The man confidently strode into the Algebra II classroom, shutting and locking the door behind him on his way to the board. He wore thick, stocky glasses and sported a bulky cast around his wrist and hand. Picking up a marker, he started writing on the glossy whiteboard, only to roll his eyes at the dried up marker and throw it across the room, barely missing a student’s head; it also missed the trashcan. Selecting another purple marker from...

Prompt: "Please attach a photograph of something that or someone who has great significance to you. Explain that significance." [The photograph I attached was my high-school swimming pool.] I am a swimmer. My first memory of swimming is that of a swim lesson I was having in the small “kiddie” pool that sat next to the six-lane, Olympic-sized pool where the big kids swam. The kiddie pool, at the time, was simply an above-ground basin jutting up about ten feet,...

Don't send academic material. I guarantee that if you were waitlisted, it's because you have "all the right numbers" (so to speak) but they're just not sure exactly where or how you fit, or even if you fit at all, into the grander scheme of the undergraduate class. 98% of...

It's been said a million times, but PLEASE, be honest! That's all they want to hear. Pro tip: if it's in your resume/transcript/essay/etc, don't elaborate on it to the interviewer? Why? Because they already know what's in your application folder. After all, you gave it to them. The point of the interview IS *NOT* to impress the interviewer with your straight A's in all subjects and captaincy of all the clubs you're in. The interviewer does...

For early admission/decision/whatever they call it nowadays: apply to whatever is your favorite school[s]. Regular application is a bit more complicated. I'd recommend applying to at least two "Safety Schools"--these are the schools that you are reasonably sure you'll get into. On top of those, you should, of course, apply to the colleges...

So, this is an interesting one. The first thing I'll say is this: please read the school's instructions regarding who should write your recs. If it says "One math/science teacher, one ss/humanities/arts teacher, and one advisor/coach/authority-figure," then do that. If you don't, you don't deserve to be admitted. They don't specify these recs just to be a pain in the ass: they specify them because it helps them get different views on your character. It's useless to them if you get a bio teacher, a chem teacher, and a math teacher to write your recs....

I will explain to you something I never did, but should have. It involves the logistics of applying, not the actual content itself. Here we go: Get a piece of paper, preferably 8.5" x 11" (or A4, whatever is your thing). Make sure it's white. Do it right now. This is important: it has to be a physical piece of paper. Now, write down all of the colleges you're applying to across the top (i.e. column headers)--I know, you have a computer and an iPad and all this technology crap, but hey, you'll need to remember how to physically write...

Know this--the admissions committee, in almost all cases, looks for exactly two things in an applicant--no more, and no less. The first thing is: What can the applicant (you) provide to the rest of the undergraduate entourage? The second: What can the school and the undergraduate class provide for the applicant? Together, these two questions merge to yield the more general and more cliche question, "Is this applicant a good fit?" The problem is that the admissions committee must decide the answer to this question based solely on a few files they have (your application), plus maybe an interview. That's...