Key to a Successful Essay: Know Your Truth

Do you know your truth?

By that I mean, do you know what characteristics define you — flattering and unflattering?

How do other people see you?

Being able to find your truth is key to writing a blockbuster essay.

To help you  find your truth, I will ask you to complete several writing exercises in my three-hour workshop, named “Brainstorm Your College Essay.” It takes place on Thursday, Aug. 8 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Westford. REGISTER HERE!

Your college essay tells an admissions officer why you belong at that college or university. You know you want to be there and you’re certain it’s the right fit for you, but how do you convince someone else of that? You’re struggling to find the right words.

If the essay doesn’t feel right, it’s because you haven’t yet gotten to your truth. We present ourselves to the world in layers. We are a daughter, son, sister, brother, musician, athlete, outdoor enthusiast. We are someone’s best friend or worst enemy, a lover of poetry and an avid football fan. We love to cook, run, play Scrabble, tell jokes.

But deep inside you have a story to tell that is yours alone. Finding it takes a little time and a lot of thinking. I’ll lead you through brainstorming exercises that will help you discover your essence. The goal is for you to become so interested in telling your story that you’ll want to write the essay.

Where College Essay Confidante’s Students Attend College; Bragging Rights

After roughly five years of helping students with their college essays, I think I’ve earned bragging rights (seel list of colleges below.)

REGISTER NOW for my “Brainstorm Your College Essay” workshop on Thursday, Aug. 8 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Maximum of 6 students for group sharing and one-on-one coaching. Only 4 seats left! Grab yours now.

Some of my students have attended the following colleges (in no particular order):

*Tufts University

*UMass-Amherst

*UMass-Lowell

*UMass-Dartmouth

*University of Colorado

*University of New Hampshire

*University of Michigan

*Boston College

*Boston University

*St. Anselm

*Syracuse University

*University of Illinois

One of my students was accepted to Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Purdue University, the University of Minnesota, the Florida Institute of Technology, and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

He was waitlisted at Northeastern University and Georgia Tech.

This student engaged me for help with the main essay and all his supplemental essays.

Caveat

I am not claiming that my students’ essays were the sole reason for their college acceptances. I’m saying their essays were beneficial.

Good writing opens doors!

The College Essay Confidante Wrote the Book on How to Write the College Essay

I wrote the book on writing your college essay!!

CLICK HERE

DON’T MISS OUT ON THE UPCOMING WORKSHOP!

Grab your seat for the upcoming workshop on “Brainstorming Your College Essay,” on Thursday,  August 8, from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Westford.

TO REGISTER: collegeessayconfidante.com/workshops

This workshop is for rising seniors only.

The workshop is limited to no more than six students.

Each student gets one-on-one assistance.

First draft will be edited if submitted by the deadline.

How to Make Your College Essay Shine!

Award-winning journalist Joyce Pellino Crane teaches an overflowing crowd at the Chelmsford Library how to write a college essay that could open doors for applicants.

Troy Lazaro, Assistant Director of Multicultural Recruitment  for UMass-Lowell makes a surprise appearance and answers admissions questions.

Crane is holding a “Brainstorm Your College Essay” workshop on Thursday, Aug. 8 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Westford.

REGISTER: www.CollegeEssayConfidante.com/workshops.

QUESTIONS? Email Joyce Pellino Crane at winningcollegeessay@gmail.com

Brainstorm Your College Essay Workshop, Aug. 8 in Westford, MA

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FOR RISING SENIORS ONLY.
The three hour workshop will take place in Westford on Thursday, Aug.8 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Only 6 seats. Grab yours NOW!

Students will receive a packet of essay samples.

Leave with an opening paragraph, a solid topic idea, and a guaranteed edit of the first draft.

REGISTER AT: http://www.collegeessayconfidante.com/workshops

To reach me: winningcollegeessay@gmail.com.

www.collegeessayconfidante.com

Brainstorm Your College Essay Workshop in Westford, Aug. 8

The College Essay Confidante has just announced a new workshop on Brainstorming topics for your College Essay.

The three hour workshop will take place in Westford on Thursday, Aug.8 from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Students will receive a packet of essay samples.

Leave with an opening paragraph, a solid topic idea, and a guaranteed edit of the first draft.

The fee is $160 per student.

REGISTER AT: http://www.collegeessayconfidante.com/workshops

To reach me: winningcollegeessay@gmail.com.

12 TIPS FOR WRITING YOUR COLLEGE ESSAY

Care to discuss these tips? I’ll be at the J.V. Fletcher Library , 50 Main St., Westford, on Thursday, Oct. 10 at 7 p.m. to answer your questions, help you find a topic, and show you a writing technique that works for the essay.

Your college application essay can be the ticket to the college of your choice. The essay gives you a chance to differentiate yourself and highlight assets that don’t show up elsewhere on your college application. This is your chance to shine so give yourself the necessary time to make it the best it can be. Joyce Pellino Crane is the College Essay Confidantè. If you need help, email her at winningcollegeessay@gmail.com.

1. Focus! You’ve got a total of only 650 words for the essay. That’s the equivalent of slightly less than one single-spaced page. Cut to the chase and keep it simple. Zero in on a specific event or happenstance that illustrates you learned something, gained insight, matured, or progressed in some other way.

2. Avoid chronology. You don’t have the luxury of endless space. Too often, I’ve seen students write beautiful stories that start from some long-ago beginning. The essay grows to 1,200 words and now the writer is in trouble and the heart of the story must be cut. That’s a painful process and the essay inevitably turns into something unrecognizable to the author.

3. Mine your brain and everyone else’s. Finding a story topic that reflects something meaningful takes time and deep thought. The most effective process I’ve found for generating ideas is brainstorming. Bounce ideas off your family members and friends – look for people in your life who are deep thinkers, write for a living, or know you well. Each spring and summer I hold workshops for rising seniors for the sole purpose of getting to know them and helping them to know themselves. We sit around a conference table and share information. You’d be amazed at the stories the students have inside them without realizing it.

4. Use metaphors to depict life lessons. Show your readers what you want them to know about you instead of telling them. One student, who was planning to become a lawyer, started her second draft like this: “The girl on the bus was my best client. Whenever the driver reprimanded her, I would step up to her defense. That’s me, defender of the weak or the clueless.” Her first draft began like this: “In the second grade I decided that I was going to be the first women president of the United States. I wanted to be the President because I wanted to outlaw smoking, and I wanted to make shelters for black cats.” Do you see the difference?

5. Know your truth. This is the essence of all good essay writing. There is the external you and then there’s the internal you from which springs your emotions, beliefs, and philosophies. The most successful essays I’ve written have come from a scene or occurrence that stirred emotion inside me – an event or feeling I can’t forget. When you are compelled to write about a topic you will know you’ve found your truth. It’s the thing that makes you tick. It’s the stuff that makes your friends love you. It’s the engine that motivates you to reach further and try harder. Pay attention to your emotions and you’ll find that elusive topic.

6. Choose a topic that truly interests you. The Common Application has seven essay prompts. Look them over and decide whether you want to write a personal statement or if you’d prefer to make a persuasive argument. A personal story requires less research but more creativity. A persuasive story requires a lot of thought, research, and accuracy. Regardless of which, your story should stir passion or deep commitment in you. If it doesn’t, search for another topic because if your story doesn’t interest you, it won’t interest your readers and you will be forgotten in the pile of applicant rejects.

7. Just do it. There is no substitute for putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard). Every author will tell you that no book was ever written inside someone’s head. The process of writing helps you reach a deeper level of thinking. This is the area where your subconscious and conscious mind intersect – from where your best ideas gush. Like Dorothy and her red shoes, you have the means for going home, you just need someone to tell you how. Here’s how: write your first paragraph. Then write your second paragraph. Then your third and finally your fourth. Don’t worry about grammar, spelling or typographical mistakes. Don’t try to make it pretty. All of that can come later. For now, just get the story onto the page.

8. Use action verbs. The best writers eschew adjectives. If you do this, you’ll not only present a more vivid picture, but you’ll save space.

9. Revise! The process of revising and editing your essay will almost certainly spur insight that will improve your writing. Pay attention to grammar, syntax, and spelling.

10. Don’t force the ending. Remember when I said you want to find the intersection of your conscious and subconscious mind? That’s where your best conclusions come from, so if you don’t know how to end your story, turn off your brain for a while and let things percolate. Come back to the essay a day or two later and read it through. Sometimes the perfect ending will pop into your head and you’ll know you’ve nailed it.

11. Sculpt your essay. Now that you’ve got it in final format and you think it’s ready to submit, stop. This is when it’s time to see yourself as Michelangelo with the statue of David before you.

Chisel away. Scrutinize every sentence. Are there extra words that can be eliminated without changing the meaning of the sentence? Are you using precise language? Have you chosen the best words? Are there redundancies?

12. Envision your story as a circle. Envision your essay as a story that ends where it starts and travels around the page as it unfolds. A story with a powerful conclusion often refers back to the beginning but shows resolution and growth.

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Joyce Pellino Crane is the College Essay Confidantè. She is the multimedia news director at Westford Community Access Television and the former editor of the Westford Eagle and Littleton Independent, two community newspapers in Massachusetts. Crane was a Boston Globe correspondent for 10 years and her commentaries have appeared on the Pulitzer Prize-winning paper’s opinion page. She is the recipient of numerous journalism awards including recognition for editorial writing.

New Service Brings Student Loan Repayment to Employer Retirement Plans

There are two significant, opposing financial challenges in today’s workforce: saving for retirement and paying off student loan debt. Employees often have a hard time planning for future retirement when they are focused on paying off their student loans. According to a study from Ipsos, 69 percent of millennials aren’t saving for retirement because of more pressing financial demands.

This means many employees aren’t fully benefiting from employer 401(k) or 403(b) match programs. It is estimated that American employees are leaving approximately $24 billion in employer contributions on the table each year according to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. This is money that employers have allocated to support their associates.

Employee Choice, offered exclusively through BenefitEd, is a new program that allows employees to redirect or split their employer-matched retirement funds to help them pay down their student loan debt. By giving employees the opportunity to choose how to use their matching funds, they have more control over where their money goes, so they can pay down debt more quickly and position themselves to save for retirement.

Employee Choice also helps address a barrier employers face when looking to add student loan repayment benefits: cost. With Employee Choice, companies can offer a student loan repayment benefit without significantly changing the total cost of benefits or dollars they’re expensing. This product  is the first of its kind and is available to employers starting in August of 2018.

“BenefitEd brings complete flexibility to employers looking to support the education and financial goals of their employees,” said Scott Gubbels, executive director of BenefitEd. “Employee Choice is just another example of how we are helping progressive companies attract, retain, and engage today’s workforce.”

Employee Choice doesn’t require a company to amend its retirement plan summary documentation. It remains a separate and distinct service to keep implementation easy and minimize the cost impact. For more information about the program, go to youbenefited.com/products/employee-choice/.