Award-Winning Private College Essays Tutoring in Jacksonville

The student's second draft was very much improved from the first. The reorganization made things flow better, and the new intro was engaging and personable. However, the narrative portion of the introduction was longer than the rest of the essay combined, and he didn't actually rewrite the other sections--just moved them around via copy-paste, and because it wasn't actually rewritten, the point that I know he was trying to make was still getting a bit lost. This fact, combined with concern from his father that the topic may not be the best for the student, led us to deciding to start fresh and try another prompt from the Common App. The student told me about a connection he had made with another tutor about getting lost on a trip to Japan, and he realized that it could work for Common App prompt #2, which asks about a failure and what was gained or learned from the experience of that failure. This particular experience could also be used for his personal statement. After making some rough notes about the experience and its relation to the prompt, I asked him if he could have a rough draft/ outline to me by next Thursday, which he said he could. We also spent some time continuing to go through his list of character traits, and finding more stories from his life that he could work into effective essays. I also made very clear this time that I wanted him to read each of the sample essays I had sent him a couple of weeks ago, and for him to tell me which 2 resonated with him most, so that we can go over them with a fine tooth comb together and identify effective strategies.

The student and I began reviewing her college application essays. Today we got through her Common App and four university's essays.

I saw something in the student's organization and note taking care that I have never seen before. He had four separate notebooks for his four classes, and the system of note taking was clear and precise. It will be easy to review for all of his quizzes and tests. We discussed how much faster class goes by when one pays attention and takes careful notes. This is counter intuitive, but true - the more one listens closely and does something, the more fleet the class period. I do not recall the student being this engaged with his classes before. A corner may very well have been turned. I want to repeat how pleased I was with his work so far in this brand new semester.

The student is working on four essays for a European history class. While she writes fairly fluidly, she needs to work on her argumentation and thesis development. Writing incisively, being specific, and forming arguments are all areas for improvement. She needs to focus on topic sentences, organizing her arguments around provable, arguable statements.

We reviewed the common app one more time--she's feeling pretty good about it. We brainstormed for four university essay prompts. She is second guessing her gut less and less, which is great. She has very good ideas that she just needs to drag out. I reinforced the need to stay concise, but to show as much personality as possible. This is her chance to be in the room with the application reviewer. I also stressed again the need for active voice and removal of "fluff" words. She is working on two essays for next time.

The student and I continued to work on his admission essays. We began by cutting down his common application essay, which was at 800 (a bit over the 650 word limit). At the end of our session, the essay was trimmed to 575 words. It's currently in a nice state, and while he still needs to reinforce some concepts for details, the work is almost ready to submit. With our remaining time, we worked on his smaller essays. They too are improving, but he needs to make sure he doesn't veer off-track with them and sticks to the prompt as he is very limited with his word count.