By Caroline Matas, Ph.D. Are schools still assigning The Great Gatsby these days? Candidly, it wasn’t my favorite required reading, but I’ve got to hand it to F. Scott Fitzgerald: the man could write a conclusion. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us..
By Adrian Cho, Ph.D. “Rewriting is the essence of writing well: it’s where the game is won or lost.” – William Zinsser (1922-2015), On Writing Well You’ve read your essay multiple times. You know it needs improvement. But when you sit down to revise, you’re not sure what to change. Maybe you make a few..
Caroline Matas, Ph.D. Did you recently go on an international trip that changed your life and view of the world? Did you volunteer at a local food pantry that made you realize how lucky you are to never have gone hungry? Did you volunteer to serve a marginalized community that opened your eyes to your..
By Adrian Cho, Ph.D. “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” – Marcel Proust (1871-1922), In Search of Lost Time: Swann’s Way The cursor blinks on an empty page. You rack your brain as you search your unresponsive mind for details on the moment you threw the game-winning..
By Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. “I hit the word limit so I stopped writing.” Every year, throughout the essay drafting odyssey, multiple students dismay me with this very phrase. It’s an idea that arises from the misconception that a word limit is a cumbersome goal to be reached and, once reached, an impassable wall beyond which..
By Victoria Tillson Evans, Ph.D. There’s nothing like an imminent deadline to force people to get started. Unfortunately, that mindset doesn’t work for the college admissions process. Planning to start your applications and essays just shy of November 1st, the big Early Action or Decision deadline for most schools, is like trying to run a..
By Caroline Matas, Ph.D. As the first wave of college application deadlines looms, high school seniors around the country are starting to feel the pressure. With so many supplemental essays to keep track of–not to mention the big personal statement essay to tackle–it might feel like the best you can do is just knock out..
By Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. If you here require a practical rule of me, I will present you with this: ‘Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.’ – Arthur Quiller-Couch, British Literary Critic Increase the font size,..
By Caroline Matas, Ph.D. In many ways, July is the peak month of summer break: removed enough from spring semester to have fully broken out of your school year routines and still far enough away that you’re not yet thinking about buying school supplies for the fall. In the world of college admissions, though, July..
By Adam Muri-Rosenthal, Ph.D. SPOILER ALERT: This post contains spoilers for Everything, Everywhere, All at Once (2022), so if you haven’t yet seen it, see it (it’s a masterpiece!) and then come back. In one of the alternate realities that Evelyn Quan (played by the always impressive Michelle Yeoh) experiences after a Matrix-style awakening to..