Greenes' Guide to Educational Planning: Presenting Yourself Successfully To Colleges: How to Market Your Strengths and Make Your Application Stand Out - Brossura

Greene, Howard

Brossura

ISBN 10: 0060934603 ISBN 13: 9780060934606

Casa editrice: Collins Reference, 2001

Riassunto

PRESENTING YOURSELF SUCCESSFULLY TO COLLEGES HOW TO MARKET YOUR STRENGTHS AND MAKE YOUR APPLICATION STAND OUT

LEARN WHAT ADMISSIONS OFFICERS LOOK FOR IN YOUR ESSAYS AND APPLICATIONS

In recent years, as the number of applications to top colleges has risen dramatically and fewer schools have been able to grant personal interviews to most applicants, the written application has become one of the most important factors for admissions committees. Marketing yourself successfully to schools -- making yourself stand out from the thousands of high school seniors applying to college -- is no easy task, but with the help of this straightforward, easy-to-follow guide you will make the most of your personal application. You will learn what kinds of essays have been successful and why and see how to write a unique personal statement that reflects your strengths. With checklists, writing samples, and advice on how to get great recommendations, Presenting Yourself Successfully to Colleges will give you all the tools you need to make your application stand out. Howard and Matthew Greene will explain how to:

• Assess your strengths and unique characteristics
• Assemble your application
• Write an outstanding personal essay that represents you well
• Create a strong resume
• Ask for recommendations
• Make yourself known to colleges
• Maintain ongoing communication with colleges

Su questo libro

Informazioni sugli autori

Howard Greene, M.A., M.Ed., is the president of Howard Greene & Associates, the nation's leading independent educational consulting company, and is a former Princeton University admissions officer and member of the Faculty Board of Advisors. Howard has counseled thousands of students for almost forty years and has been a consultant for numerous schools, colleges, and corporations. A graduate of Dartmouth College, he holds master's degrees from Harvard and New York University. He lives in Wilton, Connecticut.

Matthew W. Greene, Ph.D., is Educational Director of Howard Greene & Associates. Matthew has consulted with families for a dozen years and often writes and speaks on educational planning and college admissions issues. A graduate of Dartmouth College, Matthew has taught and advised students at the University of Colorado at Boulder, where he earned his doctorate in public policy. He lives in Wilton, Connecticut.

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PRESENTING YOURSELF SUCCESSFULLY TO COLLEGES HOW TO MARKET YOUR STRENGTHS AND MAKE YOUR APPLICATION STAND OUT

LEARN WHAT ADMISSIONS OFFICERS LOOK FOR IN YOUR ESSAYS AND APPLICATIONS

In recent years, as the number of applications to top colleges has risen dramatically and fewer schools have been able to grant personal interviews to most applicants, the written application has become one of the most important factors for admissions committees. Marketing yourself successfully to schools -- making yourself stand out from the thousands of high school seniors applying to college -- is no easy task, but with the help of this straightforward, easy-to-follow guide you will make the most of your personal application. You will learn what kinds of essays have been successful and why and see how to write a unique personal statement that reflects your strengths. With checklists, writing samples, and advice on how to get great recommendations, Presenting Yourself Successfully to Colleges will give you all the tools you need to make your application stand out. Howard and Matthew Greene will explain how to:

• Assess your strengths and unique characteristics
• Assemble your application
• Write an outstanding personal essay that represents you well
• Create a strong resume
• Ask for recommendations
• Make yourself known to colleges
• Maintain ongoing communication with colleges

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Greenes' Guides to Educational Planning

Presenting Yourself Successfully to ColBy Greene, Howard

HarperResource

Copyright © 2004 Howard Greene
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0060934603

Chapter One

Presenting Yourself to the Colleges of Your Choice

The Importance of Stating Your Case
to the Admissions Committees

"Applicants are not judged simply by the number of Advanced Placement or other advanced credits amassed at the end of senior year," the dean of admissions and financial aid at Harvard University declared at a recent annual meeting of the College Board. He advises students "to assess what your talents are or might be, and what it is you truly love and value." In a letter to Harvard's 6,000 volunteer alumni interviewers, he wrote, "Interviews [by these alumni] are actually more important than ever. The principal reason: the personal qualities of our students have never mattered more...the intangibles are determinative. Will this person be a great educator of other students? What will she or he be like as a prospective roommate, or working fifty hours a week on the Crimson, or in a seminar, or on the lacrosse team, or in late-night discussions?" He went on to comment that these are the skills that distinguish the most appealing individuals in the large pool of candidates with outstanding grades, academic transcripts, and test scores.

To personalize, enliven, and strengthen your application to selective colleges, you need to present some of the intangible qualities that will make you an appealing candidate. In a letter to school counselors and alumni interviewers, Karl Furstenberg, the dean of admissions and financial aid at Dartmouth, summarized the importance of providing more than statistical information to the admissions committee. The following are the factors that will influence the decision to admit a candidate and that the dean hopes to discover from the materials in the applicant's folder:

Obviously, the first and highest priority for admission is the academic accomplishment and intellectual quality of the student... But it is the presence of the intangible measures of academic accomplishment, promise, and dedication that really distinguish the exceptional applicants from the "solid" ones. The key difference between the two groups is intellectual curiosity. This quality eludes precise measurement, but we always look for it... We seek critical thinkers and creative problem solvers, all with the independence of mind and personal confidence to assert their ideas; students, who by virtue of their intellectual leadership, will both delight and challenge their professors and their peers... There is an intangible dimension to extracurricular records, and we must be attuned to those human qualities -- integrity, leadership, compassion, open-mindedness, sense of humor, independence, energy -- that will continue to enrich the Dartmouth community.

Stanford University further emphasizes how essays and other documentation play a key role in the lengthy and exhaustive review of the 16,000 applications they receive every year. Again, the personal writing and supplemental information will influence the committee as they consider more than the quantifiable information of grades, test scores, and courses taken.

The thorough and elaborate evaluation process in which almost the entire admissions staff is involved each winter and spring cannot be reduced to a quantifiable formula. We attempt to blend the information contained in references with the data from academic credentials. We spend many hours (including nights, weekends, and holidays) reading and rereading files. Each application is carefully reviewed, sometimes by as many as five admissions officers. Each admission officer reads hundreds of folders from a wide variety of applicants, thereby acquiring a strong sense of the strength of the pool of which each of you may be a part... Also of importance to us are applicants' essays and the references they present from teachers and others who know them well. We take into consideration personal qualities -- how well an individual applicant has taken advantage of available resources, whether he or she has faced and withstood unusual adversity, and whether the applicant shows promise as a contributing community member.

We can cite the philosophy and goals of the admissions committees of the hundreds of other excellent colleges and universities that we hope you have considered in your search, and all of them will articulate the same message that Harvard, Dartmouth, and Stanford do here. You now have the framework within which to decide how you will make yourself a candidate the committees want to invite into their respective colleges. Without a presentation or marketing plan, you may well be relegated to the rejection pile because you did not make yourself known beyond the academic data.

What "Marketing Yourself" Means

As we wrote in Making It into a Top College: Ten Steps to Gaining Admission to Selective Colleges and Universities, one of the most important elements in the admissions process is presenting yourself fairly and accurately to each college you would want to attend. What does an overburdened admissions committee do when forced to make choices among candidates whose folders would be difficult to distinguish if the names were left out? Self-marketing is a concept that confuses many candidates. In a culture that thrives on marketing products, ideas, and individual personalities, the idea of marketing oneself to academic institutions can be easily misinterpreted. Our objective is to clarify what is appropriate and helpful marketing for an applicant to selective colleges.

The extraordinary rise in the number of qualified students seeking admission to the better colleges and universities today presents a challenge for you to demonstrate your individuality and accomplishments. You should determine that you will not allow yourself to fall into a faceless category of candidates who are judged by a selection committee solely on the basis of statistical and quantifiable information. You know that you are far more than the sum of your grades and test scores; your objective is to convey a complete image so that you will not become just another face in the crowd of applicants. Marketing yourself becomes essential. Your objective is to force the committees to select you, because you have made them aware of your individuality and the positive influence you will have in their community. It is all too easy for the committee to fall back on...

Continues...

Excerpted from Greenes' Guides to Educational Planningby Greene, Howard Copyright © 2004 by Howard Greene. Excerpted by permission.
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Dettagli dell'edizione

• Editore: Collins Reference
• Data di pubblicazione: 2001
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0060934603
• ISBN 13: 9780060934606
• Rilegatura: Copertina flessibile
• Numero edizione: 1
• Numero di pagine: 290
• Contatto del produttore: non disponibile
• Persona responsabile: Simone Casetta; 0039 275422215; casetta@mondadori.it; ; Via Mondadori 1,; Segrate Milano; 20090; Italia