my favorite reading related to choosing colleges and applying
Here are some of the resources I used when I was applying to college in autumn 2013.
the BEST resource I read
- Colleges That Change Lives, by the ever-hilarious Loren Pope. You'll thank me when the barrage of cookie-cutter college mail gets intense. This is a way better way to really get to know a few colleges quickly. Get this for your freshman or sophomore so he can begin to look through it and see what appeals to him.
websites I enjoyed
- www.bigfuture.collegeboard.com (Find the part that lets you compare colleges. Beautiful, huh?)
- www.collegeappjungle.com (the free parts)
- www.essayhell.com (lots of articles with tips for writing college essays, especially the Common Application essay)
other books
- How to Make Colleges Want You, by Mike Moyer. This is not to say that I agree with everything in this book, but Moyer's basic message is good: 1) You don't have to be an overachiever or a genius to have a strong college application. 2) One way to strengthen an application (in addition to working on test scores) is to find something, anything (raising homing pigeons? quilting?) that makes you different from every other teenager you know. Then do that thing, love it, and get good at it. This is his solution to the vague advice constantly given to young people applying to college: "be more interesting!"
And, of course, this Wall Street Journal article: "To All the Colleges that Rejected Me," by Suzy Lee Weiss. Weiss writes a biting satire of the college application process. Her wit is frequently brought up in the discussions surrounding the application-season hoopla. It's a cultural literacy thing, but it's also nice to take a second to make light of what can be a grueling college app process. I reread it when the waitlist letters started rolling in. :)
the BEST resource I read
- Colleges That Change Lives, by the ever-hilarious Loren Pope. You'll thank me when the barrage of cookie-cutter college mail gets intense. This is a way better way to really get to know a few colleges quickly. Get this for your freshman or sophomore so he can begin to look through it and see what appeals to him.
websites I enjoyed
- www.bigfuture.collegeboard.com (Find the part that lets you compare colleges. Beautiful, huh?)
- www.collegeappjungle.com (the free parts)
- www.essayhell.com (lots of articles with tips for writing college essays, especially the Common Application essay)
other books
- How to Make Colleges Want You, by Mike Moyer. This is not to say that I agree with everything in this book, but Moyer's basic message is good: 1) You don't have to be an overachiever or a genius to have a strong college application. 2) One way to strengthen an application (in addition to working on test scores) is to find something, anything (raising homing pigeons? quilting?) that makes you different from every other teenager you know. Then do that thing, love it, and get good at it. This is his solution to the vague advice constantly given to young people applying to college: "be more interesting!"
And, of course, this Wall Street Journal article: "To All the Colleges that Rejected Me," by Suzy Lee Weiss. Weiss writes a biting satire of the college application process. Her wit is frequently brought up in the discussions surrounding the application-season hoopla. It's a cultural literacy thing, but it's also nice to take a second to make light of what can be a grueling college app process. I reread it when the waitlist letters started rolling in. :)