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Sam Rosensohn
Founder and Owner |
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While I continue daily to help students to improve their SAT and ACT scores, I also write a widely-read
newspaper column, College 101, which reports on the ever-changing college land-scape.
Take a look at my columns and don't hesitate to give me a call if I can be of
help, 860-664-9857 |
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Harvard University
requested College Planning Partnerships participate in its College Access
Collaborative, which is attempting to assess why students from below
median-incomes are dramatically underrepresented at selective private
colleges.
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| Yale University's
School of Management conducted a nationwide search and selected College Planning
Partnerships to work with one of its graduate students.
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| Mary MacLean Smith Scholarship |
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The Mary MacLean Smith Scholarship is open to students who've
demonstrated enormous compassion to others and who do not have the
financial means to attend an SAT or an ACT prep class. To apply for a
scholarship please have your school counselor give us a call at
860-664-9857 or email us at
sam@satprepct.com
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While it Won't Raise the Dead, it Will Help Your Chances Getting into College |
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Most seniors will tell you the hardest part of the college application is the
essay. And I think they're right, since most of them start to write the essay a
month before the application is due, and without the benefit of having read 25
winning essays. Many seniors don't know where to start, how to present or what
to write. Some never liked writing or don't think they can write well, while
others rush to professionals or parents for help. The college essay will remain
a difficult task until students are confident about what to write and their
writing style. So what to write about? Write about any matter of importance.
Students should write about something that they find particularly meaningful or
care about. A good essay telegraphs critical information on just who the student
is, his ability to think and his writing skills. Students should write in their
own voice. They should resist the temptation to use thoughts, lines or arguments
that sound smart, but don't reflect their thinking. They should write a college
essay that only they could write. This will separate their essay from the pack.
"Time and again admissions officers tell us that they want to see students write
their college essays about something they, the students actually care about,"
notes The Princeton Review. "Write about something you do, not something you
would do if you were president of the U.S." "When students lament, 'I've never
done anything like this before,' they're right," says Sarah M. McGinty, a
university supervisor in the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and author of
The College Application Essay. "I would add," McGinty wrote in an essay for the
College Board Review, "and you won't be doing it anytime soon either." This type
of writing that asks students to reflect on something that is meaningful and
purposeful is a far cry from "the short analytical papers about historical
events, books, documents and lab reports." McGinty suggests that students think,
talk and plan their essays with the people who will critique them before they
start writing. "Intervention is most useful if it's early in the process. There
is no possibility of helping a student in any meaningful way if she comes to you
with a finished essay and says, "This is my essay, tell me what you think." What
she wants you to think is, "What's the phone number of those people at the
Pulitzer Prize?" "Just try and be as honest and open about themselves as they
can be," the admissions office at Yale suggests. "We are trying as hard as we
can to get a feeling for who this person is. The pieces of paper really do
represent them pretty well." Essays that have passed the ultimate test come in
all stripes and sizes. To quote from The Princeton Review's College Essays That
Make a Difference (there are 89 real college essays in the book), "Some essays
are so good they will intimidate you; others will make you say to yourself,
'Hey, I could write something like that.' " A well written essay simply "shows
you at your alive and thinking best, a person worth listening to – not just for
the ten minutes it takes to read your application, but for the next four years,"
notes Harry Bauld, author of On Writing the College Application Essay. Bauld, a
former admissions officer at Brown University and assistant director of
admissions at Columbia University, encourages a student to say "what he knows in
a fresh way that allows us to see for ourselves who he is." He discourages them
from attempting to say something "startling and new, or strain to be different."
He too asks students to write something only they could write. Admissions
officers who read college essays have a difficult job. Imagine having to go
through hundreds of essays written by your peers. So keep the following in mind
when you start to write your essay: The reader is looking for a reason to reject
your essay. One sure thing that will move an application closer to the denied
pile is a poorly written or insincere essay. Students should also avoid using
big SAT vocabulary words in their essays. They should not let an adult take
charge of the essay; readers can detect when a professional writer or parent
wrote the essay. Many writing coaches say there are no bad topics only bad
essays. Well, that sounds pretty good, but there are a list of topics that do
not play well: sex, drugs, and violent events in which students participated.
Steer clear of writing about overcoming sport's injuries, travelogues, a list of
academic accomplishments already noted in the application, editorializing about
a news event or using swear words. All the more reason for students to talk
their essays through with their English teachers, guidance counselors, peers and
parents before they begin to write. Now this is not going to go over big, but
the essay will most likely need to be rewritten several times. Another reason to
start early is that it gives students and teachers a chance to pick up the more
subtle grammatical mistakes such as a misplaced modifier or an improper parallel
construction. College admissions officers are often ready to speak with guidance
counselors and visit high schools to discuss the essay. Mount Holyoke, Sarah
Lawrence, Yale, Amherst, Reed and Grinnell are well know for helping high school
guidance departments out, said McGinty, who added that some schools, such as the
University of California at Berkeley, have single-page handouts on how to write
a winning college essay. The College Board offers guidelines in its publication,
College Times. Jim Miller, dean of admissions at Bowdoin College, put it aptly
when asked how much does the college essay count. "A great essay could heal the
sick but couldn't raise the dead." So I encourage you to tell your story as only
you can, and while it won't raise a dead-low GPA, it will help your chances of
getting into school. Sam Rosensohn is the founder of College Planning
Partnerships, which offers prep classes for the New SAT and helps students to
prepare for college and write college essays. He can be reached in Clinton at
860-664-9857 or at s.rosensohn@worldnet.att.net |
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Powerpoint Presentations |
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We're the first SAT test prep company in the
nation to use PowerPoint presentations in a prep class. Click here to try one of
our slides to see how it helps to visualize and understand the problem. By
employing this method we can cover 20 percent more math problems than when we
wrote everything on the board. Visual learners love it. |
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Let Us Show You How
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$11 billion in merit-based scholarships is available from colleges. College
Planning Partnerships' students have garnered as much $100,000 in merit based
money because of their high SAT & ACT scores.
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Test Your SAT Vocabulary
15 Words Spell the Difference
Between 650-800
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We have the key to the College Board's word bank and we'd like to share it with
you. College Planning Partnerships has reviewed over 50 SATs dating back to 1994
and discovered that the College Board employs the same opaque words over and
over. Take one of our SAT vocabulary tests now to measure the strength of your
vocabulary.
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Brochures |
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248 E Main
St Clinton,
CT 06413
(860) 664-9857
satprepct.com |
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| $$$ Here's How to Make this
Real $$$ |
For every person you refer to one of our Clinton
classes, we'll give you $50. Make sure to download this coupon, put your name on
the back of it, and have your referral hand it to us on the first day of class.
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