So her search began to Choose the Right College. Alex wondered- “Does it matter which college you choose?”  Then she read Lynn Mattoon's article What Are You Really Going to College For? posted at myUsearch blog which suggests it is more about what you do than where you go.  She realized before you choose, you need to first figure out why are you going to college.  So Alex’s combustion engineer goal kind of exploded. Or imploded. 

But where should Alex actually go? While looking to find a review of a particular college, she found some tips to use in Tom Tessin’s  Student Reviews of Colleges - Finding Them posted at FCC Student Blog.  She also read up on Great College Advice's article by Katherine Price, the Top 5 Reasons to Go to College Out-of-State,
where Katherine noted that you may have an easier time being admitted to great universities outside your home state.  And tuition may not be any more expensive than attending college down the road. 

Speaking of tuition, Alex realized she had better enter the long road of applying for Scholarships.  She started with admissions expert Julie Manhan best tips to secure a scholarship for those high tuition bills in How to Begin Your Scholarship Search posted at myUsearch blog.  After securing as many scholarships as she could, Alex realized that the funds, together with her little piggy bank, just wouldn’t cut it to cover tuition. 

She needed to find out about Financial Aid options. Knowing that college can be a very financially challenging time, but also a time of great discovery, she read up on Jim Wang’s 40 Money Tips for College Students posted at Blueprint for Financial Prosperity. So now she was a bit more economically savvy, but Alex wasn’t sure she was maximizing her student loan eligibility.  After reading Sophie's seven frequently asked questions and the answers needed to ensure she was not missing any money she may have been eligible for at 7 FAFSA Myths-Don't Lose this Money posted at Sophie's Blog, she felt more relieved, and secured enough funds to pursue her dreams. Almost...

She still had to work on Getting Admitted.
She began working on her application to Dream Business School, conveniently located in Big Creek, North Dakota. She was almost done and thought her application was exactly what the adcom wants to read.  Suddenly, she felt ill. She realized she was suffering from Generic Itis. After a quick search online, she found out the symptoms and prevented it from ruining her application with Linda Abraham's Application Essay Tip: Generic-Itis Prevention posted on the Accepted Admissions Almanac. She also checked out Sophie’s Crucial tips about College Accreditation, learn how it will affect your wallet posted at Sophie's Blog while deciding which courses to take.

Finally, Alex crossed the application bridge and made it to College Life! Amazingly, she received more mail regarding credit card options than from her Dream College (she got in- by the way), so she read MBB’s College Students and Use Of Credit Cards posted at Money Blue Book Blog and made sure to get the best card for her. And yeah, not give away her SSN.

Comfortably ensconced in college life, Alex decided to explore some Other Cool Stuff on the Horizon.

She met students who went directly to graduate business school and insisted they get a lot out of their studies without working first. But many business-school officials didn't agree. She found out the real deal with Khan's Full-time Job After Graduation or Start Work on an M.B.A posted at Higher Education and Career Blog. Alex really wanted to keep everyone updated, but didn’t realize just how difficult is it to blog and attend school as an undergraduate. It seemed that most student blogs were not current, or they have long spaces of inactivity as these students attend to life as they know it. She checked out the ones who stayed on top in Frederick Yarmy's Top 50 Blogs By Undergrad Students posted at Undergraduate Degree and began her own blog called In Alex’s Outer Space. 

Then she posted this carnival detailing her exciting journey to this point in her life. 3….2…1….Time to take off on your own college journey! Good Luck!

On behalf of Accepted.com, Alex thanks Mark Montgomery of Great College Advice for organizing this carnival. For future carnivals, please submit your articles here.

*Photos Courtesy of Accepted.com 2009 Beautiful B-School Photo Contest. 2010 Contest Starting Soon.

The authors researched and identified the factors that cause communications to succeed or fail. They boiled their research down to "six principles of stickiness."  

1. Simplicity.
2. Unexpectedness
3. Concreteness
4. Credibility
5. Emotions
6. Stories

Over the next several weeks I am going to explore these SUCCES principles and apply them to personal statements and application essays. For today let's talk about Simplicity.

Your personal statement or application essay needs a core idea. That essence or central point becomes the driver of all content for that essay. When responding to specific questions, your core must directly and elegantly answer the question. When writing a less-directed personal statement, you still need a driving concept; you just have more choice as to what that concept should be. Everything else in the essay should support that concept.

If writing multiple essays for one application, each essay has to have a core. Those concepts should mesh and complement each other, but not duplicate.

The remaining principles of Making It Stick are means of effectively relating your core idea, but first you need to have a core. Unfortunately, many applicants treat their essays like many teenagers treat their bedroom closets -- as a place to put all kinds of "stuff" that may be useful or perhaps once was useful. There is no logic or organizing principle, no driving force. These messy closet essays then read like the mishmash they are.

Essays that are resumes in prose or that attempt to tell your entire life story descend into the mishmash category. Personal statements replete with irrelevant detail stray from their central mission.  They are not engaging or persuasive. In fact they bore.

When you write your essay, start with a central idea and then make sure that everything else supports it. That elegant simplicity is not simplistic. It is not even easy. It is highly effective. 

Some statistical highlights:

• For the fourth year in a row, 75% of four year colleges or universities saw an increase in applications. However, in 2008, 22% of those applicants applied to seven or more schools, in contrast to 19% in 2007.  From 2001 to 2007, the average acceptance rate fell to 66.8%, from 71.3%.
• From 2001 to 2007, the average yield rate (percentage of students who accept an offer of admission) fell to 45.2% from 49.1%.
• More and more students are submitting online applications. In 2008, 72% of applicants filed online application, as opposed to 68% in 2007, and 58% in 2006.

Increased applications mean more work for admissions staffs.  In 2008, admissions officers were responsible for reading an average of 459 applications.  In addition, admissions offices spent an average of $1648 on each student who enrolled.

Although it is clear that applications are on the rise, it is unclear whether colleges and universities can respond to the increased need for financial aid. The report concludes, “Although many colleges were able to respond to increased financial-aid demand during the fall 2009 admission cycle, it remains unclear how far colleges can stretch their financial-aid resources."

The moment I found the lump, I suspected my life was about to change—in a big way. It was mid-May 2001. I was a busy consultant in McKinsey’s Chicago office, the proud father of a boy about to turn one, and a generally happy guy in his early 30s.

It was tempting to wish the lump would just go away, and for a few days that was my strategy. I didn’t even tell my wife. But soon I recognized that knowledge is power, and made an appointment with my doctor. Within a week I had a diagnosis: cancer.

Those seven lines contained important story elements including a killer opening (more literally than usual, in this case), context (early 30’s consultant, Chicago, 2001), stakes (life and death), character (my fear and determination), and obstacles (cancer). You should include these key elements in all your story-based essays.

So what happened next? (incidentally, a well-told story uses these elements to make readers ask that question again and again, pulling them through the story)

Once I got past the initial shock, I discovered an unexpected challenge: choosing among major surgery, two rounds of chemotherapy, and “surveillance” (i.e., regular testing to see if the cancer was spreading). The options had the exact same survival rate (very high), but very different side-effect profiles. For example, the surgery was associated with potential nerve damage, while the chemo could have resulted in lower lung capacity.

This part of my story includes a twist and further obstacles. Twists, or surprise turns in stories—in this case, the challenge of choosing treatment—are not essential for grad school essays, but they can certainly make them more engaging: a teammate with a secret, a client’s abrupt shift in expectations, and the like. My unexpected challenge also represented an obstacle, in that I had to choose among three very different treatments with similar levels of effectiveness.

It was time for some deep research: with my wife’s help and inputs from my oncologist and other doctors, I pored over journal articles and other materials to understand my treatment options and their risks. For example, we learned that the surveillance course could take over five years before one could consider themselves cancer-free.

Here we have more evidence of character (how I took a methodical approach, rather than just picking a treatment impulsively or based on one doctor’s opinion), along with what I’ll call process, or how exactly I approached the obstacle. Too many of my clients leave out their process, skipping from “My team faced several major hurdles” to “The client loved our solution, and I got a raise.” Tell us what you did, how you did it, and ideally how you engaged others to overcome the challenge. Even my cancer story includes a team element (my wife and my doctors).

After weeks of research and deliberation, I opted for two rounds of outpatient chemotherapy. I said goodbye to my hair and hello to needles and nausea. The first week went well. But as I neared the second, my doctor called: the chemo had pushed my white blood cell count too low, compromising my immune system. I would have to wait. For two weeks I avoided raw fruit and vegetables and stayed inside as much as possible. My white blood cell count rose, and I completed the second week of chemo.

Now, over eight years later, I’m considered cured, a survivor. The only physical residue of my treatment is slightly wavier hair. But the experience reinforced the importance of a proactive approach (I found out most men wait over six months to get lumps checked), of careful due diligence in health and other matters, and of never giving up. I carry those lessons into everything I do. So I was right: the lump changed my life in a big way; but I never could have guessed how positive those changes would be.

The last part of my story brings more process (how I made a decision) and another twist (my low white blood cell count), along with the outcome and lessons learned. These last two elements typically tie together: my outcome (surviving cancer) reinforced multiple lessons, as noted above. It’s easy to spend too little (i.e., none) or too much (i.e., paragraphs) time on lessons learned; I’ve found that a line or three usually gets the job done. And I wrapped it all up by returning to my opening—I usually try to end (a killer ending) with a broader theme or key realization or glimpse of the future.

My story is just over 400 words, but it has all the important elements. My fellow editors and I would be happy to ensure that yours do too.

By Dr. Sachin Waikar, formerly a McKinsey consultant and now an author and advisor to business and grad school applicants.

1. Triple-check your email address.
2. Include a phone number.

Someone registered today, provided academic and other background information, but gave an invalid email and no phone number. If it's you, please email onlinesupport AT accepted.com with the correct email address and a phone number, so we can put you in touch with your requested editor.

Thanks

The symptoms:

• Mind-blowing, meaningless, and grand generic declarative statements without any substance, specifically related to why an applicant wants to attend a certain program.
• Irritation to admissions readers causing them to believe that you know nothing about their school and don't belong.

Treatment:

• For the Adcom: Deny the application as quickly as possible and move on to the next application.
• For Applicants: See below.

Here is an example of a severe case of generic-itis that I drafted based on several different examples I recently read, along with 15 years of experience in this business:

I find Top Choice’s global MBA program very exciting and interesting. With it, I will be able to elevate my already diverse knowledge of the world to a higher and more sophisticated level.  Combining the business analytical skills that I will obtain at Top Choice with my advanced mathematical skill, I will be able to help the fast-growing industry of clean energy progress and profit.  Moreover, I will explore Top Choice’s other outstanding academic fields, thus exposing me to resources outside the business school.  Not to mention Top Choice’s amazing students and alumni who will become my colleagues and with whom I will be sharing my experiences. TOP CHOICE will certainly add to my expertise and help me achieve my goal in the future. Having ambitious goals, I need the help of a great school like TOP CHOICE, a school that also has great ambitions.  I can and will use the Top Choice’s education to the fullest possible extent.  Today, I would be proud to join the community of TOP CHOICE, and tomorrow, TOP CHOICE will be proud to have me as an alumnus connecting Top Choice to the world of business and clean energy.

I hope you are thinking that no one really writes like this. In that case your immune system is strong even if your conclusion is incorrect. However, if the above bears any resemblance to the reasons you provide for wanting to attend a specific program, you are suffering from generic-itis. Your treatment:

• Find specifics in the program that compel you to apply and attend.
• Tie those specifics to your future goals or to your educational preferences.

Although the example above is for an MBA application, if you are writing "Why this school" essays or paragraphs  for college, law, medical school or any other program you too could be suffering from Generic-itis.

Have yourself tested today. Accepted's staff of experienced, professional editors would be happy to help you just as we have helped thousands of other generic-itis sufferers.

Hello Editors,

Seven years ago today, my  husband Kurt and I launched our online magazine for those who write from  personal experience:  www.WritingItReal <http://www.WritingItReal> . It would have  been Seth Bender’s 27th birthday, had he not died in December,  2000 in a snowboarding accident.  The magazine’s first article was “A Special Birthday,” explaining our purpose in offering the  magazine so people would have the “right food and the right stuff,” as Seth used to say, to achieve their  writing goals. Although Seth’s goals were usually a hike or a satisfying  mountain bike ride, he understood and admired the writer’s needs. He once told me that the only thing  wrong with having a poet for a mother was the sound of her Olivetti electric  typewriter when he was falling asleep. Now, October 1 also marks the  publication of A New Theology: Turning to Poetry in a Time of Grief,  the memoir I wrote about how poetry helped me during the months and days and  next years after Seth died.

Please click over to the book's webpage to learn more about the book, the  scholarship fund the proceeds support, and how to purchase a copy. You  can also click on the Facebook Fan Box on the top left to become a fan of the  book. I am hoping to use the fan page to offer discussion about writing grief  and titles of other resources for those who are in grief or are supporting  others who are grieving.

It is with tears and with the joy of loving my  son, of having had him in my life, that I continue, and, that in our hearts,  we celebrate his 34th birthday.

Thank you for taking a  look.

Congratulations on winning your choice of Accepted.com Admissions Ebooks!

We want to thank our Twitter followers. Twice a month, we randomly pick one of our followers as a winner in our Thank You Thursday contest. The Thank You Thursday winner will receive an Accepted ebook of his or her choice. Just our way of saying - "Thanks for Tweeting with us"!

Not on Twitter yet? Join now to stay up to date on the latest admissions news and events and to have a chance to be our next Thank You Thursday winner.