Essays & Letters of Recommendation
for College & Scholarship Applications
Embedded Files
Essay Help
I’m excited to be a part of your essay-writing journey.
There are four basic parts of this guide.
Hour 1 - Everything you need to brainstorm a topic and structure your essay.
Hour 2 - How to write a Narrative or Montage Essay with a few sample essays.
Hour 3 - Writing the first draft and getting some initial feedback.
Next Steps - I set you up to write an awesome draft of your Activities List and Additional Info section, point you in the right direction for getting started on your supplemental essays, and lots more.
Write Smarter, Not Harder!
Write Smarter, Not Harder!
Another great resource from The College Essay Guy!
I’ve developed a pretty simple, step-by-step process to help you see which essay prompts can overlap. Follow my lead and it may not only save you dozens of hours of writing, it could improve the quality of those essays.
How?
The secret involves doing a little bit of research and creative brainstorming before deciding on your topic.
How to answer all your college essay prompts in less time:
Gather all your essay prompts and put them on a single spreadsheet.
Play the overlapping prompt game: read through all your prompts and decide which might potentially overlap.
Brainstorm the content and structure for a few “super” essays (i.e. essays that can work for several prompts).
Write your 4-6 “super” essays.
Maximizing your opportunities with one essay!
Maximizing your opportunities with one essay!
Personal Statements are a great start to completing a variety of essays from college applications to scholarships! Having one really good personal statement is an efficient way to maximize your opportunities. This acts as a baseline essay that can be easily revised to tailor to specific applications and their questions. Remember: Keep a master copy of this essay and create a new copy for each application. You need to stay organized! Update this every year to keep it relevant to the ever-growing person you are!
Letters of Recommendation - tips and guidelines
Always check with your counselor to learn about your school's process for requesting counselor and teacher letters of recommendation.
Tips and general guidelines
Tips and general guidelines
Ask your school counselor about your school's procedure for asking for letters of recommendation.
Many colleges require BOTH counselor and teacher letters of recommendation.
Some colleges ask for one or the other or ask you to choose.
Most scholarships ask for a teacher letter of recommendation.
Learn the differences here.
Get guidance from your counselor to discuss which teacher might be best.
Ask a core subject teacher from grade 11 (or 12).
Ask EARLY once you are sure that you need a letter.
Use the guide below to make get the most out of your letter of recommendation.
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