admitium

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I know you've heard this college essay advice: Just be yourself. Be authentic. Write something only you could write. It's true, but unhelpful. So I pulled a short passage from a speech Penn's Dean of Admissions, Whitney Soule, gave four years ago. It's a lovely teaching example: it shows you what authentic writing looks like. I suggest why it works and how you can try out writing that way too. Objection: "You can't teach kids to write authentically. That’s a contradiction: using some technique to sound authentic is inauthentic." I get it. I do. But work through the post. And I think you’ll see why that’s not a concern. ___ #collegeadmissions #collegeessay #collegeessaytips #collegeapplications #applyingtocollege

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A thought experiment that may help (slightly) to add some perspective to rejections, admit rates, and the college admission process at the most selective schools. #collegeadmissions _ #collegedecision #parentlife #parenttips #teachers

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Maybe a good story to reshare. #collegeadmissions #collegedecision #stanford #yale

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“Finding Hope When Life Doesn’t Go as Planned.” I wanted to share some clips from my greatest professor on this Easter Sunday: Michael Himes. May 12, 1947 – June 10, 2022. You can find this full talk from Agape Latte on YouTube. _ #easter #bostoncollege #theology #lifelessons #parkinsons @Agape Latte @bostoncollege @BC Alumni

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A garbageman wrote two of the best sentences I’ve read this year. Here’s Simon Paré-Poupart: "Rock 'n' roll was still driving a garbage truck at age seventy—with an IV drip in the cab. He had throat cancer, I think, and was administering his own treatment." Let's go, baby. I'm in. Are you seeing what I’m seeing? Watch the video for my take on what he's doing, why it works, what you can borrow for your own writing. I've told you to read Harper's, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist. (Because Bryan Garner told me.) Not for the topics but for the writing. Do you think I was fired up to read about trash? No way. But damn, I'm glad I did. “Every man I meet is my superior in some way, and in that, I learn of him.” RWE. Do yourself a favor: Spend 20 minutes with my man SPP. I'll keep breaking this essay down over a few posts. We’ve got a lot to learn from this garbageman. Read the article here: “The Conscience of the City" by Simon Paré-Poupart, translated by Pablo Strauss. Harper's Magazine June 2026 — adapted from his book Trash!: A Garbageman's Story. #collegeessays #collegeadmissions #writingtips #applyingtocollege #commonapp.

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EKG Skyline. “Huh? He just described something. What’s the big deal? How does this help me get into college? Mike’s just obsessed with DFW.” Hear me out: DFW is doing what a poet does. He stops and says: "Hold on a sec. We pass this skyline every day. Look at it. Really look. What do you see? Here’s what I see." That’s it. But it makes your writing fresh. It makes you stand out. And it proves you take the time to think for yourself. It’s so simple. That’s why I picked it. A skyline that looks like an EKG. Bang. Let's go! #collegeadmissions #collegeapps #writingtips #personalessay #applyingtocollege

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Ever considered studying philosophy? This video popped up on my phone today. Four years ago I made the pilgrimage to Paris to pay my respects to the thinker who got me into philosophy. The passage I quote is from a lecture Jean-Paul Sartre gave in 1946, Existentialism is a Humanism: Man is "nothing else but the sum of his actions." (Extended version below.) I was raised Catholic: that provided the only systematic worldview I had for thinking about the fundamental questions of my life. I lucked out when Dr. Moe, a clinical psychologist by training, volunteered to teach a semester course senior year: Introduction to Philosophy. Dr. Moe did his PhD thesis on Sartre. So we opened with this powerful existentialist idea that gets right at the heart of identity and free will and meaning and making your life beautiful. I won't offer an apology (in the Socratic sense) for the value of studying philosophy in this post. I'll just say: if you're someone who likes asking big questions—what's the meaning of life? what makes something right or wrong? why is there something rather than nothing?—you'll be just as surprised and delighted as I was to discover that some of the best minds who ever lived have been asking and answering those questions for more than 2,000 years. It's the best conversation I know about and I encourage you to join. _ Existentialism is a Humanism (Excerpt) The doctrine I am presenting . . . declares that there is no reality except in action. Man is nothing else but what he purposes, he exists only in so far as he realises himself, he is therefore nothing else but the sum of his actions, nothing else but what his life is . . . In the light of all this, what people reproach us with is not, after all, our pessimism, but the sternness of our optimism. #philosophy #teachertok #booktok #collegeadvice

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Recs? #summerreading

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Happy Mother's Day to all the moms who helped students like these on their next chapter. My results show the final schools my students selected. Many other schools admitted them, and plenty rejected them. But it only takes one admission officer, at one school, to advocate for you. These were outstanding students who got admitted on their own merit, hard work, family and school support, and a little luck. #collegeadmissions #collegeapps #collegecoach

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#collegeadmissions