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Five Effective Techniques to Optimize College Visits

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Do you plan to tour a few colleges and universities? Your college essays will flow freely and authentically if you do these five things:

1. Invest thirty minutes to soak it in, then take some notes.
Pick a few vantage points to sit and simply soak in the activity at the school. Pick an outdoor location, an academic setting, and a social setting. Close your eyes for a moment and take a few deep breaths. Then soak in the scene. After about five minutes close your eyes again and take a few more breaths. Then take no more than five minutes to jot some notes: What did you see? How did it make you feel? Could you imagine yourself in this place, participating in the campus life that you observed?

2. Try to meet with some undergrads.
If you have an idea of a major you would like to undertake, try to speak with students majoring in that department.  Visit the department. Write or dictate a quick memo on what it might feel like to take the major. What would you be doing and with whom? Why does that excite you?

3. Take in the campus life.
Visit the student activity center and dining halls. Investigate some clubs and groups you can imagine joining. Make a note to check out their social media. Snap some photos of notices, pin boards and hangouts.

4. Get off campus.
If you have a particular activity that you do, such as running, visiting art galleries, browsing used book, or exploring the Indie music scene, try to do those things during your visit. Take notes and pictures.

5. At every turn, use whatever it takes to help you to solidify your memories.
Take notes (voice dictation counts), snap photos, grab brochures. Don’t just buy T-shirts and sweatshirts! Most importantly, develop a scrapbook (concrete or digital) of your imagined future at each of the schools you visit.

These techniques will help jog your memory and conjure specific feelings about each school. They will help you you craft compelling admission essays.

Happy visiting!

I have guided hundreds of college applicants in crafting winning essays. 92% of my students have enjoyed admission to their top schools. Contact me if you would like to optimize your summer and enjoy a lower-stress Senior year. My bookings are limited.

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Keeping it honest

I’m currently working with a student who has had an alternative educational path.  She really wants her colleges to see that she has had a regular social life.  While she is a very social person, she has had different kinds of social interactions from some of her mainstream peers.  When we actually talked about it, she came up with this brilliant and incredibly honest story that showed her in an imperfect light:  when she first got her cell phone, she sent out texts that were way too long.  Her friends ribbed her for it and she quickly adjusted.  Like other aspects of growing up, this student has quickly learned how to navigate the ins and outs of social life.  She is writing a poignant story that traces her own, unique path.


Although it may not always be appropriate to begin your essay with a story of how you goofed, colleges want to see your growth, maturity and insight.  Ultimately, you want to show yourself in a flattering light.  The path, however, may not be direct.  When you brainstorm your essay topics, don’t rule out anecdotes that show some of your vulnerabilities, especially if they fit into your personal hero’s story.


Happy writing!

-Dr. Kirschner

Think like an anthropologist

When I coach students through the process of writing their admission essays, my training as an anthropologist comes through in two ways.  First, anthropologists like to “dig” much like our archeologist colleagues.  It’s important to dig or delve deeply into a person’s character or the events and symbols that make their lives meaningful.  Any time that you can dig deeply into these aspects of your life, you will create a stronger foundation for your essay.  If you have trouble digging this way, and asking probing (sometimes uncomfortable) questions of yourself, work with a partner or reach out to a coach (you can contact me through the links here at youradmissionessay.com).


As well, the personal statement benefits from the kind of writing that anthropologists do.  Anthropologists often seize upon small details to create a vivid picture of social life.  They then place those pictures into a wider context to show what’s relevant about  the phenomenon or process under examination.  Likewise, strong personal statements ask you to create a vivid impression of yourself using a narrative of some sort.  Ideally, you’ll reflect on that narrative in some way to show a wider understanding of the significance: whether it’s what you learned from an experience or how you plan to put your experiences into practice as you embark on your career.


So, when you approach your essay, think and write like an anthropologist.  If you need a hand, keep in touch!


-Dr. Kirschner

Writing as Practice

I like for my students to think of writing as an ongoing process, or a practice.  Here’s a way to think about it:


Writing is not only a tool for communication, for transmitting ideas or transcribing what has already been thought: It is itself a way of thinking, of developing ideas, trying them out, arranging them, testing them.  It is a way of separating your thoughts from yourself –making them take a visible form outside your mind– so that you can think about them and improve them.  It is, in fact, always practice, and realizing this can make you a stronger, more confident writer.  (Scholes et al, The Practice of Writing. 1994: St Martins Press, New York.  Pp 13).


Happy Writing!

-Dr. Kirschner

On Style

We can say much about the style of your admission essay.  Since these writing assignments generally call for you to tell a story about yourself, they invite you to write in a personal tone.  That tone should come from you and your voice.  I urge you to avoid trying to add an inauthentic “style” to your essay.  As William Zinssser, cautions in his essential book, On Writing Well:

There is no style store; style is organic to the person doing the writing…Trying to add     style is like adding a toupee.  At first glance the formerly bald man looks young and even     handsome.  But at second glance –and there’s always a second glance– he doesn’t look     quite right…The point is that he doesn’t look like himself. (1998:19).

When you write your essay, you will go through a process of finding your voice.   This voice is how you express yourself and come across as the real you.  And that’s what admissions committees want to hear.

Happy writing!
-Dr. Kirschner

Remember to dot your “i”s and cross your “t”s

Okay, so the title of this blog is a bit of a throwback to the world of handwriting.  Still, the point that you should meticulously comb your essays for the smallest of errors still holds.  Although you won’t get admitted to a college just because you had nice punctuation, not proofreading your essay shows a kind of carelessness that might put off the admissions officer.  There’s really little excuse for small errors.

So, I urge you to avoid counting on your word processing program to catch all of your typos and grammos.   If this is not your area of expertise, you should ask a trusted friend, parent, teacher or coach to go over your essays.  Do this only after you have done so yourself.  You don’t want to tax these relationships!


Happy Writing!

-Dr. Kirschner

Writing for the recycling bin

Writing for the recycling bin.

Many of us writers tend to censor and self-edit as we write. While this may make for well-polished prose, self-editing while you write can really stymie ideas. When you are writing, particularly in early drafts, you want to allow for as much of a free-flow of ideas as possible. I often urge my students to first make a mess, then clean it up later (hopefully after the ideas have had a chance to simmer). At its best, writing can be a messy, unwieldy process. It can’t stay that way forever (you will have a reader eventually and s/he deserves to have some clear direction of where you’re headed), but in the initial phases, it’s okay to write for yourself.

Better yet, write for the recycle bin. What I mean when I offer this advice, is that you should write as if your writing mattered to no one, not even to you. This attitude allows you to approach your writing with complete abandon. When you write for the recycling bin, you write without judging your work and yourself. You can approach your work with kindness and creativity. Sometimes you will recycle your work and the exercise will serve to stimulate your creative juices. At other times, you can keep your work –maybe sit on it for a while– and revisit it . When you revisit your work, I urge you to do so with great kindness and curiosity. “What are the ideas here?” “Where can I go with this?” “I hadn’t thought of it that way.” This detached approach not only allows you to be kind to your work, it allows you to be kind to its creator. Always a good thing.

Happy writing!

-Dr. Kirschner