
Learn to craft effective college essays by planning a focused attack, brainstorming topics, and detailing past, present, and future to present a full, polished picture to admissions committees.
Organize your college essays by mapping common app prompts, universal prompts, and school-specific supplements in a spreadsheet; then write the fewest essays by adapting them across applications.
Analyze how many essays you truly need for the common and universal applications. Learn to tailor campus prompts, avoid recycling personal statements, and craft concise, school-specific supplements.
Use this video to work through a real-time brainstorming session. Get yourself two pads of post-it notes in two different colors and get ready from some quick scribbling!
Brainstorming guide helps you discard weak topics early, avoid focusing on others, clichés, or oversharing, and choose a personal, concise anecdote that highlights your growth.
Outline across your application using short index-card bullets to map each essay, recommendation, and supplement, avoiding holes and repetition while presenting a cohesive, future-oriented profile to admissions.
Learn to craft a college essay that weaves past accomplishments with present activities and future aspirations through a clear arc, topic sentences, and targeted college research.
Show how to turn a simple outline into a cohesive college essay using a past-present-future model, five-paragraph structure, transitions, and a family deli as sample.
Learn how to craft a standout personal statement that reveals your unique value to a college, using a strong opener, seamless past, present, and future flow, and targeted school fit.
Analyze a sample personal statement to learn structuring an anecdote, transitions, and a concise outline that links government interests to school fit.
Explore how specialized prompts differ from personal statements, including Common Application prompts, and learn to approach, brainstorm, and write a focused essay that shows genuine interest in a specific college.
Master a step-by-step editing method to polish college essays, ensuring you answer the prompt with a single narrative, while refining structure, paragraph coherence, and grammar through self-review and peer feedback.
Learn when and how to recycle college essays across applications, scholarships, and prompts, while avoiding missteps, trimming strategies, and the importance of careful editing and fresh tailoring.
College essays are the hardest part of the college application, and they are the one element that you can truly make a difference right up to the very end. Your grades are your grades, and your test scores are set, but your essays are all up to you!
With students applying to ever more colleges each year, students can find themselves on the hook to write dozens of essays. How do you make them stand out when you have so much to do? Ivy Caliber Essays will teach you how to organize your applications, brainstorm, outline, and write the fewest possible essays so you can focus on your most compelling stories and draft your best work.
Sarah Ballard, author of Accepted! A Monthly Guide to College Applications and Admissions to Any School and Founder of college coaching firm Alpha Academia, has crafted this course to teach students how to sell themselves to colleges through their essays.
Ivy Caliber Essays walks you through the process step-by-step:
Ivy Caliber Essays uses video sessions with embedded notes to walk through a complete process for writing all of your college (and scholarship!) applications. Links to outside resources and sample essays are included. Worksheets are available for download to supplement the lectures.
In short, Ivy Caliber Essays is everything you need to put your best foot forward on your college essays with the least possible pain.