College Application Essay Help!

It’s crunch time for BS/MD as well as Ivy League applications. As we help students brainstorm ideas, revise and edit the MOST IMPORTANT APPLICATIONS/ESSAYS of their lives, we are discovering consistent points in their essays that will cause instant rejections. Dr. Paul Lowe would like to share these points.

• Essays were verbose.
• Essays were not personal.
• Essays were boring.
• Essay did not answer the question.
• Essays were superficial.
• Essays were pretentious.
• Essays contained grammatical errors and inaccuracies
• Essays were disconnected from the application.
• Essay did not have the student’s voice.
• Essays were simply cut and pasted from another answer.
• Essays were formulaic.
• Essays lacked harmony.
• Essay lacked rhythm.
• Essays sounded similar to online essay samples.
• Essays sounded similar to samples in books.

Noticed that we used the past tense!

The consensus that we have heard among most admissions officers at Ivy League as well as BS/MD programs is that an essay can both help and hurt you and essays are an opportunity to expand the admissions officer’s sense of who you are.

Here are some comments that Dr. Lowe has heard from admissions officers regarding application essays:

• “I don’t like to see an essay that you can almost see was written by parents.”
• “If an essay is notable for its weakness, then both readers are likely to comment on its shortcomings and factor that into their recommendations to the committee.”
• “A badly written essay can certainly tip the scale the wrong way even when the parts of a student’s application are otherwise strong.”
• “We turn down many students with great grades and test scores who have poor essays.”
• “If I read an essay that has the same theme that I have read from a website or a book, the student is instantly rejected.”

After years of hard work and preparation, why make mistakes on application essays that could cause INSTANT REJECTION?

Dr. Paul Reginald Lowe is the managing director and lead admissions expert at Ivy League Admissions Advisors, an affiliate of Pinnacle Educational Center Admissions Advisors Group network.