Sarah O'Neill Blog Pennsylvania

Sarah O’Neill Chester County Supreme Editing Expert Advice Every year I am approached with questions regarding the Common Application Essay — that primary, subjective piece that is required for over three hundred schools that participate in the Common Application process. This excludes schools like UC and MIT. But, for most schools, it gives a “voice” to the application beyond test scores, GPAs, and those objective measures that, let’s face it, are still needed. When I first began editing admissions essays over ten years ago, both the personal statement and supplementals, the questions consisted of: What topic resonates most with admissions officers? What style should I use? Can I be funny? Can I discuss religion or politics or are they off-limits? Do they care about grammar and structure? While these questions are STILL concerns, a new set of inquiries have dominated during this sticky time of generative AI such as: Do admissions officers care if I use platforms to check my gramma...

Sarah O’Neill Chester County Teacher Supreme Editing  There are a few reasons why you may have been deferred for your Early Decision school. Below is a list of reasons and an action plan on what you can do about it now. First, in college admissions, “deferred” refers to when an applicant who applied under an Early Decision (ED) or Early Action (EA) plan is not accepted or rejected immediately. Instead, the admissions committee postpones its decision and reviews the application again during the Regular Decision round. This means the applicant is GOING TO BE CONSIDERED for admission, but the application will be evaluated alongside the larger pool of regular applicants. While being deferred can feel deflating, rest assured that it still offers a chance for acceptance! Top 10 Reasons Why You Might Have Been Deferred 1. High Competition The truth is, colleges, on average, receive thousands of ED applications every year. They definitely like ED applicants because the student is forced...

  Sarah O’Neill Chester County Supreme Editing Regular decision deadlines to submit applications to your dream schools are usually in early January. With such a deadline just around the corner, let’s think about what you can REVISIT and improve upon in this round that might have kept you from your EARLY DECISION school. Revisit Your Personal Statement (aka the Common App Essay) One aspect of your college application that you can still control 100% in this process is the essay portion such as the supplemental essays and the main essay, the Common Application 650 word piece. If you were rejected or deferred for admission from your ED choice, now is the time to revisit that essay. Follow these steps: 1 — Spend ample time reading and re-reading the piece to be sure it is authoritative, shows you doing something, and offers plenty of reflection. This will assure colleges that you will bring something unique to their campus. 2- You also need “other eyes” on the piece. I suggest you show ...

Sarah O’Neill Chester County Supreme Editing Now that RD season is among us, let’s talk about applying to what is considered the “little ivies.” What are the Little Ivies? Coined the Little Ivies around 1955 for a group of small colleges in New England, today they are a bundle of liberal arts colleges known for their dynamic educational opportunities, stellar financial options, and low admittance rates. Why Choose a Liberal Arts College? Simply, these schools offer a broad education and experimentation into various fields, they are more close-knit which means closer proximity to professors, and they pay off in the end. The list of Little Ivies include: From Wikipedia: A 2016 article by Bloomberg Businessweek lists the members of the Little Ivies as:[9] Amherst College Bates College Bowdoin College Bucknell University Colby College Colgate University Connecticut College Hamilton College Haverford College Lafayette College Middlebury College Swarthmore College Trinity College Tuft...

By Sarah O’Neill Chester County Supreme Editing Now that the Early Decision round is in full swing and closing soon, try not to be deterred if you were deferred. Do what you can to ensure you are gearing up for the Regular Decision round. In fact, some of the best offers come during this round and most schools stop accepting applications by January. According to Google’s AI Overview: “Regular Decision (RD) applications are often considered better than Early Decision (ED) because they give applicants more time to prepare a stronger application, compare financial aid offers from multiple schools, and aren’t binding, allowing students to choose the best fit even if they receive multiple acceptance letters, whereas ED requires a commitment to the school if accepted, even if a better offer comes later Check websites for specific RD deadlines.” The point is this: YOU HAVE TIME to show your best self subjectively through the essays. Let’s revisit what you wrote for ED, analyze what could b...

  Guide to Writing for College Applicants and Resume Building Sarah O’Neill Chester County Supreme Editing Establishing a point-of-view is perhaps the most difficult element of writing to tackle. When I took a creative writing course at a church in Radnor run by a published poet, we would share our original works with a semi-circle of other writing enthusiasts who were just as eager. One aspect that I had a tough time with was point-of-view. The feedback I would receive would go something like this: Is your narrator a general speaker who is observing the scene or is she part of the action herself? Why do you give the narrator personal thoughts and observations when they are not part of the actual plot? Thinking deeply about how to adjust my point-of-view to pull off the perspectives I had intended, I had to know much more about point-of-view and how to be successful with this tool. Up until then, I had no idea that I struggled so much with it in my writing. I could identify the fir...