College Application Essays: The Zelda Fitzgerald Edition

USA Today did a great piece on 5 top college essay blunders.  I’m going to add some of my own: One mistake I see kids making is trying to cram everything they know/want/think into one essay.  An entire life experience – whether you an octogenarian or  a teen – can’t really be fit into 250-500 words.  An essay is not a résumé, after all.   Rather, one thought, one quirk, one person or book who moved  you in a unique way gives you a better opportunity to explore – and explain – your thinking.  Zelda Fitgerald once wrote that what she missed most about her father after he died was the particular way he tented his fingers when he spoke.  That single detail brought all of her emotions – loss, love, the power of memory – to light.  What is the one detail or anecdote that can become the focal point for your essay?  It is worth taking the time to think about that before you write.  For more tips, go to The College Essay Expert.

Reinvention, Take One

More Magazine (one of my favorites, and one that I’m happy to write for frequently) just posted my essay on the hows and whys of how I came to help kids with their Common App essays and more.  Here it is:

From Magazine Editor to College Essay Expert

How a professional editor transferred her solid skill set to a new career path

 

Like so many parents, I suffered through the college application process with a mix of anxiety and anticipation. My daughter, fiercely independent, wanted to handle it all on her own (except for the 16 schools we toured!) and I respected that, even if it meant biting my tongue at times. But when it came to the all-important Common App essay, it drove me nuts that she wouldn’t show it to me. Yes, she’s a fantastic writer BUT this was my area of expertise. After working as the editor-in-chief of a magazine, penning countless essays for publications from the New York Timesto yes, More, and publishing seven novels, I figured she’d let me help. (Let me stress: Help, not write it for her.) As a writer, I know how valuable another set of eyes can be. Instead, my daughter turned to her SAT tutor, her creative writing teacher, anyone but me….until two nights before the essay was due. And guess what? Though it was beautifully written, I saw what the tutors and teachers had missed – the essay lacked the crucial point at the end that would tie her thoughts together. It was a quick but important fix. (PS: She actually said thank you. PPS: She is now enrolled in the Ivy League school of her choice. I’m not taking credit, she did that all on her own – I’m just saying.)

I began to help all of my daughter’s friends with their essays. (Along with the Common App, many colleges request additional writing samples.) Here’s what I found: Even the most brilliant students freeze. They try to fit their entire lives into one essay. They can’t figure out what to write about. They have no idea what tone to use. And here’s what else I discovered: I truly love helping each kid find his or her unique voice and story.

After doing a little research, I discovered that while there are a ton of SAT tutors, advisors, and others to help in the ever more complicated (and stressful!) college application process, no one was specializing solely in the essays. At the same time, while I continue to love writing for magazines, I wanted more control of my career. It was perfect: A hole in the market that just happened to fit my exact skill set. My entrepreneurial spirit kicked into high gear just as my daughter was heading off to college. (Funny how that works.) I started my own business: The College Essay Expert. Now I work with kids all over the country on their applications. And in helping them tell their stories, I’ve reinvented my own.

 

http://www.more.com/reinvention-money/second-acts/magazine-editor-college-essay-expert

Fatherless Kids on Father’s Day: Cards, Dances and other Dilemmas

My daughter was in third grade when she began to come home from school increasingly cranky and argumentative.  When I asked if anything was wrong, she replied everything was ‘fine.’  (To this day, and she is now a freshman in college, everything is always ‘fine.’)  But when, at the end of the week, she showed me an intricate collage she had made and I complimented her on it, she threw it to the floor and burst into tears.  Only then did I realize the cause: At her public school, the kids had spent the week making Father’s Day cards and gifts under a teacher’s supervision.  My daughter’s father (my husband) had died two years earlier. And my father the year before that. She had no one to give the card to and hadn’t wanted to admit that in school.

I cannot begin to explain how I irate I was – and still am – at the misguided school policy that had children spending time making gifts for fathers.  (Like religion, doesn’t that belong in the home?) Surely, in a city as diverse as New York – or anywhere for that matter – we were not the only family without a father. Surely, too, there should have been more understanding of all types of families. Flash forward three years: I decided to switch my daughter to private school.  One of the places she was accepted was an elite girls’ school. On their annual calendar: A traditional father/daughter dance.  It caused knots in my stomach just contemplating it.  For a different school’s entrance essay,  my daughter had written about  a  photo she kept on her desk of her dad holding her the day after she was born and how it made her happy/sad. The head of that school wrote me a note saying how much she loved the essay. Choice made. (That, of course, wasn’t the only reason.)

I don’t know if either school has changed its policy, but I hope so. This Father’s Day, I will tell my daughter as I frequently do how proud  her dad would be of her. She still keeps that picture on her desk.   And  I will send my thoughts to all children who have lost their fathers, and to the single mothers everywhere doing the best they can.

Teens, Parents, and the Facebook Conundrum

Thinking about Bill Keller’s piece in today’s NY Times: It’s true that teens may be easing off of FB because their parents are on it (spying on them, among other things.) But it may be equally true that parents are easing off it because it’s tough to complain about your kids when they can read every word of it. Transparency and parenting have never been a natural fit on either end. Just wait until Zuckerberg has kids.

Would love to hear from other parents: Do you spy on your kids on FB?  Do you censor what you write?

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/11/opinion/wising-up-to-facebook.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&gwh=D97D59A9771517968597B69723749150