When have you been proactive in attempting to effect change? What inspires you to action
• How do you think you can positively contribute to a cause that is important to you?
• If you had the power to make a lasting impact in any area at all, what would it be?

And examples to use as food for thought:

• Has your love of nature inspired you to start a charity to help save local endangered species
• Did your desire to help your grandparents help you create home automation technologies?
• Has your commitment to pursuing medical research inspired you to contact your favorite professors and researchers looking for summer lab positions, and to read every scientific paper you can get your hands on?

It's important that the problem you choose is linked to your life and world in a meaningful way. The whole purpose of this essay-writing exercise is to reveal something valuable about yourself to admissions, so be sure to link the problem you highlight to your passions, actions, or aspirations. And don’t forget to detail at least a few steps you would/could take to solve your chosen quandary. While the prompts don’t really matter in the initial conception phases of an essay (as you now know), once you’ve backed into your prompt of choice, following instructions to the fullest and answering all parts of each question are critical.

We hope these blog posts are helping! Comment with any questions you might have or come over and we can have a chat! 

Common App Week: Prompt 3 Breakdown and Brainstorming Tips

Hello! And welcome to another edition of Common App Week! Today we will tackle on of the most difficult prompts of the common app, the famous “belief” prompt. I am not going to leave you in suspicion anymore, here’s the prompt: “Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?”

This remains one of the most challenging prompts of the Common App’s selection, even though it has become slightly friendlier with the addition of the option to discuss a time you questioned an idea instead of challenging it. This prompt requires you to speak passionately about your beliefs and ideologies, which are often onerous subjects that can be difficult to mold into compact stories. It can be one of the hardest questions to steer in a positive, productive direction without traveling into preachy, overly didactic territory. This is also a more precarious prompt than most in that you need to carefully assess the risks of espousing beliefs that might be polarizing for the readers of their applications.

That said, a response to this prompt can be incisive and as deeply personal as it would be for you. Applicants who can articulate their thoughts and feelings while showcasing malleability and willingness to thoughtfully consider the ideas of others will likely stand out as valuable additions to any campus. If this prompt jumps out at you because you have a very specific story to tell or opinion to voice, run with it!

Keep these things in mind as you brainstorm:

1.  Tackle this prompt only if you really did speak or act out against a popular belief or idea, thereby causing you to take a stand and go against the grain. “Everyone else cheated, but I decided to play it straight” is just following the rules, not challenging a belief or idea.
2. Stories have more heft to them when the challenge lasted more than one moment. Saying “Hi” once to the awkward outcast at school is a nice thing to do. Eating lunch with him every day is challenging a belief or idea. Arguing with your friends about a woman’s right to choose is likely easier than arguing the same point in an AP Government class filled with conservative students. Telling your counselor that your school should offer AP German doesn’t have as much oomph as convincing a teacher to do an independent study after school for 12 interested students.

Your essay does not have to be focused around a fundamentally serious or groundbreaking issue, what matters most when responding to this prompt is that you have strong convictions about the belief or idea you are trying to convey, and that you examine the personal effects of this ethos on your life and world. For this reason, this prompt can be a great vehicle for showcasing your consideration, persuasive skills, and passions to admissions. 

As always, comment if you have questions or come over and meet us!

Common App Week: Prompt 2 Breakdown and Brainstorming Tips

Welcome to another episode of the common app week! Today we go through prompt number 2 on the common app: the famous, “I had a problem and here’s how I solved it.” Well that’s not how they word it all but that’s the gist of it. The common verbiage of it is as follows: “The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?” 

We have always believed that essays about overcoming obstacles are most effective when they focus more on solutions than problems. Accordingly, students’ responses to Prompt #2 should be directed at a student’s response, outlook, and demeanor when presented with one of life’s many hurdles, and applicants should aim to showcase qualities like resilience, determination, and humility. The obstacles you choose to explore can vary widely in nature, they can be as serious as being tormented by bullies, as ingrained as the financial issues that have plagued your family for years, or as seemingly pedestrian as a mistake that results in a lost opportunity. While the possibilities are almost endless, students should be careful not to choose challenges that may seem cliche (the inability to achieve a 100 on an exam and/or secure tickets to a concert) or that illustrate a lapse in good judgment (that time you played video games for 15 hours or when you ate 3 large pizzas in one sitting). Still, if you can isolate an incident of trial in your life and how you learned from it, this can be a rewarding prompt to explore.

Some key questions to consider:

• How do you deal with hardship?
• What qualifies as a challenge or setback in your life and world?
• Are you the kind of person who can rebound—who turns every experience, good or bad, into one from which you can learn something? What experiences might illustrate this quality?
• What have been some of the major challenges you’ve encountered in your life, and was there a silver lining?

And a few examples to think about:

• Has a lifelong battle with stuttering ultimately increased your overall confidence and allowed you to participate in social activities and public forums without self-judgment?
• Did a parent’s fragile health situation challenge you to take on more responsibilities than the average teenager?
• Did a series of setbacks on your road to becoming a child actor introduce you to screenwriting, your professional goal and biggest passion?
• Did social pressure of pursuing engineering led to you have a difficult conversation with your parents?
• Overall, try to keep these stories as positive as possible. Remember, these essays are not just contemplative musings on your toughest times or reflections on the hiccups that populate everyday life (though these things can certainly be touched upon); they are also about overcoming obstacles and refusing to submit to life’s greatest challenges.

We hope this was helpful. Common App can challenging but these tiny brainstorming posts might help ignite something. If you have any questions comment below or come meet one of our writing mentors! 

Common App Week: Prompt 1 breakdown and brainstorming tips

Welcome to EdBrand’s common app week! Everyday we will discuss one essay prompt and help you get started with brainstorming! The first prompt in the common app is: “Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.” 

This Common App prompt is an Old Faithful of essay questions that has survived most revisions. It’s been around for years and offers all the flexibility an applicant could ask for from a prompt, with just enough direction to get those creative fountains flowing. Focus on the key words “background,” “identity,” “interest,” and “talent” and use them as launch points for your brainstorming. What about your history, personality, hobbies, or accomplishments might be worth highlighting for an admissions officer? It can be something as small as seeing an episode of a television show or as large as the struggle of moving to a foreign country. The most important thing to consider for this prompt is that your subject and/or perspective is dynamic and specific to you and who you are and no one else.

Some questions as you brainstorm:

• What about my history or background sets me apart from my peers?
• How do I define myself? How do the people who are closest to me define me?
• What have I achieved that has been integral in molding my character and ambitions?
• What, in my seventeen years on this earth, has helped shape the person I am today?
• What do I do differently than my peers and why is that special to me?

Some examples to consider:

• Has your family’s love of food and your resultant adventurous tastes and culinary curiosity allowed you to connect with cultures from around the world?
•  Does your religion define you?
• Did going to a Subodh Gupta exhibit inspire you to start an art collection that has since expanded beyond the borders of your bedroom?
• What are the challenges and rewards of being raised by your siblings? Or of being part of a family made up of stepsisters and stepbrothers?

Overall, this prompt is what we call a “choose-your-own-adventure” prompt. It has historically served as a fabulous catch-all for subjects that don’t fit within the confines of the other prompt options. A recent addition to the Common App’s prompt selection now offers even more freedom to applicants (more on that later), but students should still think of Prompt #1 as a topic of immense choice, reeled in by a few helpful guidelines. We hope this helped. For any questions comment or come meet us for a coffee!

Common App Week: 2017-18 Topic Overview

Class of 2022! Your Common App essays are out and we cannot wait to talk about them. The Common App for the year 2017-18 are pretty much the same as last year’s, with a few small but notable changes. Of the five prompts we have come to know and love so well, two remain exactly the same, and three have undergone minor makeovers to expand the reach of each question and the breadth of a student’s potential responses. 

The Common App has also added two new prompts to the pot, one of which is a return to the much-coveted “topic of your choice.” So college applicants will now have seven essay prompts to choose from. All of these changes are good news for applicants, who are freer than ever to explore essay topics of all tones, styles, and subjects, and who now have a few extra cues at their fingertips to help ignite their creativity. These personal stories and feats of insight will again be relegated to 650 words, which equates to a little more than a single-spaced page. We happen to believe this is the perfect amount of space in which to make a quick and powerful impression with admissions counsellors. 

As you begin looking at the prompts remember: It does not matter what topic you choose (read more about this here). Begin thinking about essays like an inverted funnel. Start with the story and then choose the topic that it fits. This is where you get to talk about what makes you, you. Don’t look at it as an opportunity to sell yourself or your resume. Use this as a way to showcase your uniqueness, identity, and passion. 

These next weeks we will try to deconstruct each common app prompt in depth. Come chat with us and learn how to ace the common app! 

Do Common App Essay Prompts Really Matter?

The 2017-18 Common Application platform went live recently, and in the ensuing weeks you will undoubtedly read a lot about the Common App’s personal essay. You will read about essays that worked and didn’t work. You will read about what each prompt means, which prompts are better than others, and what admissions officers are looking for in these 650-word representations of each applicant. However do the essays really even matter? NO. That’s the short answer. But here’s the reason why. 

The aim of the admissions essay is to tell admissions officers something they don’t know about you and that isn’t represented anywhere else on the application. The essay should aim to reveal something about your true passions, interests, and goals while giving a taste of your personality. Reading your essay should give admissions officers insight into what it would be like to have a conversation with you. What makes you tick. What makes you, you.

While the essay can be an excellent launch point for a revolutionary essay, the challenge most students face is trying to decide which prompt to tackle before they even understand which of their stories and characteristics they want to put on display.

At EdBrand we like to take a very different approach. We work through an inverted funnel method. First think of the a story that displays something you are proud of and then try to fit it into one of the essay prompts. Here are the steps we like to take with our students: 

1. Let them take a cursory look at the Common Application’s essay prompts to get generally acquainted with them.
2. Forget about the prompts! Like, no memory about them for a while. Don’t let your creative juices get tainted by the silly questions at all. 
3. Collect their best stories and ruminate on their defining characteristics. What doesn’t admissions know about you that you want them to know? What moments in your life have shaped you and made you the person you are today? (We do this through a comprehensive one-on-one conversation with our writing mentors!)
4. Dig those prompts out of cold storage. Read each one with your essay topic in mind. Choose the prompt that most closely fits the story! 

There you have it! You are now writing an amazing common app essay!! Still have questions, come meet us for coffee.

How to Finalize your College List?

This is right about the time in the application process that students begin to look at their college list and make decisions on which colleges to finally apply to. Most high schools nowadays have a maximum of 10 or 12 schools that they can apply to but even choosing in the ballpark of 6-8 might be good. Here are some best practices to cut down on those names: 

1. There is nothing like the perfect choice: Students may believe they will have an “a-ha” moment when they arrive on the campus that is perfect for them. This pressure to find “the one” can make students and their parents worry when school after school just doesn’t feel 100% right. Reject that mindset. There are many schools that are likely to be a good fit. Don't let ‘perfect’ be the enemy of ‘great.’”In fact, falling in love with one school can actually be a mistake. Students that have their heart’s set on a singular school may face disappointment if they are not admitted.
2. Make a list of essentials: In order to cut down on the colleges try making a list of five “must haves,” things that a college should have for it to be on your list. The list can range from location to course offerings to club activities. The list allows you to filter through the overwhelming list of college choices. Once you have a list of what you want, you can research what colleges have the want and then go visit and learn more to determine if the college is right for you. In fact, this also sets priorities straight. A lot of times students are interested in a specific major but are also hellbent on only applying to colleges in one specific location. Prioritizing on what is more important to them can help them cut down on the their list. 
3. Be open minded to change: Students may have preconceived ideas about a school (positive and negative) from what they read online or hear from their peers. But it is best to approach the college search process with an open mind. When interacting with a college (whether that is by seeing the campus, reading about, or meeting admissions reps)  students should try to really experience the place and get a feel for the student body. See if you can imagine yourself “fit” in to the college community because to be honest, that’s a big criteria for colleges when they look at you! Don't choose a college based purely on ranking and reputation. Just because a college is not on the top of a ranking list, it does not mean it can’t be on the top of a student’s list.

If you still need help with that college list, come meet us for coffee and we will be happy to help!

How do you Demonstrate Interest to Colleges?

Some aspects of the college admissions process are fairly straightforward, such as grades and standardized tests scores. Others may be a little less clear, like demonstrating interest in specific colleges. So how do you navigate around expressing interest to a college? Here are some tips: 

1. Find the colleges you want to focus: Finding colleges that you want give more attention to is important. You cannot focus on all your colleges but giving the ones you feel you really see yourself going to will help a lot. 
2. Meet Admissions Representatives and go to college fairs: These are places where colleges are really exposed and want to hear you out. Go talk to admissions reps, show them your face, a resume, and ask meaningful questions so that they remember you while reading your apps. Admissions reps divide regions and countries amongst themselves which means that the ones coming to you might be the ones that read your applications first. Making an impression with them will be important! 
3. Email lists: Once you have met a college rep, you are entered into a college database as students that are interested in the institution. Signing up on email lists demonstrates interest as well as gives you great fodder for interviews and supplemental applications. In fact, colleges can track how much time you spend on their website, another metric to track your engagement which is important to know about. 
4. Campus Visits: This might be hard for most people applying from outside of the US but visiting the actual campus is one of the best ways of figuring out if you will fit in. While reading about the school and speaking with representatives can give you a general idea of what the college is like, you might not really be able to tell until you actually see the physical space. How does the campus make you feel? Do the students seem similar to you? How will you fit in? Does the campus meet or even exceed your expectations? Visiting college not only gives you a sense of how well you might fit in, but also shows the colleges that you are invested enough in their school to make the effort to see it firsthand
5. Setting up an interview: As mentioned above, if you do get the opportunity to visit a college, be sure to request an on-campus interview if the college offers this option. Some colleges may offer them at specific times or (e.g. once you’ve applied, junior spring, senior fall, etc.) so be sure to request it when the timing is right. While some colleges may tell you that the interview is non-evaluative, the fact is, it is still part of your application—and another way for them to gauge your interest in the school. If a college does offer on-campus interviews and is in a location that is reasonably accessible to you, it may look like you don’t care enough to make the effort if you don’t request one. If the school is not within driving distance, you may be able to request an off-campus interview with a parent or alum or when they fly down to your city. 

Contact us and find out about more ways to interact with colleges, upcoming college coming to Delhi, as well tips for interviewing, and creating your brand!
 

A Few Liberal Arts Colleges Visited our Offices this Weekend!

College reps from Skidmore, Macalester, Bennington, Connecticut, and Wheaton College representatives met our students in Gurgaon this beautiful weekend! They shared information about their institutions, admissions process, and an interactive questionnaire thereafter. 

Here is a profile of the colleges that visited us and key takeaways from the event: 

1. Skidmore College: 

   Founded in 1903 as the Young Women’s Industrial Club of Saratoga, co-ed Skidmore College serves up solid academics with a decidedly nontraditional flair. Freshmen are immediately integrated into school culture at Skidmore College. Through the First Year Experience Program, freshmen are paired up with peer mentors and placed in introductory Scribner Seminars. Freshmen must live on campus in dorms near other students in their seminar.

   The most popular majors at Skidmore are business, psychology, English, art, and government. Not coincidentally, students say these are some of the college’s best programs as well. Biology, environmental studies, and geoscience majors may con- duct fieldwork in the college’s 300-acre North Woods, a natural laboratory. 

   Through the Hudson-Mohawk Association of Colleges and Universities, students may take courses at most other colleges nearby. There are also cooperative programs in engineering with Dartmouth and Clarkson, a Washington semester with American University, a semester at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, a master of arts in teaching with Union University, and M.B.A. programs with Clarkson and Union. The college has also established the Skidmore Analytical Interdisciplinary Laboratory (SAIL), an integrated research instrumentation cluster that enables faculty and students in biology, chemistry, environmental studies, and anthropology to engage in research that links molecular composition to the structure and function of biological, chemical, environmental, and anthropological systems.

   Students believe that classes are engaging but don't feel as though they are competing with their peers. Students are generally happy and have a lot do outside the classroom even though there is no greek life. 

2. Macalester College: 

   Macalester is known as an international liberal arts college. It has one of the strongest International studies program in the country and prides itself on being the only liberal arts college in a city setting in all of the Midwest. Mac’s general requirements include two courses in social sciences, a course in quantitative reasoning, a course in writing, and two in natural sciences and math, plus one to two courses in fine arts and in humanities. Two courses must address cultural diversity, in the United States and internationally. Every student also completes a capstone experience during his or her senior year, such as an independent research project, performance, artistic work, or original work. Mac’s academic strengths include economics, chemistry, and biology; the school’s impressive science facilities include an observatory, an animal operant chamber, and labs for electronic instrumentation and laser spectroscopy. New majors include media and cultural studies and international development. 

   Eighteen percent of Macalester students hail from Minnesota, and the rest come from every state, the District of Columbia, and dozens of other countries. Despite Mac’s small size, the student body is 4 percent African American, 6 percent Hispanic, and 6 percent Asian American—and a whopping 11 percent of the student body are international. Political debate is lively. Merit scholarships worth an average of $7,347 each are available however there are no athletic scholarships. Housing is average with over 60% of students living in campus housing. 

   While there is no greek life, students loved their social life on and off college. Macalester churns out great students with strong reasoning skills and an ability to sell themselves well. If you can bear the cold, this is can be a great investment. 

3. Bennington College:

   Bennington College is a school where architects are teachers, biologists sculpt, and a sociologist might work on Wall Street or in graphic design. It’s no wonder they strive to abandon the theory of regimented knowledge. Bennington’s focus is on learning by doing. The emphasis on self-direction, field work, and personal relationships with professors sets it apart even from other liberal arts colleges of similar (small) size. Bennington sits on 470 acres at the foot of Vermont’s Green Mountains. Dickinson Science Building offers high-tech equipment for aspiring chemists, biolo- gists, environmental scientists, and geneticists. The building is also home to a media lab dedicated to the study of languages, including Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. A 14,000-square-foot student center offers students a snack bar, grill, convenience store, and multipurpose spaces. The Center for the Advancement of Public Action opened in 2011 and includes space for students and faculty centering their work in public action to collaborate with each other and to engage with people whose lives and work are dedicated to solving pressing world problems.

   As Bennington lacks traditional departments, requirements, and even faculty tenure, it’s probably not surprising that the school also lacks dorms. Ninety-four percent of students live in one of the college’s co-ed houses; 12 are white New England clapboard, and three are more modern. 

   Without academic departments, the faculty works to provide students with a well-rounded academic foundation. The most popular area of study is visual and performing arts, followed by English, social sciences, foreign languages, and liberal arts. Dance is a long-standing strength and social and biological sciences remain popular. Social life centers on rehearsals, performances, films, and lectures. Although the vibe on Bennington’s campus is liberal, sophisticated, and cosmopolitan, the neighboring town of the same name—four miles away—is far more conservative, typical of rural New England. Given Bennington’s rugged location, hiking, rock climbing, caving, camping, and canoeing keep students moving. Ski slopes beckon in the colder months. Twice each year, the college turns part of its huge Visual and Performing Arts complex into an indoor roller rink for a Rollerama party. For 12 hours one day each May, the cam- pus celebrates spring with Sunfest, which includes bands, games, and other events. 

   Bennington is a place where there is nothing like the road less travelled. Everyone is doing something special and making the most of their lives. If you are looking for a curriculum as free as night and day, think of this college; the Reed of the North! 

4. Connecticut College:

   Placed majestically atop a hill, the Conn College campus sits within a 750-acre arboretum with a pond, wetlands, wooded areas, and hiking trails. It offers beautiful views of the Thames River. The granite campus buildings are a mixture of modern and collegiate Gothic in style, with some neo-Gothic and neoclassical architecture thrown in for good measure. The college is slated to complete a $20 million renovation and expansion of New London Hall this year, which will dramatically expand space and resources for life and computer sciences. 

   Conn’s dance and drama departments are superb, and it’s not uncommon for dancers to take time off to study with professional companies. Aspiring actors, directors, and stagehands may work with the Eugene O’Neill Theater Institute, named for New London’s best-known literary son. Chemistry majors may use high-tech gas chromatograms and mass spectrometers from their very first day, and students say Conn also offers excellent programs in biology and physics. The Ammerman Center for Arts and Technology allows students to examine the connections between artistic pursuits and the worlds of math and computer science. The most popular majors are economics, biology, environmental studies, English, and international relations. The teacher certification program also wins raves. Over half of students study abroad, and virtually any major can be “internationalized” through language study or paid overseas internships. Conn also participates in the Twelve College Exchange Program, bringing the total number of foreign study programs to more than 40. 

   Only 13 percent of Conn College students come from Connecticut, and 49 percent graduated from public high schools. African Americans comprise 4 percent and Asian Americans make up 3 per- cent of the student body, respectively; Hispanic students add 6 percent. Because Conn lacks a Greek system, most activities—including co-ed intramural sports—revolve around the dorms, which sponsor weekly keg and theme parties. Also keeping students busy are movie nights, comedy shows, student productions, and dances—sometimes with out-of-town bands and DJs. Conn College fosters strong student/faculty bonds and takes pride in its ability to challenge—and trust—students, both in and out of the classroom. Its a place for people who strive to different because to be honest, everyone is extremely unique here. 

Will Higher Education Ever Change?

With the advent of social media and high speed internet, the dissemination of information has been on a steady rise. We get news in a matter of seconds 24x7. This advancement is also seen in the Education industry with many "Ed-Tech" amalgamations sprouting up-- companies that instruct through interactive lectures for a subsidized price than attending college. Companies such as Khan Academy and Coursera are in the forefront of this disruption. 

A March 2012 study by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press found that 60% of American adults viewed universities as having a positive effect on how things are going in the country and 84% of college graduates say that the expense of going to college was a good investment for them. Yet another Pew Research Center survey in 2011 found that 75% of adults say college is too expensive for most Americans to afford. Moreover, 57% said that the higher education system in the U.S. fails to provide students with good value for the money they and their families spend.

This shows that there is a big chance that the way we learn is changing and that the future might look quite different. The flip of this however is that technology has come and gone, but the education industry has remained pretty much the same. Significant improvement in the effectiveness and wider distribution of education accompany every major new communication technology. In the early days of their evolution, radio, television, personal computers—and even the telephone—were all predicted to be likely to revolutionize formal education. Nevertheless, the standardized knowledge-transmission model is primarily the same today as it was when students started gathering at the University of Bologna in 1088.

The internet however, is a different kind of beast which is taking over lives a lot more than just verbal communication. There are changes that we will see by the year 2020 with more hybrid learning and increased service in distance leaning programs that are able to educate far and wide. As developing countries  such as India and China are increasing so are educational demands which will be met if not my an aging brick and mortar system. Though I do believe that going to a college changes you in a lot more ways than just staring at a computer, this might soon just be the thinking of the past.

What are your opinions? Comment and let us know!