WEDNESDAY

1. WEDNESDAY Long Beach Cal SOAP College Prep Summer Camp

2. Letters of Recommendation • Who should I ask? • What should be in the letter? • Who should I ask?

3. Who Should I Ask? • Most colleges will specify • Teacher • Community Member • School Counselor

4. What should be in the letter • See MIT Handout

5. Who Should I Ask?How do I ask them? • If you have a choice choose the person who will be able to provide the BEST LETTER • This may not be your favorite teacher! • Items to give to person when asking • Due Date • Submission Instructions (online or by mail) • Resume or Brag Sheet

6. Resume or Brag Sheet • Include Academic Profile • Include all of the things listed on your “Activities” section of college application • Extra-Curriculars • Volunteer work • Leadership positions • Employment • Honors or Awards

7. Essays • Personal Statements • Short Answer • Essays

8. Sample Prompts UC Application Common Application Choose ONE Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn? Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again? Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you? Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family. • Must Answer BOTH • Describe the world you come from — for example, your family, community or school — and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations. • Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

9. Purpose of Essays • Opportunity to provide information that supports and augments other parts of the application • Places the academic record in the context of the student’s opportunities and obstacles • Adds clarity, depth and meaning to information collected in other parts of the application • Provide evidence of achievement that can’t be adequately explored in other parts of the application.

10. Others / supplements • You’ve just written a 300-page autobiography. Send us page 217. (University of Pennsylvania) • Write you own essay question and answer it. (Kalamazoo College) • Attach a small photograph of something important to you and explain its significance. (Stanford) • If you could go back and change one day in your life, what would you change and why? (Santa Clara University) • If you were to develop a Mt. Rushmore representing the 20th century, whose faces would you select and why? (William and Mary)  • What is your favorite quotation and why? (Princeton) • Write a haiku, limerick, or short poem that best represents you. (NYU)

11. University of Chicago • How do you feel about Wednesday? • Have you ever walked through the aisles of a warehouse store like Costco or Sam’s Club and wondered who would buy a jar of mustard a foot and a half tall? We’ve bought it, but it didn’t stop us from wondering about other things, like absurd eating contests, impulse buys, excess, unimagined uses for mustard, storage, preservatives, notions of bigness…and dozens of other ideas both silly and serious. Write an essay somehow inspired by super-huge mustard. • So where is Waldo, really? • UChicago professor W. J. T. Mitchell entitled his 2005 book What Do Pictures Want? Describe a picture, and explore what it wants. • How are apples and oranges supposed to be compared? Possible answers involve, but are not limited to, statistics, chemistry, physics, linguistics, and philosophy.