{"product_id":"admissions-essay-boot-camp-isbn-9781607746126","title":"Admissions Essay Boot Camp","description":"\u003cb\u003eFounder of elite college prep agency Mint Tutors, Ashley Wellington shares hard-hitting essay-writing advice tailored to each student's strengths and potential pitfalls, inspiring students to write as if guided by their own personal college admissions tutor.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Your Own Pocket Essay Tutor\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Ever wish you had a private tutor to help you write your admissions essays? With this book, you do. Ashley Wellington, founder of the elite New York college prep agency Mint Tutors, has personalized her hard-hitting advice just for you. Her unique “boot camp” process starts by helping you identify your student type, then figure out which topics will highlight your best (or worst) attributes to admissions officers. Thinking about writing an essay on . . .\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e• Sports? \u003c\/i\u003eThis popular topic is often limiting, but Wellington will help  you come across as talented—and also thoughtful and well rounded.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003ci\u003e• Your trip to Egypt\u003c\/i\u003e? Wellington will help you avoid common travel clichés that make admissions officers groan. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e• The color yellow\u003c\/i\u003e? Wellington will make sure you sound quirky and creative in the \u003ci\u003eright\u003c\/i\u003e way. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEven the most impressive students can sound ordinary by following the formulaic approach of other essay guides—and in this über-competitive landscape, you need an edge to stand out to top schools. Wellington’s tutees have gained acceptance to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Georgetown, Duke, and other elite institutions, and with this book at your side, you can join their ranks.Preface \u003cbr\u003e WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT IT?  \u003cbr\u003e How This Book Is Different \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Introduction \u003cbr\u003e WHAT’S THE ESSAY GOT TO DO WITH IT?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 1 \u003cbr\u003e WHERE IT ALL BEGINS: Identifying Your Student Type \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 2 \u003cbr\u003e BRAINSTORM FOR IT: The Questionnaire \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 3 \u003cbr\u003e GET IT DOWN ON PAPER: The Freewrite Exercise \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 4 \u003cbr\u003e MAKE IT COUNT: Choosing the Best Prompt for You \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 5 \u003cbr\u003e ORGANIZE IT: The Outline \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 6 \u003cbr\u003e WHEN TO USE “IT’S”: The Skinny on Contractions \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 7\u003cbr\u003e TIDY IT UP: The Draft \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 8 \u003cbr\u003e MAKE IT UNIQUE: Your Version of the Most Common Long Essays \u003cbr\u003eThe Sports Essay \u003cbr\u003e The Community Service Essay \u003cbr\u003e The Outdoor Adventure Essay \u003cbr\u003e The International Travel Essay \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 9 \u003cbr\u003e WATCH IT: Red-Flag Topics and How to Tackle Them \u003cbr\u003e The Pity Essay \u003cbr\u003e The Sexism Essay \u003cbr\u003e The Loner Essay \u003cbr\u003e The “Mea Culpa” Essay \u003cbr\u003e The “Taking a Stance” Essay \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 10 \u003cbr\u003e DON’T PUSH IT: How to Take a Moderate Risk \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Chapter 11\u003cbr\u003e WRAP IT UP: A Few Final Pointers \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e ACKNOWLEDGMENTS \u003cbr\u003e ABOUT THE AUTHOR \u003cbr\u003e INDEX“Ashley Wellington walks you through the process of writing a winning essay as if she were sitting right next to you. Every student who wants to take everyday topics and make them interesting should read this book.”\u003cbr\u003e—Joie Jager-Hyman, EdD, founder of \u003ci\u003eCollege Prep 360\u003c\/i\u003eASHLEY WELLINGTON, MA, founded college prep company Mint Tutors (MintTutors.com) in 2010. With degrees from Princeton University and St. Andrews University in Scotland, Wellington has worked with several premier tutoring agencies. She lives with her husband and daughter in New York City. WHAT’S THE ESSAY GOT TO DO WITH IT? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e If you have picked up this book, you are probably in your junior or senior year of high school, which means it is impossible to augment or change what is already on your transcript. But take a deep breath. This guide is meant to show you how to successfully work with what you have. Six hundred and fifty words about (virtually) anything really \u003ci\u003ecan\u003c\/i\u003e get you into the college of your dreams, as long as you remember my three H’s:\u003cbr\u003e Humility\u003cbr\u003e Honesty\u003cbr\u003e Humor\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I am going to personally walk you through the confusing, intimidating, and stressful process of drafting the perfect college application essay. Along the way, I will demonstrate the difference between a clever approach, a gimmick, and an application self-destruct button. Then I will give you some more insights I’ve gleaned over the years. Remember, there is no specific right answer, but there are many, many wrong answers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Still need convincing? Here is the more erudite version:\u003cbr\u003e The essay is the keystone to an application, and as such, it can function as either an asset or a liability. Most essays are predictable, innocuous, and forgettable and do nothing to set you apart from the rest of a talented applicant pool. Bad essays—in which you come across as someone who lacks motivation, perspective, or passion—can severely hurt your chances. On the other hand, an original response to an essay question offers an immeasurable boost to your admission chances. College essays do more than just showcase your writing ability; ideally, they illustrate your priorities, admirable traits, creativity, and academic promise.\u003cbr\u003e Every year, the number of students applying to college increases, and each student applies to a greater number of schools. As a result, colleges and universities can have between ten and fifteen qualified applicants vying for a single spot, and in many cases the students have comparable test scores, grades, and extracurricular interests. College essays are swiftly becoming the most significant part of an application because they often are the only variable in the admissions equation. All schools, particularly the smaller ones, have their own unique personalities, and admissions committees want to know whether you’d be a good fit for the campus environment and current student body. The essay is now the determining factor.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Mastering the college essay is somewhat of a lost art in our sound-bite culture. So often, students are intimidated by the very idea of college and end up writing only what they think admissions committees might want to hear. Whether that means assuming an overly scholarly tone, discussing a backpacking trip as a metaphor for life (ugh), or debating the intricacies of global warming in Al Gore’s \u003ci\u003eAn Inconvenient Truth\u003c\/i\u003e when nothing else on your application points to an interest in environmentalism, these attempts often fall flat. The best essays are unapologetically \u003ci\u003eyou\u003c\/i\u003e. They aren’t trying to be the next great American novel; they are simply an account of something personally significant, written in a concise and compelling way.\u003cbr\u003e Although the concept of writing a college essay, in which you articulate fundamental qualities you possess, is often an intimidating challenge, it’s also a fantastic opportunity to tell admissions officers why they should choose you. The prompts are intentionally broad, so you can play up your strengths \u003ci\u003eon your own terms\u003c\/i\u003e. Aside from word count, the guidelines dictate little about format, topic, voice, or tone, so you can employ your own style and discuss episodes from your life that address the essay topics with originality and confidence.\u003cbr\u003e There are countless urban legends about successful college essays that made a difference for otherwise ordinary applicants. A favorite among guidance counselors goes like this: Once upon a time, a question on the Harvard application asked students to give a definition of courage based on their personal experiences. One student simply wrote, “This is courage” as his answer and mailed it in. You don’t have to be this gutsy to stand out; all you have to do is be yourself.\u003cbr\u003e For this book, I’ve provided and commented on many real essays that helped students gain admission to some of the country’s top colleges and universities, listed step-by-step processes for getting ideas down on paper, and written detailed student profiles so you can see the writing process in action for the most commonly used essay topics. I’ve even classified responses by student type so you can identify with essay approaches based on your own experiences and background. The student profiles and essays have all been tweaked to protect the students’ privacy—names of high schools, summer programs, and teachers have all been changed or omitted, and the students themselves have been given pseudonyms—but everything else remains authentic.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e One more thing to bear in mind: Your essay is not just a laundry list of your accomplishments. Admissions officers have access to your grades and activities. If you’ve won awards, they will know about them, so there’s no need for you to fire them off as if you walk on water in your spare time just for kicks. \u003cb\u003eThe only things they don’t know are the type of person you are, how you handle success, and how you relate to others. \u003c\/b\u003e","brand":"Ten Speed Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304963756261,"sku":"NP9781607746126","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781607746126.jpg?v=1767721063","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/admissions-essay-boot-camp-isbn-9781607746126","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}