College Admissions and Essay-Writing Resources
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You can find more resources, including current-year prompts, a link to my resume template, an editing checklis, a college application information planner and more on my Downloads page.
On-Demand Essay Courses
College Essay Guy
Use code JULIA10 to get 10% off of any College Essay Guy Course. These are on-demand courses, although the College Essay Guy team will host live versions periodically throughout the year.
- How to Write a Personal Statement
- How to Write the College Application and Supplemental Essays
- Advanced Personal Statement Course for Students
- UC Personal Insight Question Course
- How to Build a Balanced College List
My Favorite Books
These are all great books that have helped me and my students learn more about writing great college essays and understand all the different parts of the college application process.
- College Essay Essentials: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Successful College Admissions Essay (Ethan Sawyer)
- College Admission Essentials: A Step-by-Step Guide to Showing Colleges Who You Are and What Matters to You (Ethan Sawyer)
- Escape Essay Hell!: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Narrative College Application Essays (Janine W. Robinson)
- How to Write an Effective College Application Essay: The Inside Scoop for Students (Kim Lifton and Susan Knoppow)
- Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania (Frank Bruni)
- The Best 388 Colleges, 2023: In-Depth Profiles & Ranking Lists to Help Find the Right College For You (Robert Franek)
- Fiske Real College Essays That Work (Edward B. Fiske)
- The Fiske Guide to Colleges
- The Ultimate Scholarship Book: Billions of Dollars in Scholarships, Grants and Prizes
- Looking For A FULL RIDE?: An Insider’s Recruiting Guide (Renee Lopez)
- How To Win College Scholarships (Monica Matthews)
Online Essay-Writing Resources
- Nailing Your Personal Statement Topic in 60 Minutes. My $9 brainstorming guide will help you develop the start to 5 personal statement topics in just 1 hour.
- An Essay Coach's Guide to Self-Editing Your Admission Essay. (PDF download) This downloadable ebook will walk you through all the common mistakes you might be making in your essays, help you revise your essay, and make you confident to press SUBMIT.
- An Essay Coach's Guide to Self-Editing Your Admission Essay. (Print version) This hard-copy book will walk you through all the common mistakes you might be making in your essays, help you revise your essay, and make you confident to press SUBMIT.
- The College Essay Guy. Ethan Sawyer has a ton of great, free resources for every part of the college process. For brainstorming, check out his “100 Brave and Interesting Questions” and his free guide on writing the personal statement. His College Application Hub is also extremely helpful as you start to fill out your applications.
- College Essay Advisors. They have some helpful YouTube tutorials, and many of their blogs cover how to address essay topics for particular colleges and universities.
- CollegeVine. This site also has really helpful Essay Guides for the top 100 schools that really help students write their supplemental essays. Their blog is also very informative.
- “How to Write a College Essay,” from U.S. News and World Report
- “College Essay Topics” by Topics Mill