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It explains how to adapt to the audience, avoid weak prose patterns, and improve through warming up, tinkering, and living revision. A dedicated section on reading supports critical evaluation of examples, while a preface for the 25th anniversary updates advice to reflect changes in admissions, online applications, and standardized testing.",{"@graph":69,"@context":123},[70,84,106],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":20,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/exam/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/on-writing-the-college-application-essay-the-key-to-acceptance/143589/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/on-writing-the-college-application-essay-the-key-to-acceptance/143589.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Oliver","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-02","2026-08-25",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":105},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",15,{"@type":107,"mainEntity":108},"FAQPage",[109,115,119],{"name":110,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":112},"How does the book advise applicants to prepare before writing a college essay?","Question",{"text":113,"@type":114},"It emphasizes getting ready through understanding the gray area, knowing the audience, and avoiding sleepy prose patterns so the draft has clarity and purpose.","Answer",{"name":116,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":117},"What writing techniques are highlighted to strengthen an essay draft?",{"text":118,"@type":114},"It covers chilling out, warming up, coming alive, rewriting, tinkering, and developing an essay through evolution rather than one-pass drafting.",{"name":120,"@type":111,"acceptedAnswer":121},"How should readers evaluate essay samples and supplements?",{"text":122,"@type":114},"It includes reading-focused chapters such as a detailed rant about supplements and exhibits that compare sharper and duller submissions to guide judgment and improvement.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":125,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":127,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":129,"site_id":62},143589,1787695911,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":132},{"doc_id":129,"user_id":133,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":134,"doc_module":4,"category_id":19,"category_name":20,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":135,"file_id":136,"file_url":137,"file_type":138,"file_size":139,"view_count":105,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":140,"language":141,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":142,"faqs":143,"seo_title":144,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":130,"read_time":145},8796095461610,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","Dedication  \nFor Lizzy, Molly, Xabier, and my students  \nEpigraph  \nAnd because I found I had nothing else to write about, I presented myself as a  \nsubject.  \nMontaigne  \nContents  \nCover  \nTitle Page  \nDedication  \nEpigraph  \nAcknowledgments  \nPreface to the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Edition  \nIntroduction  \nGETTING READY  \n 1 The Gray Area  \n 2 Know Your Audience  \n 3 Danger: Sleepy Prose Ahead (or, The Sandman Cometh)  \nWRITING  \n 4 Chilling Out (or, Everything I Say You Can’t Do, You Can Do)  \n 5 Warming Up  \n 6 Coming Alive  \n 7 Sweetheart, Get Me Rewrite!  \n 8 Tinkering  \n 9 Evolution of an Essay  \nREADING  \n10 A Not-Brief-Enough Rant About Supplements (or, Will Someone Please  \nScrap the Common App?)  \n11 Exhibits: The Quick and the Dull  \n12 Exhibits II  \nCredits  \nCopyright  \nAbout the Publisher  \nAcknowledgments  \nSince its publication in a previous century this book has picked up a happy trail of debt that begins with the original cast (Bill Oliver, Jim Rogers, Jim McMenamin, Beth Janes, Kristin Crowley, Sally Goldfarb, Nathan and the late Betty Straus, Marti Straus, Gary and Eleanor Cornog, Jane and Ben Momo, the late Ursula Cino, Steve Bauld, Marian Young, Jeanne Flagg) and continues with appreciation that is ongoing to Jerry Kisslinger, Chris Daly, Anne Fishel, Larry Momo, Irv Schenkler, Mike Lacopo, David Schiller, and the Nat Sobel Agency.  \nAmong a number of people who have had a material impact on the life of this book since the first edition are Steven Singer, Cathy Nabbefeld, Hugh Silbaugh, and Joyce Vining Morgan.  \nMy gratitude is great to the faculty, staff, and trustees of the Putney School. One of the most noble and intense places on earth, Putney is not so much a school as an unforgettable blast of life-altering voltage. Many thanks to all my friends and former colleagues there.  \nI bow to everyone at Horace Mann School in New York, where I began the work of this book and to which I have happily returned after many years away.  \nInés Gómez-Ochoa has been an inspiration in every possible way.  \nMy greatest debt is certainly to the Putney and Horace Mann students I taught and who, it is no tepid cliché to say, have taught me for nearly thirty years. The writing of many of them appears in the book with their permission: Iymaani Abdul-Hamid, Rani Arbo, Gideon Broshy, Caitlin Cohen, Roland Davis, Lori Dershowitz, Gerard Greweldinger, Carlyn Grose, Jennifer Gross, Sabrina Hahn, Sharon Isaak, Justine Klineman, Sean Lanigan, Philip Lee, Evin Luehrs, Nicole Parisier, Ghita Schwarz, Rebecca Segall, Rebecca Shannon, Melanie Berger Turek, and Meredith Wollins Paley. Chris Axline and John Bailo have also kindly granted permission to reprint their essays.  \nPreface to the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary  \nEdition  \nWhen I finished the first edition of this book in 1986, Columbia University, which had gone coed only three years before, boasted its lowest admission rate ever: 30 percent. That year Harvard University, then as now the most selective college in the country, accepted a scant 17 percent of all applicants. The competition to be admitted to these and other Ivy League schools was described in the press of the time as “fierce,” “cutthroat,” and “brutal.”  \nIn 2011, Bowdoin College, which doesn’t even require the SAT, admitted 15.6 percent of its applicants. Columbia accepted 6.9 percent; Harvard, 6.2 percent.  \nIn 1986 the Common Application was itself a teenager—only 114 colleges accepted it, none of them Ivy League schools. In 2011–12, 456 colleges used it, including all of the Ivies.  \nIn 1986, the Internet, which contained almost nothing, was known only to a handful of academics and computer geeks. Colleges urged applicants to type (remember paper?), though even handwriting was acceptable; at Brown University in the early 1980s we required the essay be handwritten, for that human touch. In 2011–12, almost everyone applies online.  \nThe SAT since the mid-1980s has changed its name and added—of all things—an essay","cbCailHg6HJ8TL83","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCailHg6HJ8TL83","pdf",832123,142,"English","# Getting Ready\n## The Gray Area\n## Know Your Audience\n## Danger: Sleepy Prose Ahead\n# WRITING\n## Chilling Out\n## Warming Up\n## Coming Alive\n## Sweetheart, Get Me Rewrite!\n## Tinkering\n## Evolution of an Essay\n# READING\n## A Not-Brief-Enough Rant About Supplements\n## Exhibits: The Quick and the Dull\n## Exhibits II","[{\"question\":\"How does the book advise applicants to prepare before writing a college essay?\",\"answer\":\"It emphasizes getting ready through understanding the gray area, knowing the audience, and avoiding sleepy prose patterns so the draft has clarity and purpose.\"},{\"question\":\"What writing techniques are highlighted to strengthen an essay draft?\",\"answer\":\"It covers chilling out, warming up, coming alive, rewriting, tinkering, and developing an essay through evolution rather than one-pass drafting.\"},{\"question\":\"How should readers evaluate essay samples and supplements?\",\"answer\":\"It includes reading-focused chapters such as a detailed rant about supplements and exhibits that compare sharper and duller submissions to guide judgment and improvement.\"}]","On Writing the College Application Essay - The Key to Acceptance | PDF",358]