“Voice” is how the essay sounds when you read it. Think of it this way. When you read something, does it sound like someone you know? Some people talk, and write, very formally. Some talk informally while others may have a bit of sarcasm or a bit of humor in their normal speech.  We all have a certain sound to the way we talk.

Similarly, there is a certain sound to writing. You want to strive to have your writing sound like you talk.  Don’t get me wrong here. If you like, you know, like, talk, like your friends, you know, that is not something you want to follow in your writing.  Poor speech does not make for great writing.

Several years ago I worked with a young man whose father was a professional writer.  They sent me a copy of the essay written by the student and I knew right away that this was not the product of a high school student.  I work with many students who are great writers but high school students and older adults talk, and write, in different ways.  The words are different and the syntax is different. When I asked, it turned out that dad had done an edit on the essay which made it sound like a 50 year old man.  The voice of the student had been lost.

Why is this important?  Because the purposes of the essay is to communicate something about you and how you write.  If the essay doesn’t sound like your voice you are not communicating “you” to the college.  After reading thousands of essays, college admissions officers are very aware of what an authentic voice sounds like.

How do you make sure your “voice” is coming through. Read your essay out loud. Does it sound like you? Not sure?  Read it out loud to someone who knows you well. They will be able to easily tell if your writing sounds like you.

If you make sure that your “voice” comes through in your essay, you will be one step closer to being the strongest possible candidate for admission to that special college.

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Maintaining “Voice” in the College Application Essay

Inside Higher Ed recently had an article on a business that uses software to detect possible plagiarism in college essays.  The company tested 450,000 admissions essays and found the 36% had “significant matching text” to conclude that the essay was suspected of being plagiarized.

The company in question has an economic reason to have this number of plagiarized essays be as large as possible to try and sell their software. However, there are enough examples of plagiarism being detected on admissions essays to know that this is a problem.

Plagiarism of an admissions essay has two major problems for the student who is thinking about going this route. First, it is obviously cheating and if you are caught, it is difficult to imagine that the admissions department of the college would not reject your application immediately.

The second problem is a little more subtle.  Colleges don’t just use the essay to evaluate your writing ability.  They also use the essay to get some insight into who you are. If you are using a purchased or plagiarized essay, the essay will not really reflect you. It will either reflect someone else’s personality or more likely, will be so generic as to be of little value in convincing a college admissions officer that you are a good fit for their college.

Don’t cheat on the essay. It won’t help you and in many cases will actually hurt your chances for admissions. Take the extra time to understand the admission essay and to write from the heart. That is the best way to use the essay to convince the admissions department to send you a fat envelope in the spring.

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College Essays and Plagiarism

In the meantime there is a preview copy of the Common Application that students can review to understand what information they will need to complete the application.  The preview Common Application also allows students to review the essay prompts for the critical personal essay prompt.

I generally  advise students to begin working on their personal essay during the summer when they have more time. This is particularly important for those students that are applying to colleges that have their own required supplemental essays.

Looking for something to do this summer? Check out the preview Common Application.

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Common Application 2010-2011

I recently read a book called “True Notebooks” that gave some of the best examples of writing from the heart that I have ever read.  “True Notebooks” is written by Mark Salzman and is his story about teaching writing to violent teenage offenders in a juvenile detention facility waiting to be sentenced.

The teenagers in this book are not well educated and not motivated to learn. They don’t know, or care about, proper English syntax. But the writing they produce is moving and heartfelt because they are writing about what they know.They are not writing about world changing events but rather are writing about the small things that their lives revolve around.

These teenagers are not worried about impressing a college admissions officer with their writing. They are just writing because there is not much else to do will waiting sentencing. I will caution readers that the language used by the teenagers is often crude and may offend some people. But in their world, that is how people communicate.

I think every student should read “True Notebooks” before beginning to write their college essays. It will help you understand what writing from the heart really means and it will also make you understand how blessed you are to have the life you have. So stop by your local library and pick up a copy. You will be glad you did.

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College Essays From the Heart

The medical school questions may change from year to year but in my experience they will fall into one of four general categories. The first question looks at your motivation for becoming a physician.  To answer this question you might look at a personal experience you had that provided your motivation.  Or you might find your motivation from one or more of the activities you have been involved in.

The second general essay question attempts to confirm your seriousness about becoming a physician. This essay question allows you to address in more detail your involvement in your volunteer activities, your reseaach experience or your experience in shadowing a doctor.

The third general medical school essay focuses on your interest in the particular program you are applying to. To answer this question you need to understand the specifics on the BS/MD program. Different programs have different focuses and this question is trying to confirm that you have chosen the proper program for your interests.

The fourth, and final, general type of medical school essay you may have to answer tries to confirm your level of maturity. Here is one example from Northwestern HPME: “How did you deal with a situation where you didn’t achieve the outcome you desired?”To show maturity in your essays, keep the focus on your beliefs and actions rather than on you.

The medical school essay is a critical component of the BS/MD application process.  The students with whom I work often spend as much time working on these essays as the rest of the process combined. Although you may not know the specific questions until you receive the medical school portion of the application, you should start framing answers to these general questions early on in the process.

Getting an early start is helpful for most aspects of the college admissions process, but for the BS/MD programs an early start is particularly important. Now that you have some basic idea of the categories of questions, you can start thinking about your answers.

Here are all of the articles in the series on BS/MD programs.

BS/MD Programs

BA/MD or BS/MD

Admissions to BS/MD Programs

BS/MD Admission Requirements

Applying to BS/MD Programs

Interviews for BS/MD Programs

BS/MD Programs and Financial Aid

BS/DO Programs

BS/MD Programs for International Students

BS/MD Programs for College Students

Summer Activities for BS/MD Applicants

6 Steps to Make Yourself the Best BS/MD Candidate

College Essays for BS/MD Applicants

College Essays for BS/MD Candidates

Medical School Essays for BS/MD Candidates

How Many BS/MD Programs are There?

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Medical School Essays for BS/MD Applicants

I am not talking about general things to consider when you write a college essay. Instead, I am discussing the specifics you need to consider as a BS/MD applicant. When writing the college essay, remember what is important for admissions to BS/MD programs.  The programs are looking for students with a long standing passion for medicine as well as students who have leadership abilities, maturity and compassion.

Your college essay does not need to talk directly about the number of years you have wanted to become a physician but it should address at least one of the topics that are important to the BS/MD programs.  If you founded a business club and a club to find volunteers for the local nursing home, write about the nursing home club.  Or write about some volunteer activity that shows the compassion you have for others.  Do you have experience with medical care in another country? That might make an interesting essay.

The bottom line for the college essay is to keep the focus on something important to the BS/MD program. Next post I will be talking about the medical school essay for the BS/MD program.

Here are all of the articles in the series on BS/MD programs.

BS/MD Programs

BA/MD or BS/MD

Admissions to BS/MD Programs

BS/MD Admission Requirements

Applying to BS/MD Programs

Interviews for BS/MD Programs

BS/MD Programs and Financial Aid

BS/DO Programs

BS/MD Programs for International Students

BS/MD Programs for College Students

Summer Activities for BS/MD Applicants

6 Steps to Make Yourself the Best BS/MD Candidate

College Essays for BS/MD Candidates

Medical School Essays for BS/MD Candidates

How Many BS/MD Programs are There?

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College Essays for BS/MD Applicants

For Tufts optional essay, they allowed students to write on 7 different topics.  But they also had a creative option that allowed students to create something out of a piece of paper or submit a one-minute video on YouTube. About 1,000 people choose to submit video.

Many people in the admissions world are lamenting the end of the world as we know it because of Tufts video option. Personally, I think it is great.  Tufts did not require students to make a video. You can’t afford the equipment to make a video? No problem, do one of the other optional essays or actions. But student who wished to show their creativity that way could do so.

The director of Tufts undergraduate admissions, Lee Coffin, unfortunately made the comment after watching one of the videos that he was ready to admit the student without seeing the rest of the student’s application.  OK, maybe he was overstating a bit. But should Tufts be willing to consider admitting a student with slightly lower grades or test scores who is incredibly creative? I think they should.

Creativity should not replace hard work and good grades in deciding who to admit to highly selective colleges like Tufts.  But to use creativity as part of the consideration of who to accept is a good thing.  The University of Chicago has done it for years with many of their essays.  No one has suggested that Chicago is any the worse for doing so.

Not everyone is at their best in writing a creative essay. Some have strengths in more visual media, like video. Video is here to stay. Why shouldn’t it be allowed as one possible consideration in the college admissions decision making process?

Good for Tufts for letting those students shine.

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Videos for College Admissions

What problems? The problem of evaluating your grades and the GPA you think you have.  You would think that evaluating your GPA would be simple.  But how high schools calculate grades differs dramatically from one school to another.

This difference in how many points a student receives is called grade weighting. Many high schools weight grades as an incentive to have the top students take difficult classes rather than sluff off and take the easy “A” classes.  But high schools weight grades differently depending on the particular school.

Let’s say your high school gives a 1 point grade increase for honors courses and a 2 point increase for AP classes.  If you are a strong student, and takes lots of honors and AP courses, it is very easy to end up with a GPA greater than 4.0.  Some schools give 3 or 4 additional grade points, or even more, for an AP grade.   At your high school a 4.3 GPA might be the highest in the class while at another school that calculates points differently, you would need a 5.7  GPA to be at the top of your class.  Is the student with the 5.7 GPA smarter than the student with the 4.3. No, of course not.  But you start to see the problem.

And if your high school doesn’t weight grades at all you might have a 3.9 and be at the top of your class.

To deal with these inequities, many colleges use unweighted grades rather than weighted grades in admissions so that they can compare the GPA of students from diffeerent high schools.  Unweighted grades are the traditional grading of 4.0 for an “A”, 3.0 for a “B”,  on so on. Using unweighted grades, a student can not have greater than  4.0.

As a student, you need to know if the college your are interested in reports average GPA’s of admitted students, are they referring to weighted or unweighted grades. Some colleges like to report weighted grade averages of admitted freshman to make themselves look more competitive than they really are.

The average GPA of admitted freshman at the University of California Berkeley is often reported as a 4.34. If your high school does not weight grades you might think Berkeley is impossible for you to get admitted to with your mere 4.0.  On the other hand, if you have a 5.7 GPA you might think Berkeley is a safety if the average student only has a GPA of 4.34.  Both of these imaginary students would be mistaken if they didn’t understand weighted grades.  (For those of you who are interested in Berkeley, their unweighted average is 3.91.)

Even those colleges that use weighted grades in admissions will understand if your high school does not weight grades as heavily as other schools or if your school does not weight grades at all.  You will not be at a disadvantage in those circumstances.

Finding the right college requires a student to understand all of the many factors that go into the college admissions process. Now you know how to figure your “real” or unweighted GPA.

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Do You Know What Your GPA Is?

Your first consideration is to find colleges that meet your needs. If you have found a particular college has what you are looking for and you are confident that you will be accepted, one application might be all you need.

Most students are able to find a number of colleges in which they have an interest.  The concern, however, is how many might you be accepted to.  For the typical student they would be wise to consider applying to 6 to 8 colleges.  Within this list you would want to have at least 2 schools that you are sure you will be admitted to, 2 to 3 colleges where you have a good chance of acceptance and 2 reach schools. Reach schools are those where your chances of acceptance are not great either because your grades and test scores are on the low side for that college, or because the college accepts so few students that no one is guaranteed admission.

A further consideration that effects the number of colleges you should apply to is whether you will want to compare financial aid awards in the spring to see where you will get the best deal. This requires an understanding of how college financial aid works. Many websites will recommend that you have a financial safety school and will recommend applying to your local state college. I have found that many people follow this advice and end up paying much more for their college education than they might have if they had understood how financial aid differs from college to college. The cheapest college in cost is not necessarily the cheapest college for you.

There are also particular circumstances when applying to more than 8 colleges might be right for a particular student. I work with many students that are applying to BS/MD programs which are extremely competitive.  Many of these students apply to 12 or more colleges because of the competitive nature of the programs. However, this is only appropriate if you are able to take the time to make sure each of the applications is as strong as it can be. If you don’t have the time or energy to devote your best effort to each and every application, you should submit fewer applications.

Don’t worry about how many colleges your friends are applying to. Like the whole admissions process, you are an individual and you shouldn’t worry about what the rest of the sheep are doing. Do what is best for you.

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How Many College Applications Should You Submit?

Let’s make sure we all understand what deferment means. A student whose application is deferred is not accepted in the early round but will be reconsidered during the regular decision round.  If you have been deferred there are several steps you can take to improve your chances of acceptance in the regular decision round.

Contact the admissions office of the college that deferred you. Ask to talk with the admissions rep for your area and let them know that their college is still your first choice even if you have been deferred. Also politely ask what kept you from being admitted early decision/action. Ask them what you can do to improve your chances of acceptance in the regular decision round. They may not be able to give you any specific information on why you were deferred but if they do, it is something you can work on.

Over the next few months, continue to work on maintaining or improving your grades and submit updated grades after the next grading period.  Also make sure that you  update the admissions officer of any new accomplishments or honors you have since the application was submitted.

If you have been deferred you must make sure you immediately begin work on the applications for other colleges. At this point you need to make sure you have options in April and you don’t want to rely on getting in regular decision to the college that deferred you.

If you were not accepted early to a college then this college should be considered a reach and you need to make sure you have applications submitted to colleges that are more of a match or safety for you. If the deferring college does accept you regular decision then you can compare all of your college choices in April when you have all of your decisions available. If not, then focus on all of the other great choices you do have.

Not being accepted can be difficult. Just remember that there are many great colleges out there and you need to find the right one for you.

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Deferred? Improve your chance of acceptance.