Why The First Sentence Of Your College Essay Is The Most Important

Why The First Sentence Of Your College Essay Is The Most Important Do not repeat the exam because of your Writing score. I don’t know of any superscoring colleges that will not superscore across SATs W/ and W/O Essay. I then took the ACT again without writing and got a 34. Should I take the entire ACT with writing again, or does the essay from my initial test carry over to my 34 test. Instead, applicants will need to enter the essay into a text box that counts words and prevents entering anything beyond 650 words. What more do we need to end the silly debate about the purpose of college as job training vs. life training? If we view it too narrowly as job training, we miss the purposeful elements that bring work to life. And if we view it too broadly as life preparation, we lose focus on the single most important aspect of bringing life to it’s fullest through work. Work is not just about a paycheck; it’s also about a purpose. Helping graduates achieve purposeful work may indeed be the purpose of college. The problem is that our national narrative about “college” has created a decidedly false dichotomy between the two primarily professed purposes of college. There is the camp that says college is about preparing a person for work â€" to help them get a good or better job. In fact, this is by far the most commonly cited reason for why Americans value higher education â€" to get a good job. Make no mistake, many of us see the purpose of college as both a job-driven and a life-driven purpose. For example, writing about your role as Mercutio in your school's production of Romeo and Juliet is too general, but writing about opening night, when everything went wrong, could be a great topic. When you write about something you don't really care about, your writing will come out cliched and uninteresting, and you'll likely struggle to motivate. She does have 4.0 unweighted GPA so far, SAT Math II 790, SAT Bio 770. Art graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University, where he was the top-ranked liberal arts student in his class. Art pioneered the one-on-one approach to test prep in California in 1989 and co-founded Compass Education Group in 2004 in order to bring the best ideas and tutors into students' homes and computers. Although he has attained perfect scores on all flavors of the SAT and ACT, he is routinely beaten in backgammon. The Compass 360 provides SAT and ACT scores for some of the most competitive colleges in the country. Finally, keep in mind that what you say and how you say it is far more important than whether you have 550 words or 650 words. Be sure to attend to your essay's style, and in most cases you're going to want to avoid these ten bad essay topics. If you've said all you have to say in 500 words, don't try to pad your essay to make it longer. With the August 2013 release of CA4 , the guidelines changed once again. CA4 set the limit at 650 words with a minimum of 250 words. And unlike earlier versions of the Common Application, the length limit is now enforced by the application form. No longer can applicants attach an essay that goes over the limit. Regardless of length, and even if yours is a transfer essay, the best writing will tell a compelling story, provide insight to your character and interests, and are written with crisp and engaging prose. Again, use the essay to narrate an engaging story. Make sure it highlights something you care about deeply, and be sure to provide a window into your interests or personality that isn't already obvious from the rest of your application. For years the Common Application had no length limit, and applicants and counselors frequently debated whether a tight 450-word essay was a wiser approach than a detailed 900-word piece. In 2011, that decision was taken away as the Common Application moved to a relatively short 500-word limit. But our dialogue is horribly stuck in the muck of an either/or debate on these two fronts. Instead, narrow in on one specific event or idea and talk about it in more depth. Do you think she should retake the ACT just to improve the writing part? Reading your other comments sounded like she may not need to do that but would like to confirm. When you write about something that is genuinely important to you, on the other hand, you can make even the most ordinary experiencesâ€"learning to swim, eating a meal, or watching TVâ€"engaging. I've touched on these ideas already, but here I'll go into more depth about how the best essays stand out from the pack. Please share with us why you are choosing to apply to Chapman.