college entrance essay tutors wayne

college entrance essay tutors wayne

Effective Strategies for College Entrance Essay Tutoring: A Comprehensive Guide

1. Introduction to College Entrance Essays

For a variety of reasons, some of which are quite valid, students often feel they must “fit in” with the rest of the pool by employing outside help. Recursive writing, with its opportunities to play with words, ideas, and structure, cannot flourish when others intercede. Admissions personnel strive to admit students who will not only do well but who will also enrich their colleges, and the present state of the admission process now encourages the cheating, not paper mills, but both parents, students, and tutors.

Admissions officers read these essays with an understanding: on some level, students and parents *know* what their potential reader is looking for. “Knowing” is both an advantage and a detriment. On one level, it’s a disadvantage in that students must move from boilerplate essays to the level of what officials call “thinking organically.” On a second level, by the time those same readers have reached the second page of the first essay, they know from the sound and thoughts of the essay whether the student is both authentic and sincere in what he pens and whether he can “write” or is only competent at “writing,” that is, strategy writing. From that moment on, the essay becomes one of the many that all sound and look alike to the readers.

* Communicate the personality and intelligence of the writer. * Provide one hint of how a student may act/behave/react once in college. * Convey a sense of how a student will contribute to the school, in addition to what a student will gain through attending the school.

The essays:

College entrance essays have a three-pronged purpose to which the essays’ weak, strong, and good points relate:

2. Key Elements of a Successful College Entrance Essay

Many agree that a strong opening is important to captivating the reader. A tutor can help students begin writing with an “open free-write” to get a potential opening down on paper. In addition, a thesis—a concise and specific main point—is crucial to a well-structured paper. Including it early in the essay sets a goal for the subsequent writing. At the same time, whereas many of these elements apply to any kind of writing or key to a successful college entrance essays approach, there is much controversy over what actually gains the approval of admissions offices. One argument posits that a well-written, cohesive essay shows a willingness to address and challenge an assignment, and following the guidelines of an assignment reflects critical thinking. The college entrance essay is an autobiographical piece that often, more than just telling a story, reflects on the experience in a way that the writer has never been asked to do academically. Other sources cite that colleges want to see proof of “metacognitive tools”—that is, that applicants are able to reflect in a self-critical and self-reflective manner.

Effective storytelling lies at the heart of a good college entrance essay. The smallest stories, when shared through the lens of exceptional, engaging language, can reveal bigger truths about an applicant. Interestingly, many elements of effective storytelling in other contexts also support the development of a “winning” college essay. Readers of editorials and persuasive essays—like the people who evaluate college entrance essays—want to hear the author’s voice. They are attracted to an essay in which the individual writer’s take on the world comes through in a personal and meaningful way.

Elements of a successful college entrance essay

3. Methods and Techniques for Tutoring College Entrance Essays

While some of the following suggestions can be used by students for conducting their own revision in private editing or study groups, a role played by tutors at a different institution, this approach is not within the purview of this document. Therefore, by definition, the author’s methods often note the possibility of group revision among tutors and instructors at the Princeton University Writing Center. The author’s pedagogical methods also reflect Princeton’s emphasis on the epistemology of scholarship as a way of shaping student writing. In-line marginals will offer tutors notes and questions designed to provoke additional suggestions, coaching strategies, and feedback. To schedule visits to the Writing Center, or to learn more about the author’s methods, approach, and procedures, interested individuals are invited to contact him directly at the Princeton University Writing Center.

This section will cover the five techniques and methods employed by the author in tutoring college entrance essays. These will include brainstorming, structuring, developing the topic, assuring that the student’s topic is tailored to individual college requirements, and evaluating the technical aspects of writing. Suggested readings will provide prospective tutors with further direction in each of the specific areas.

4. Case Studies and Examples of Successful Tutoring Sessions

2) Case Study of a College-Bound Junior: We began the session discussing the draft my student completed for me to review. She had particularly ambitious goals: She was looking at essay questions for the University of Chicago as a group and MIT individually, as well as how her essay might fit with a trend in college entrance essay questions to ask about the future. She wanted to know if it was helpful to gather and synthesize information about the universities that each of her students was applying to. After a quick brainstorm, we decided to start with a precis of her lesson plan. This would help her make the connections between her essay and the future more directly. She decided to spend some time with the University of Chicago site and incorporate some of their university values as well. A rough draft of the essay was completed by the end of the session. The student received the following feedback: “You’ve brought in so much hilarious detail. Great job with this draft! Beginning with an anecdote provides helpful grounding for readers. I’m not sure what everyone else’s letters might say about these siblings, but you can unpack what you mean more explicitly. Seeing you laugh about the fall of Yellowthorn gave me chills. Comic to hormones in an authentic performance of a well-cast persona (steeped in Mitzy mindset) makes moments shine, and MitzvahZan connecting to who Bubbe is at her core to produce the change, at first, Punta Calidad resembled the growth and change achieved by the Dark Lord in the interminable Harry Potter series, then presented MitzvahZan coping with the tumult of the transformations outside of the spotlight—Bubbe’s family, her identity, the very energy composing the world. Such a shift in how the cantankerous protagonist’s outlook changes and advice transforms. Grandfancy matter I could read the biscuits and the historical texts.”

1) Before and After: One successful tutoring session started with a confused, disorganized high school junior who had little to show for two weeks’ worth of work. To start, we focused on the need for a central idea and how to connect the ideas in his first draft to a unifying idea. After a quick exercise pointing out the connectedness of books, arts, and history in an article, the student was ready to write. We worked to sharpen his arguments, especially through an anecdote. By the end of the session, the student had met the goal of 250 words and was able to talk about his anecdote with confidence.

Examples of successful tutoring sessions:

5. Conclusion: The Impact of Quality Tutoring on College Entrance Essay Success

By putting together this collective advice and research into this guide, we hope to equip college entrance essay tutors with the techniques and strategies that they will need to bring out the indispensable voice of the student, using one essay and sometimes only one session at a time. The trends of college essay writing and tutoring are rapidly moving towards enhancing the writing process, rather than emphasizing the final product, making clear the imperative to reflect and grow from the research and advice offered here. As society’s relationship to information and writing continues to evolve, the college application of the future is likely to increasingly prize the skills that these strategies build.

There is little doubt about the importance of quality tutoring in the development, refinement, and completion of a college entrance essay. And while the literature that discusses tutoring is almost as exhaustive as the college admission essay literature, we found no discussion of college entrance essay tutoring. Essays that otherwise would have been flat, boring, and indistinguishable from a crowd of thousands can become compelling and vibrant after one, five, or fifty drafts with quality tutoring. In the end, what colleges are looking for in an essay is voices: real, individual students. The work of college entrance essay writing and tutoring is to bring this voice out, to get the student to tell a unique and engaging story. High-quality tutoring can achieve these goals in a multitude of ways, and our overview of the relevant research has revealed standard practices that govern successful accomplishment in these areas.

Conclusion