For new college students, the summer before school starts can be a stressful, hectic few months. You’re preparing for your first year of post-secondary school, you’re worried about your dorm, living in a new place, and on top of that, you need to line up financial aid and scholarship money.  But we’re hearing from more and more students who are having a harder time receiving financial aid in these tough times than ever before — and we’re even hearing that state budgets are even going so far as to cut financial aid programs for students, even the ones who need it the most. Everyone knows that going to college is a valuable experience which helps people get further in life — and that the pursuit of knowledge has a worth that far exceeds anything money can buy — so we want to do what we can, financially, to make sure you can go to college. We provide educational services, after all, so of course we care about education.

Click Here to Enter to Win $1,000

Note: You can use it for anything (a new computer, textbooks, your plane ticket home for the holidays). The only catch is that you must be enrolling as a freshman in a 4-year college or university in the United States.

But we know that this is the summertime and the days are long, and that the last thing you want to do is stay inside, hunched over a computer, writing an essay half-halfheartedly that won’t be of use to anyone (we’re not trying to be mean, but c’mon here). We’d rather have an essay from you that you actually cared about, thought about, and took time writing.

Contest – How to Enter & What you Win

So, we’re proposing this: submit your already written college admissions essays (you know, those personal statements you wrote to get into the school you’re trying to afford right at this moment), and we’ll award 3 winners a sum of scholarship money and free expert editing and writing help on Eduify to use once you start school. We call this the Wunderkind Essay Contest because it rewards you for being the brilliant students you are — students who have already worked hard through high school and have already been accepted to college but who just need a little extra help affording it all. First place gets $1,000 plus 3 months of free Eduify help. Second place gets $500 and 2 months of free Eduify help. Third place gets $300 and a month of free Eduify help.

So, to enter this contest, simply go here, fill out the required information, and upload your college essay onto Eduify. It’s that easy — possibly the easiest scholarship contest ever created, seriously. You have until September 15 to enter an essay and get as many votes as you can for our Wunderkind Essay Contest.

See Current Entries & Vote For the Best One

Eduify will host all of these essays online — anonymously — so that students can see the essays of their peers and vote or comment on their work. To see some essays that have already been entered, check out the essay page and vote and comment away.

And of course, we can’t end this blog post without mentioning that not only do we hope to get a great essay from you, but we also wish you all the luck in your college career. Now, do your student loans a favor, and submit an essay to Wunderkind.

All college applications require recommendation letters from your high school teachers. Colleges want to see what your teachers are saying about you, not just to learn about you from a fresh perspective, but also to gauge your personal and academic potential. The great thing is, unlike college professors (who are notoriously stingy with praise when writing graduate school recommendation letters), high school teachers are more than happy to write you letters of recommendation — and highly positive ones to boot. In high school, counselors and teachers want to see students make their way into college, because it reflects on your school and their own job performance if you don’t make your way to college after four strenuous years of school-sponsored education! So don’t fret — getting a letter of recommendation from your professor is as simple as asking the following seven words: Will you write my college recommendation letter?

While it’s simple to score a letter, it’s much less simple to strategically decide which teachers can write you the best letters, ones which show you in your best possible light. Picking the right teachers to compose your letters of recommendation is worth the extra maneuvering, because great letters can really boost your chances of getting into the school of your choice. Here are some useful tips on how to get the best possible letters for you.

Show-off as many positive traits as you can.

If you had your choice between sending two nearly identical recommendation letters, or sending two very different ones, both which identify and display different strengths you possess, you’d obviously pick the latter. One way to show-off is to get two teachers from very different subject areas to write you separate letters of recommendation. So you’re a total lit geek — but you’d be even more impressive if you could also show that in addition to your English skills, you’re also a math wiz! Don’t be afraid to show-off. Even if you can’t ‘do it all,’ there’s no harm in showing that you can ‘do a lot’! And since your teachers are bragging about you on your behalf, you won’t be the one who looks like the show-off, even if you are.

Extracurriculars don’t hurt!

Even if you never took a class from a certain teacher, they can definitely still write you a letter of recommendation if they know you from a certain extracurricular activity. While in high school, I had my debate coach, who was a teacher at my school albeit one whose class I never took, to write my letter of recommendation. Choosing a representative of a school extracurricular as a writer of your rec letters is a smart idea, especially if it can highlight one of your strengths (like debate, athleticism, dance skills, musical skills) that isn’t represented to the full degree in a standard high school class!

Foster working relationships with teachers.

While your teachers will probably all gladly write you a letter of recommendation just from the basis of you having taken one of their classes at some point in your high school career, it’s better to pick teachers who know you well, because they can speak to specific attributes, strengths, and talents, as opposed to writing the ominous generic recommendation letter that college admissions officers are probably so sick of reading day in and day out. In gearing up to send out those college admissions packets, choose teachers who know you well when deciding which ones you want to have write your letters of rec. If you’re the type of person who sits silently in class and feels like no teacher even knows your name, much less knows you well, you still have time to foster relationships with teachers! College juniors, you have your entire first semester of next year to get to know one of your teachers. Sophomores and freshmen, you have even more time than that. Don’t be shy! Teachers love to talk to students in between class periods, and they would be more than happy to provide you mentorship. That’s their job, remember!

Give your teachers plenty of time.

If you want a good letter of recommendation, you need to give your teacher enough time to write you a one. The proper amount of time to give a teacher would be anywhere from three weeks to a month and a half in advance. I suggest notifying them well in advance — by about a month before packets are due to be sent out — just as a matter of courtesy. If your teacher resents you secretly because you popped up last minute begging for a letter of rec, during the busiest time of the school year when they’re buried under papers and tests to grade and compose, they might not write you as shining a letter as they would have, if you’d have given them time. Be smart and be polite: ask in advance!

Don’t be afraid to tell your teachers what to write.

Of course, you can’t force your physics teacher to tell MIT that you’re a rocket scientist if you failed her introductory physics course, but at the very least, you can suggest it. This is not to say that you should fabricate nonexistent attributes just to get into college. But don’t be afraid to ask your teachers to mention something in their letter, if it’s something you definitely want colleges to know. For instance, while I was getting my college rec letters done, I asked a teacher to include in the letter that I was a part of the school paper. I figured my teacher didn’t know that I was involved in that extracurricular, so it would behoove me to tell him.  You should definitely not be shy to do the same for yourself. Your teachers don’t know everything about you. They only view you from a limited light. Providing them with extra, pertinent information about yourself and your abilities is a smart way to get that information included in your letters of recommendation.

Going to college is, in a lot of ways, like buying a house. You’re making an investment in your future, but you have to pick the right one. And there are lots of different variables that go into deciding which college to attend. What can you afford? Where do you want to be? How do you see yourself growing, when you finally go off to college, and where do you want that college to do for your future? Sitting down and thinking about each variable can be hard, especially when so many different and conflicting ideas are being bantered around in your brain. Unless you are one of the rare people who has known, since they were five, which college you want to go to, the decision-making process is difficult no matter how you approach it.

When I was applying to schools, I made a chart that detailed 5 different things I would have to consider before deciding on the right fit. They were: location, areas of interest, my personality, finances, and my desired career path. When I chose my school, I made sure to consider each variable, and then used my findings to narrow down a selection of schools I wanted to consider. In the end, I found this to be a useful tool, and I am happy with the decision I ultimately made. I hope it can work for you!

5. Location and size

Thinking about location is important, because wherever you end up going for college will be a place you will be stuck for the next four years. If you are a city person, you might not want to go to school in rural Alabama. If you are into the idea of going to school in a small town, urban Chicago is probably not the best location. If you don’t fare well in cold weather, New Hampshire is not a state you want to study in. And if you love to be surrounded by lush, green environments, Arizona won’t fit you at all. There are so many schools all across the United States – 4,352 to be exact – so there should be plenty to choose from. Don’t settle for going somewhere you don’t really want to be — because, trust me, it will come back to haunt you. You should also ask yourself whether going to a big school or a small school better suits your wants. Because there are some big schools out there (40+ thousand students) and some tiny ones (less than 4 thousand students) and finding a number you are comfortable with is essential. Here is a list of colleges and universities according to state, which you mind find helpful in your decision making process.

4. Areas of Interest

What are you interested in? Are you interested in the humanities? Science? Medicine? Law? Business? Even if you don’t have a clue what you want to study, or what you want to be after you graduate, it’s still important to consider your areas of interest. Perhaps you love biology but you also love music. Find a school that accommodates both of those interests, so that once you get there, you can take classes in both disciplines and see which one you’d rather concentrate on. At this point, it would be a shame to limit yourself when it came to your interests, so you should use those interests to guide you into finding a ‘good match’ school. Needless to say, if your interests lie solely in the realm of humanities, it would be unadvised to go to any school whose names ends in “Institute of Technology”. Similarly, if you are into technology, it would probably be best not to go to a school that has the term “Art” anywhere in its name. Think about your interests, and use that knowledge in your research of different colleges.

3. Personality

A variable that often gets overlooked when you apply to school is your inherent personality. Your happiness definitely matters when going off to school, and there is no worse feeling than going to a school you dislike, where you don’t get along with the student body and are unhappy. One thing you have to ask yourself is, in general, what the student body will be like in the ideal school you attend. If you want to go to school with a liberal peace-loving student body, you probably shouldn’t go to the Naval Academy. Capiche? You want to make friends where you go, and in college, you will make some of the closest friends you’ll ever have in your life. You should ask yourself about fit because that’s such a key ingredient in finding the best school for you. US News and World Report has an interesting college personality quiz that might be of help!

2. Finances

I hesitate to put this up here, becuase no matter what, you can probably afford to go to the school of your choice. You can take out loans, you can apply for financial aid, and you can get grants or win scholarships. That said, there is a limit to how much debt any prospective students wants to commit to — debt which can be stressful to pay off. So it’s important, when considering schools, to figure out the financial aid data before you send back an acceptance. These custom calculators can be really helpful in figuring out your financial aid information. They can help you calculate loans, savings plans, award comparisions, and budgeting.

1. Career

College will last 4 years. After those 4 years are done, you’ll be in the real world, where you will be expected to work a real job and have a real career. That’s what college was preparing you for, right? Whether you decide to become a bohemian and work on your art, despite your anthropology and political science double major, or if you decide that graduate school right off the bat is your best bet, or if you decide that what you really want in life is to work in an office and put money toward your 401k, you should start thinking about it sooner rather than later. I’m not saying you should already know what you want to be, but you should realistically consider your wants and your options, and figure out if the school you’re going to will get you there. If you want to be a movie director and you know that’s what you want, why spend 4 years studying linguistics? Go to film school!

Unlike high school book reports, college papers require in-depth interpretation of readings at hand. The term close reading is one that doesn’t often come into play in a high school environment, though in college, close reading is the expected norm. Close reading is the careful reading of a text that considers everything from syntax to structure to, basically, everything about the language down to the minutiae of a single word. Not only are college students expected to do close readings of texts, but they are also expected to interpret the text — not just describe what happens. College papers are very much “show, don’t tell.” College writers don’t repeat synopses of chapters in their papers; they interpret the text and only write, in their papers, about ideas, not action.

4. Informed Argument.

College writing always requires an argument. An argument requires a strong thesis statement. Check out our blog entry on writing strong thesis statements to learn how to focus your paper around a strong argument. College papers seek to prove something through a series of though-out examples and analyses. Professors are interested in seeing how you think, and whether your writing is thoughtful and considered. By examining the argument of your paper, and the ways that you back it up, professors are really looking to see the way your mind works in structuring and attacking a problem and arriving at a solution, via the written word.

3. Specifics.

When I first started writing college papers, they were often returned to me with “what does this mean?” or “can you give me specifics?” written in red ink on the margins. Soon, I learned that the more specific and to-the-point my language was, the higher I scored on my papers and the better my papers were. Being specific is important for many reasons, the most important of which is that specific language shows that you’re not BS’ing assignments, something your high school teachers might let you get away with. College professors want to see that you know exactly what you’re talking about. The operative word is ‘exact’. College professors want you to say what you mean, and they won’t tolerate any fluff.

2. Topicality.

College writing is centered around questions of interest to the academic community. In college writing, it’s very unlikely that you can get away with general and almost meaningless topics like “characterization” or “symbolism”. College professors want to see you really analyze the texts you read in a meaningful and scholarly way, and they respond well when you write on topics of academic interest. Instead of discussing the use of symbolism in The Inferno, which has already been written on extensively for going on five hundred years now, perhaps a more useful or interesting topic would be on the syntax of time and temporality within the text, for instance.  Or a comparison of The Inferno with a modern text that shows marked similarities and differences, and what that says about the text.

1. Expectations.

The crucial difference between high school and college writing is your professor’s expectations. College papers, simply put, are judged by a much higher standard than anything you’ve probably witnessed in high school. You will, therefore, need to try much harder in college. Often, humanities courses in college are judged on papers alone, so papers are worth far more in terms of your overall grade once you get to college. You will have to start papers earlier, think harder about what you’re going to say, do more research, and write better. You will not just be judged on the quality of your ideas alone, but also on your presentation of those ideas, so you will be expected to have impeccable grammar, spelling, and organization. It may sound difficult and overwhelming, but being forced to write in an academic environment is one of the best methods of not just teaching you how to write, but also of teaching you how to think. After four years of writing in a college environment, I feel that both my writing and my critical thinking has improved, though not without hard work and a lot of frustration. Luckily, it all pays off in the end.

The college admissions essay. High school juniors: it’s looming on your summer horizon. This is your summer to figure out what you’re going to say to convince colleges around America to let you through their hallowed halls next year. For those who still have a few more years of high school to go, the stressful prospect of writing college admissions essays is imminent and forthcoming whether you like it or not.

College admissions essays are a strange concept. When you have your academic record, your extracurricular involvements, and your teacher recommendations going for you, why do you still need something so subjective, so seemingly inconsequential, as a 500-word personal statement? The college admissions essay is one of the most difficult pieces of writing you will ever face, not only because the assignment itself is so open ended, but because so much depends on it.

There are some general themes, however, that college admissions officials like to see. The essay is a way for them to get to know you, to judge (based on so little) if you’d be a good fit for their institution. As such, it’s crucial for you to portray yourself accurately (and in a positive manner) and for you to let your personality shine through the pages. You need to use the essay as an opportunity to invite and allow a complete stranger to sort of get to know you. Here are 5 themes you can use in your essays that make the whole process of showing yourself off, a lot easier.

5. Recall a transformative event that changed your outlook on something important.

A possible topic for a college admissions essay can be when you changed your mind about something. For instance, what happened when you found out that Santa Claus wasn’t real, and how did that change your outlook on the importance of the imagination? Don’t just talk about the transformative event. Talk about how that event changed your perception of the world in as specific a way as possible. Remember when you read Marx for the first time and realized that there are exploitative forces at work in a capitalist society? Or remember the time you read Adam Smith and realized that the invisible hand of capitalism can regulate the market efficiently? College admissions officials love to hear about you changing your mind about something, because it shows that you have the flexibility of belief to adjust your outlook based upon new evidence that presents itself to you. The mark of a true philosopher!

4. Relate a memory from childhood to your current life as a young adult.

Childhood memories may sound boring and insignificant, but they are some of the most significant memories you possess, because your childhood has turned you into the person that you are today. Revealing childhood memories and dramas can reveal much about you as a person. Talk about an event that occurred while you were younger, and how that changed you into the person you are today. Did your parents get a divorce? Did you lose someone important in your life? Did you welcome the addition of a brother or sister into your family? Did you go on an international trip that opened your eyes to the world? College admissions officials want to know.

3. Talk about politics, seriously.

Some people think that college admissions essays shouldn’t be polarizing, but I disagree. I think institutions welcome different voices (they are, after all, places of higher education that should welcome a marketplace of ideas), and you will be hard-pressed to find a college anywhere in America that doesn’t have its Democrats, Republicans, Marxists, Libertarians, Liberals, Conservatives, et. al. I think talking about politics is fair game for college admissions essays (you were, after all, in high school during the most exciting election we’ve seen in our lives thus far).

2. Talk about someone you admire, like a family member, a historical figure, or a close friend.

This topic is sort of a given, because if you have a hard time talking about yourself, one way to bypass that mental blockage is to talk about someone else. And why not? If you think Alexander Hamilton is the bomb dot com, or that the Rolling Stones are the best band in the world, or that Francois Truffaut is the biggest genius ever to grace cinema, by all means share your thoughts. Say it, as long as you can say it well.

1. Be honest about your insecurities.

So college admissions officials love it when you talk about your insecurities. Talking or admitting your insecurities not only shows them that you can be honest in your essay about who you are, but it also acts as a nice foil to the bragfest that was your academic record and list of extracurriculars. It shows that you are okay with yourself. Or at least, okay enough with yourself to talk candidly. Did you ever deal with racism? Homophobia? Are you an athlete, musician, or artist who has ever felt insecure about your abilities? Do you have dreams you are worried if you can fulfill? Letting college admissions officials in on these insecurities won’t make you any less attractive of a candidate at their institution, because everyone suffers from these same insecurities. In fact, it’s a refreshing change from some of the more boasting essays they probably have to read all day!