Write Your Way In: Crafting an Unforgettable College Admissions Essay

Gr 9 Up—Most high school libraries can use more books on how to tackle the college admissions essay—this book should be a first purchase to fill that need. Toor's style is friendly, funny, and genuinely compelling, exhorting students to go deeper with their writing even (and especially) when the stakes are high. Toor doesn't just tell readers to do better, she lays out useful tricks for how to get it done, interspersing her practical advice with well-selected supporting quotes from various writers including George Orwell and Amy Poehler, and examples from the many students she's coached at essay writing over the years. The format is perfectly suited to the content, short enough that even the most avoidant student might consider checking this out. Chapters are composed of manageable chunks and build nicely on each other; by the end readers will feel more confident and know more about the personal essay form. Hand this to English teachers and newspaper advisors who will be grateful for a tool for general classroom writing instruction. The author talks to readers like the adults they will soon be, with chapter titles like "Shitty First Drafts" and "Sex Drugs and Palestinian Statehood." Toor, currently a creative writing professor in Washington and a former admissions officer at Duke, previously wrote about the admissions process from the other side in Admissions Confidential: An Insider's Account of the Elite College Selection Process. Here, she adds value by telling students what admissions teams are excited by and what they simply can't stand to read one more time. Extra attention is paid to that most daunting of steps in the admissions essay writing process: choosing a topic.