(ghostwritten introduction to free booklet to promote on-line student essay critique service)

It’s November 2, 2016, the day after the first round of Early Decision college applications were due. Do you have friends who turned one in? Did they think their essay was brilliant, funny, original, convincing, and grammatically perfect?

Don’t tell your friends, but they’re probably wrong.

Over the course of the last year, we have read college essays non-stop. These essays were submitted to the schools you want to get into: Ivies, state schools, small Christian colleges, small liberal arts schools, big urban pre-professional schools, and everything in between. Some of these essays were amazing; some were abysmal; most were meh. But every single one of them had something to teach you about what you should and shouldn’t write in your college application essays.

• Students made the same mistakes over and over.
• They chose the same topics over and over.
• There are trends and if you can get out ahead of them, then you are out ahead of the admission game.

At ——-, we saw those trends. Now you can, too. We will show you how to work against the trends in this short, no-nonsense guide. Yes, you must search your soul to write a winning essay. But also, you must be smart and strategic and not make the mistakes that we saw again and again on the thousands of college admission essays we’ve read.

Let’s get started!