Admit One: Writing Your Way into the Best Colleges
How to craft a dynamic personal essay that will get your college application noticed.

College admissions—that is, admission to the school of your choice—has become incredibly competitive. Students and their families prepare from grade school onward to shape school "careers" that will give them a leg up in applying to selective colleges. But sterling academic performance, AP classes, high test scores, and sports and other extracurricular activities are no longer enough to guarantee a slot at Stanford, Johns Hopkins, or the Ivies.

In Admit One, Thomas Richards focuses on a key aspect of the college admissions decision, one that makes all the difference in applications: good writing. This involves mastering the dreaded personal essay—but more than that, it means "writing" a college application with a consistent overarching narrative, one that tells a student's intimate story. Writing has the ability to render the grain of a student's own voice, fully integrated and fully under their own control. More than any other element of the application, strong writing is capable of revealing applicants as individuals from the inside out, allowing admissions committees to make fine distinctions between otherwise identical candidates.

In plain language, Richards draws together this sense of writing as central to college admissions while showing candidates the secrets of creating an effective, beautifully crafted personal essay. From selecting words to shaping sentences, building paragraphs, and even clarifying a voice, Richards's approach is the key to getting a student's application noticed and read. The resulting essay that readers craft will come as close as possible to being a trustworthy representation of a whole person.

Treating the college application as a rigorous intellectual exercise, Admit One contains everything students need to know in order to present themselves with clear-edged precision to an application committee.

1129760138
Admit One: Writing Your Way into the Best Colleges
How to craft a dynamic personal essay that will get your college application noticed.

College admissions—that is, admission to the school of your choice—has become incredibly competitive. Students and their families prepare from grade school onward to shape school "careers" that will give them a leg up in applying to selective colleges. But sterling academic performance, AP classes, high test scores, and sports and other extracurricular activities are no longer enough to guarantee a slot at Stanford, Johns Hopkins, or the Ivies.

In Admit One, Thomas Richards focuses on a key aspect of the college admissions decision, one that makes all the difference in applications: good writing. This involves mastering the dreaded personal essay—but more than that, it means "writing" a college application with a consistent overarching narrative, one that tells a student's intimate story. Writing has the ability to render the grain of a student's own voice, fully integrated and fully under their own control. More than any other element of the application, strong writing is capable of revealing applicants as individuals from the inside out, allowing admissions committees to make fine distinctions between otherwise identical candidates.

In plain language, Richards draws together this sense of writing as central to college admissions while showing candidates the secrets of creating an effective, beautifully crafted personal essay. From selecting words to shaping sentences, building paragraphs, and even clarifying a voice, Richards's approach is the key to getting a student's application noticed and read. The resulting essay that readers craft will come as close as possible to being a trustworthy representation of a whole person.

Treating the college application as a rigorous intellectual exercise, Admit One contains everything students need to know in order to present themselves with clear-edged precision to an application committee.

18.95 In Stock
Admit One: Writing Your Way into the Best Colleges

Admit One: Writing Your Way into the Best Colleges

by Thomas Richards
Admit One: Writing Your Way into the Best Colleges

Admit One: Writing Your Way into the Best Colleges

by Thomas Richards

Paperback

$18.95 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    In stock. Ships in 1-2 days.
  • PICK UP IN STORE

    Your local store may have stock of this item.

Related collections and offers


Overview

How to craft a dynamic personal essay that will get your college application noticed.

College admissions—that is, admission to the school of your choice—has become incredibly competitive. Students and their families prepare from grade school onward to shape school "careers" that will give them a leg up in applying to selective colleges. But sterling academic performance, AP classes, high test scores, and sports and other extracurricular activities are no longer enough to guarantee a slot at Stanford, Johns Hopkins, or the Ivies.

In Admit One, Thomas Richards focuses on a key aspect of the college admissions decision, one that makes all the difference in applications: good writing. This involves mastering the dreaded personal essay—but more than that, it means "writing" a college application with a consistent overarching narrative, one that tells a student's intimate story. Writing has the ability to render the grain of a student's own voice, fully integrated and fully under their own control. More than any other element of the application, strong writing is capable of revealing applicants as individuals from the inside out, allowing admissions committees to make fine distinctions between otherwise identical candidates.

In plain language, Richards draws together this sense of writing as central to college admissions while showing candidates the secrets of creating an effective, beautifully crafted personal essay. From selecting words to shaping sentences, building paragraphs, and even clarifying a voice, Richards's approach is the key to getting a student's application noticed and read. The resulting essay that readers craft will come as close as possible to being a trustworthy representation of a whole person.

Treating the college application as a rigorous intellectual exercise, Admit One contains everything students need to know in order to present themselves with clear-edged precision to an application committee.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781421428642
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
Publication date: 04/02/2019
Pages: 208
Product dimensions: 4.90(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Thomas Richards, formerly an associate professor of English and American literature at Harvard University, is an independent college admissions consultant. He is the author of The Imperial Archive: Knowledge and the Fantasy of Empire and The Commodity Culture of Victorian England: Advertising and Spectacle, 1851–1914.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1 Voice
Chapter 2 Words
Chapter 3 Sentences
Chapter 4 Paragraphs
Chapter 5 The Essay as a Whole
Chapter 6 The Master Narrative
Chapter 7 Three Case Studies
Chapter 8 The Narrative-Based Application
Conclusion
Index

What People are Saying About This

Clifton Conrad

Inspiring. This book not only reenvisions the college essay, but provides a scaffolding which invites readers to seize ownership over their learning. Anyone applying for college will find the book useful and eye-opening; it will likely have a positive impact on students in their pursuit of a college education at the institution of their choosing—and beyond.

From the Publisher

Inspiring. This book not only reenvisions the college essay, but provides a scaffolding which invites readers to seize ownership over their learning. Anyone applying for college will find the book useful and eye-opening; it will likely have a positive impact on students in their pursuit of a college education at the institution of their choosing—and beyond.
—Clifton Conrad, University of Wisconsin–Madison, coauthor of Cultivating Inquiry-Driven Learners: A College Education for the Twenty-First Century

From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews