The following piece was written by Dr. Mike Frazier. Mike has been featured in our Admissions Expert series and is a former UCLA Medical School Admissions Committee member. He is also the founder of Medical School Insider. The medical school personal statement can be a scary part of your application. However, it doesn't have to be that way! Think of this as a chance to show some personality and mainly to demonstrate your passion for medicine. Get Off to a Solid Start One of the most important parts of your medical school personal statement will be your opening sentence. You want to have something that really grabs the reader's attention ... Read More About How to Structure Your Medical School Admissions Essay

The following piece was written by Dr. Michelle Finkel. Michelle has been featured in our Admissions Expert series and is a former Harvard Medical School faculty member. She is the founder of Insider Medical Admissions.  If you haven’t yet had a chance, please take a look at my last piece on writing a medical school personal statement. As I mentioned then, I wrote my personal statements for medical school and emergency medicine residency without much of a clue as to what went on behind the closed doors of medical admissions committees. But I quickly gained a lot of insight when - years later - I found myself reading essay ... Read More About What Your Medical School Essay Reader is Thinking

Throughout your many years of school, you will never avoid the essay assignment.  This will be thrown at you over and over and over – so many times that you’ll eventually look back and find yourself in disbelief that you’ve actually written that many essays.  Whether you’re analyzing literature for an English class, writing personal statements for college applications, or taking a stance on an issue for an ACT writing task, you are going to need the same set of fierce writing skills to compose a well-structured and logical essay.  Some people have a better knack for writing than others and those natural i ... Read More About Tips for Writing an Essay

By Chloe Brown When I started my college search, I knew I wanted to go to a small, liberal arts school, either in New England or California. But once I visited Williams College, I fell in love. I knew that was where I wanted to go. So when fall of senior year rolled around, I sent off my Early Decision application and waited, typing up my other applications in between rounds of biting my nails. As you may have guessed, things worked out alright and in December I got a big, thick, purple envelope. While I don’t know exactly what goes on in the head of an admissions officer, I can tell you what sort of applicant I looked like. I had spen ... Read More About How I Got Into Williams College

Bad news: with regards to business school admissions, it is a whole lot more challenging today than it was 5-10 years ago. More and more employers are demanding that employees carry business degrees for senior-level positions. Employees are listening and loading up admissions committees with applications. This makes it harder for you. But, Varsity Tutors is available to help with more information on business school admissions strategies. And the best part is: we have private tutors waiting to help you improve your GMAT and overall application. Today, business schools can be more selective, and they are looking for the next CEOs and senior le ... Read More About How To Get Into Business School

Graduate schools receive more applications than you could ever imagine. That’s no secret to anyone. So, grad school admissions committees (comprised of counselors, professors and sometimes even students) use a systematic process for filtering applications. When admissions committees see your application, they are trying to answer one question: will this student be successful here and in his/her career? This is the filter most grad schools drag applications through: 1. GPA/GRE screening: Typically, grad schools place a stronger emphasis on research and practical experience than test scores, assuming they are a better predictor of futur ... Read More About How Graduate Schools Analyze Applications

Some schools may require a succinct personal statement – a couple paragraphs about who you are as a student. But, other schools/programs may require multiple admissions essays, typically between 500-1,000 words. Possible prompts include: career plans, academic interests, research experiences, academic objectives, clinical and field experience, academic achievements and personal experience. But, ultimately, what grad schools really want to know is if you will be successful. Follow these steps to prove that:  Establish a clear purpose: What do you want to do? Do you want to find the cure for cancer or help small children overcome ps ... Read More About How To Write An Application Essay For Grad School

Writing is one of the more interesting subjects to teach, it may not be the most difficult, but it is definitely different than teaching math or science. William G. Tierney and Stefani R. Relles, two professors, guest wrote an article in the Washington Post about teaching writing. Their main point is that teachers spend too much time addressing bad writing and not nearly enough time helping students improve. They see writing as a product and not a process, and that is the root of the problem. Together, they have created a program that seeks to effectively teach writing to college-bound students who have struggled with the subject. Most of t ... Read More About How To Improve Your Writing Skills

Imagine being a college admissions officer, and your job is to say no to 75 percent of the applications you see. You’re supposed to decline students, and when you accept students or give your approval, you must have a very good reason. When you decline a student, there are no questions asked. So, admissions officers’ jobs are easier when they decline students, and some are just looking for reasons to decline you. If you claim to volunteer for 100 hours of community service every week or your application is full of typos, you’re probably not going to make it to the next round. Avoid these following pitfalls to improve your ap ... Read More About How To Avoid College Admissions Red Flags

How cool would it be if you could start your college application essay with: “I’m a nationally published writer”? That is possible, and it would definitely wake up whoever is reading your application essay. The Huffington Post and the Patch (a network of over 800 hyper-local news sites), both owned by AOL, are currently recruiting bloggers (age minimum is 13). Right now, you can easily become a blogger and actually publish articles on the Patch’s website, which is read primarily by local audiences. The content provider has about 800 full-time writers, and it has asked all of them to recruit at least 10 writers each f ... Read More About How Students Can Become National Bloggers

Scholarships – a college student’s best friend, one of the few things to actually mitigate the seemingly insurmountable amount of college tuition, the simplest way to reduce debt after college graduation. Yes, scholarship applications are important, and sometimes it can be hard to find that extra motivation to apply for them, especially when you’re not even sure if you’ll get any money out of it. Below are six common mistakes to avoid while writing a winning scholarship essay, from the US News & World Report. 1. Hurried writing: Sure it’s great if you can work quickly and well under pressure. But, there is ... Read More About Six Application Essay Mistakes