-
Text
Contest: Go for the gold…err neon yellow!
Story To College Ambassador Ying Bin is modeling the t-shirt that you could win by participating in this week’s contest! The picture doesn’t do it justice, but the t-shirt is SERIOUSLY bright.
If you could add any sport (real or imagined) to the Olympics what would it be and why. What is the criteria for judging the sport (judges, points, goals, etc.). If the sport is imagined please submit a detailed description.
You’ll get practice using your creative mind to answer bizarre questions (see University of Chicago’s supplemental question “Where is Waldo?” as an example) and in Olympics season mode.
Click the Submit button above to enter! Good luck!
-
Link
One more day to participate in this week's contest!
So don’t miss out…
-
Text
4
Notes Writing tip of the week: Have fun!Writing can be fun.
Wait…no…really…just bear with me for a minute here. While it’s true that during the college essay process your Retina Display MacBook Pro can start to resemble “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named,” it’s important to channel your inner-Harry Potter and look these fears squarely in the face (If, when you do this, you feel a sharp pain in the middle of your forehead, I apologize).
As you think about your college essays, you would be wise to learn from the example of everyone’s favorite adolescent wizard. After all, it did take Mr. Potter nearly seven books before he finally worked up the courage to take on his nemesis, mano-a-mano. Similarly, it will be difficult to write the perfect personal essay on your first try if the only writing you have completed lately is a five-paragraph essay on Pride and Prejudice.
But never fear, building up confidence in writing is much easier than defeating Lord Voldemort in a wizarding duel. Hear are a few tips for how you can develop your personal voice in a quick and relatively painless way:
-
Start a Blog: When I was in high school, only post-graduates and uber-nerds created blogs. Now, every time that I search the Internet, it seems like some new celebrity is posting their innermost thoughts for the world to see. Whether it’s Tumblr or Twitter, the Internet provides many opportunities for you to express your personality. Maybe you’re working at the town pool all summer and you want to start a blog about people watching. Or perhaps you love watching sports and feel like posting your thoughts on the NBA Draft. Whatever your interests, blogging just 2 or 3 times a week will do worlds of good for your writing. HINT: If you don’t feel like posting your thoughts on the Internet, a journal is just a twentieth century version of a blog. **Also, remember that everyone (including college admissions officers) can see what you post on the Internet so use the blogosphere wisely.
-
Play a word game: My little sister and her friends play a game where they sit in
a circle and write a story on a piece of paper. One person writes a sentence, then passes the paper clockwise to the next person, who adds a sentence. The process continues until the paper is full. The catch is that when you are adding a sentence, you can only look at the previous sentence in the story (e.g. If you are player 5, you can read sentence 4, but not sentences 1, 2, or 3). The point of the game is not to create the American version of War and Peace. Rather, it’s to let go of the controlled “five-paragraph essay” script you learned in English class and let your ideas flow freely. -
Mimic a famous writer: This is a tip that my writing professor gave me in college. When you are trying to develop your own voice, it helps to have a role model. When you take that weeklong trip to the beach this summer, bring a memoir
to read (a few contemporary recommendations: Tina Fey’s Bossypants, J.R. Moehringer’s The Tender Bar, or Mindy Kaling’s Everyone is Hanging OutWithout Me). After finishing the memoir, try writing about an episode from your life in the voice of the author whose memoir you have just finished. The idea is that by writing in someone else’s voice, you will free yourself from the personal judgments and constraints that prevent you from finding your own voice.
Spending as little as one hour per week on any of these activities will help you break free of your writing “crutches” and allow you to experience as much success on your college application essays as Harry Potter had in his final duel with Lord Voldemort.
-
-
Text
Contest: Quotes about getting started!
This weeks contest we want a quote from literature, history, film, television, politics, anything! The theme of the quote should be about getting started! Believe it or not, even though the school year just ended it’s the beginning of a lot of new life experiences.
Here’s an example to start you off!
Phillips Academy’s (my high school) motto:
Finis origine pendet
Translation : The end depends upon the beginning.
What quote gets you inspired to get started?
Reblog this post with your quote by FRIDAY (June 29) at MIDNIGHT. The winner of the quote contest will be announced Monday, July 2 and will win $100 off a Story To College Essay Development Course at Millenium High School or Beacon High School!
-
Text
First Contest Ends Tonight! You could win $100 off an Essay Development Course!
See the post below titled “First Contest of the Summer!” for deets!
-
Text
Day 2: Partner up
How does that Beatles song go? “Help, I need somebody…” No, that’s not quite right. “I want to hold your hand?” Not exactly the kind of partnering we mean… Oh yeah! “I get by with a little help from my friends!”
When I was applying to college, there were moments when I wanted to delete my CommonApp account and crawl under a rock where college decisions could not find me. I was lucky enough to have some amazing friends that refused to let me find such a rock. They brought me coffee to force essay-writing breaks. They called me over to watch Cruel Intentions when I needed to get my mind off of the seemingly endless waiting ahead of me. And let me tell you, if there is one thing that will make you stop thinking about college decisions, it is a young Ryan Phillippe ruling New York City circa 1998.
At Story To College, we believe that supporting other people and getting that same support in return makes the college process so much easier. So, when applying to college, do as the Beatles do: get (and give) a little help from your friends.
Your task for today? Find a friend, and work on the 21 Days of Summer together. This doesn’t mean you have to share the work you do with each other. Just keep your partner on track. Make sure that, in between sing-a-longs to Carly Rae Jepson’s “Call Me Maybe” and trips to see The Dark Knight Rises, you both finish each day’s task.
Speaking of Call Me Maybe…
-
Text
19
Notes Blogging College Admissions!Thanks for promoting 21 Days of Summer!
We love using Tumblr to answer your college admissions questions, but there are a ton of students on here that are willing to help out too! Here are some of our favorite Tumblrs of students helping students with the college search and application process:
Which blogs are your favorites for college admissions?
-
Text
First Contest of the Summer!
What does the first day of summer look like to you? Send us a picture, .gif, or short clip illustrating what the first day of summer means to you. I’ll get you started.
This is a picture of what summer looks like at the Story To College office. We get a small glimpse of sun, but for the most part our view is of a brick wall. Anticlimactic…I know.
So brighten our day with your own examples of the first day of summer.
The contest ends MIDNIGHT on FRIDAY (June 22). We’ll review all of the submissions and then announce the winner on Monday!
The prize this week is…..$100 off the our Essay Development Course at Millenium High School (July 9-13, 11-3:30) or at Beacon High School (July 16-20, 11-3:30). Reblog this post with your submission attached to participate!
-
Text
2
Notes Day 1: Acknowledge your achievement
By the end of my junior year, I was burnt out. Going through a year of SATs, SAT2s, APs, XOXOs (because I obviously still found time to watch Gossip Girl), college counseling meetings, and everything else that belongs to the monster that is 11th grade completely exhausted me. Sure, I had finished what everyone calls the hardest year of high school, but all I could see were the looming college applications, another year of high school, and no light at the end of the tunnel.
But I have come out the other end of the tunnel, and I can assure you that the grass is greener. It may feel like you still have a long way to go, but finishing junior year is a major accomplishment. And you did it, champ!
Just take a moment (or a few) to acknowledge yourself. Pat yourself on the back, give yourself a round of applause, breathe in the success. Hear that ice cream truck outside? Go chase it because you have earned a Two-Ball Screwball.
-
Text
Let’s get started!
Congratulations! If you are reading this, it means you survived junior year (or summer school has internet access…). Last year at this time, I was sitting in your exact spot, staring at my computer screen, finding any reason not to go to the CommonApp website. I am here to tell you that I survived the college application process!
By taking it one day at a time, I made it through, and I’m heading to Yale in the fall (Boola Boola!). But I remember the days of hair pulling and CommonApp hating like it was yesterday. By the end of junior year, there were not enough beach bonfires and trips to Six Flags to lift me out of the mid-college-process-slump.
What I didn’t know then is that finishing 11th grade is a big deal. Seriously, you just essentially finished the Boston Marathon combined with the Scripps National Spelling Bee with a hint of American Idol/So You Think You Can Dance/Flavor of Love on top.
Take a moment to just appreciate the fact that you did it. Through all of the good grades and bad grades, SATs and ACTs, papers and tests, weird teachers and weirder teachers, you made it through. Do you know what that means? Time to keep thinking about college! Old news, right? Well, I have a proposition for you, a proposition that should relieve all of the crazy college stress in the long run. Here it is: The 21 Days of Summer.
What is the 21 Days of Summer, you may ask? It is a 21-step program designed to help you tackle the college research, college essay, and college application process in just 21 days.
“21 days?!?” you say. “That’s a whole lot of barbeques and pool parties and Nicki Minaj concerts I’m going to be missing for more work on college.” Have no fear! The 21 Days of Summer plan is broken up to minimize lost Facebooking time and maximize efficiency.
Want to know the best part? Once you finish the 21 Days of Summer, you get a chance to attend Story To College Essay Completion Course for free.99, zero dollars and zero cents, gratis, FREE.* Not too shabby, huh?
Just write to us at community@storytocollege.comand let us know you will be working assiduously (SAT word alert!!) every day and then send us your responses every week of summer at midnight on Friday to win weekly prizes. If you complete all of the prompts and contests and submit them by September 22— which is, you guessed it, the Autumnal Equinox — you’ll be eligible to win the Essay Completion Course.
So, are you in?
*We will select two participants from the New York tri-state area to attend an Essay Completion Course of their choice and one participant will win 3 hours of Skype conferencing with Founder and CEO Carol Barash, PhD.
-
The Mis-Education of the Millennial
By Adrienne Sheares[[MORE]]
Ah, Millennials, we’re the generation everyone wants to talk about. Whether the...
-
Breaking Down the Essay: Vignettable Topics
Getting down to brass tacks, we’d like you to turn your attention back to your new and improved drafts....
-
Hi there! I suggest you check out this post on admission requirements for freshman and transfers. That’s an impressive GPA! If you complete more...
-
The 25-question checklist for choosing a college
1.) Is the city or town that the college is located in one that you’d like living in? Or has...
-
-
Paying for college can sometimes feel...
-
Anonymous asked: Is there any kind of game we can play from now until Early Action decisions are out? The suspense it killing me, and I would appreciate something to divert my mind to. You guys are clever, so please, give me something.
the compliment at the end sealed the deal for me so, I’ll give you a handy list of things to do while waiting for EA decisions to be released:
- ...
-
“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books,...”
