It’s July. College is happening, & it’s happening FAST.
Where should students be right now?
"To break a mental model is harder than splitting the atom." —Albert Einstein
✅ Try anyway.
To break the mental model of “sitting down to write a rough draft,” we must first unlearn the muscle memory you’ve developed in high school. Those of you who enjoy writing and/or those of you who have been successful in pulling off writing assignments at the 11th hour and still somehow eeking out solid grades on assignments will find this work especially difficult.
✅ Try anyway. 😊
How?
✅ Practice “freewriting.”
Trust me on this. It may feel “weird,” “uncomfortable,” and/or “wrong,” but feelings are just feelings; feelings are not facts.
The students I’ve worked with over the years who have been the most successful in their college application process have overcome those initial uncomfortable feelings and gone on to spend more than half of their time on their college essays in the freewriting step. Their essays glistened because of the work they did in this initial stage.
✅ Sit down at least once daily during summer break, ideally first thing in the morning when you are rested and calm, and spend 15 minutes freewriting.
Write about “I come from _____.”
This is a freewriting exercise. When you feel you have exhausted the answer, please copy and paste what you've written into a Google Doc and share it with me.
IMPORTANT: ESSAY CURE students, tag me in Google Docs when you're ready for me to review, so I receive an email notification and know it’s there and you’re waiting for my review.
Here is where I would like for students to be at this point:
I’m including links to more detailed help for those who need it.
✅ Study for your upcoming ACT/SAT exams. If you are not feeling confident about your scores when you hold them up against last year’s freshmen applicants at the schools on your list, this is the time when you should be going full-court-press into increasing those scores. Study, study, study.
✅ Create your Common App account. Most of you will be first-time freshmen, but some of you will be transfer students. If you are unsure, please ask! Log in, poke around, and get comfortable navigating inside this account. Complete your personal information and start adding the colleges you intend to apply to, but don't worry about adding your activities and academic honors just yet.
✅ Complete your Maxwell DISC Student/Career Assessment. Have you booked a time on my calendar to review the results? If not, aim to complete that this week.
✅ Start building your college list in the spreadsheet tracker I've shared with you. Use these resources to help you find colleges and/or research your major.
✅ Freewrite. ✅ Daily, for ✅ 15-minutes. We need these freewriting exercises to start building your personal statement and soundbite. You can review the “values” section of your DISC assessment to add to your freewriting. If you get tired of the initial prompt above, complete more freewriting exercises on these topics:
I come from _____.
The hardest part of high school was _____.
I took a risk when _____.
A peak moment was when _____.
I was really scared when _____.
Others would be surprised to learn that I am _____.
Something hurtful said to me was _____.
✅ ESSAY CURE students, share your writing with me when you finish. Remember to tag me in Google Docs when you’re ready for me to review, so I receive an email notification and know it’s there and you're waiting for my review.
