Shireen's Tips for College Apps

Since I know that many of you are checking out our blog to get a feel for GW and what the admissions process will entail over here, I figured I would offer y'all my sage advice on some general admissions know-how.  I've certainly done more than enough research to know what's valuable in an application, and being an employee of the admissions office (technically) gives me even more authority to speak on these topics!

SAT/ACT/GPA:  Yeah, the numbers are important sometimes.  No one's gonna lie to you about that.  If you haven't worked your tushie off as much as you should have been over the past few years, chances are it may negatively affect your admissions decisions.  That's not always the case, though!  Really!  I know some people who can CERTAINLY attest to that (haha).  But it can't hurt to delay the Senioritis as much as possible, and try your best to crank that GPA up as much as you can.  (At least for this semester!)    

For your essay:  I'm pretty jaded when it comes to admissions essays for various reasons that I won't go into, so I apologize if my words seem harsh.  

I would try not to go with the cliché, "So-and-so changed my life because he was a great person and cared about others--AND THEN HE DIED!"  Bad news, folks: it's not a shocker to anyone.  Admissions officers are pretty used to that not-so-twisted plot twist, they read a million bajillion essays in their careers.  The topic gets old, and it won't help your essay to stand out.  

Then there's also the "When I did a community service project in this impoverished nation/bad neighborhood..."  You know, the kind of thing where you became really impassioned about saving the world for a few weeks after and then life gets in the way and you forget it almost entirely?  We've all done those sorts of things, it's just a fact of life--especially since we're encouraged (sometimes forced!) to do a lot of community service in high school for various organizations or to look good for college admissions.  So I say unless your experience was unique or actually changed you, it would probably be beneficial to shy away from rehashing  manual labor.  Or you could even write about how you wish you had stayed more involved and regret letting the experience be overshadowed by the trivial squabbles of everyday life.  I think the honesty and thoughtfulness of that would be refreshing!  Just a thought, though.

Here's another thing: be yourself in that damned essay.  Don't try to add fanciful flourishes to your writing if they're just not you.  As you can tell I'm a huge advocate of casual writing.  I wrote the book!  And if you are a more academic writer, don't dumb yourself down to seem more relatable or whatever the case may be.  Just do you, baby.

I thought I'd get all I had to say about admissions out today, but it appears I've already written a lot and now I have Macro homework to do!  So I'll probably wrap this baby up tomorrow or the next day.  Nah, definitely the next day.  Until then, toodles!

Someone wrote me an email today and asked if I liked getting emails from readers.  You know what?  I do!  ShireenS@gwmail.gwu.edu

<3 Shireen