University of Chicago

Advice for Working on the Essay this Summer

Fall of senior year is a busy time. So we strongly urge you to have at least your Common Application essay in good shape before senior year begins because writing the essays while attending school is like adding a class to your schedule -- remember, in addition to the Common App's, there are those in the supplements. Summer provides the luxury of uninterrupted time to reflect and write. And you're fortunate that the Common App essay prompts will remain the same, so you don't have to wait until August 1st to start working on them.

So here's some advice to kick start your essays over the coming summer months -- from a suggested reading list that we hope will inspire to some excellent step-by-step guidance on those Common App essay prompts.

Finding Your Voice in the Essay:  A suggested reading list of first-person essays.

The Real Topic of your Essay is You: One strategy to help you find a topic.

What are colleges looking for in the essay?

"Give us your Top Ten list": And other essay questions from Wake Forest, U of Chicago, and more...

Valerie Strauss at the Washington Post's Answer Sheet has collected some of the unusual essay questions colleges have posed this year in their supplements. One of our personal favorites:  In 2006, graduate student Robert Stilling discovered an unpublished poem by Robert Frost while doing research in U.Va.’s Small Collections Library. Where will your Stilling moment be in college? Courtesy of University of Virginia. Check them all out here.

Juniors: Resources for Kickstarting Your Essays this Summer

We strongly urge you to have at least your Common Application essay in good shape before senior year begins. Fall of senior year is a busy time and writing your essays while attending school is like adding a class to your schedule. Summer provides the luxury of uninterrupted time to reflect and write. Here's some advice to kickstart your essays over the coming summer months -- from a suggested reading list that we hope will inspire to some excellent step-by-step guidance on the new Common Application essay prompts.

Finding Your Voice in the Essay:  A suggested reading list of first-person essays.

The Real Topic of your Essay is You: One strategy to help you find a topic.

What are colleges looking for in the essay?

Great essay advice from the deans at Vanderbilt, Chicago, University of Illinois and more.

Pushing the Right Brick for Diagon Alley  Writer and independent college consultant Irena Smith on getting started -- and getting personal -- in the college essay.

Jon Boeckenstedt, DePaul University, Answers Five Questions

Jon Boeckenstedt, associate vice president for Enrollment Management at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, joins us this month to answer five questions about the largest Roman Catholic university in the country.  

Founded in 1898, with just 70 students, today DePaul has almost 16,500 undergraduates, and is also the largest private university in the state of Illinois. The school has five campuses throughout the Chicago area, with the two main campuses located on 36 acres on Chicago's north side in the Lincoln Park neighborhood and in the downtown Loop.

Great essay advice from the deans at Vanderbilt, Chicago, University of Illinois and more

OWL, the Purdue Online Writing Lab, is featuring excellent advice on the college essay from some of our good friends. Check out the post here -- for commentary on the essay and how colleges view this step in the application from Vanderbilt's Doug Christiansen, Caltech's Jarrid Whitney, and University of Chicago's Jim Nondorf, as well as undergraduate admission deans from University of Arizona, Rutgers, and University of Illinois.