Curious Cardinals Blog

Posts about:

college applications

The Summer I Finally Ended My Relationship With Procrastination 🙅‍♀️

For me, it started with avocado toast and ended with a race around the world. I am not kidding!! It was beyond challenging trying to figure out what to write about for my college essay. How could I distinguish myself in 2500 words that would essentially destroy or solidify my dream? As I struggled with where to begin and then how to end, the Hamilton lyrics "I am not going to miss my shot" played on autopilot in my head. Whatever I was going to construct had to be engaging, unique, soulful, poetic, creative, cool, layered, and brilliant. It also had to seamlessly reveal all of my best qualities without me sounding obnoxiously boastful or ridiculously humble. No pressure. No problem.

Read More

10 Top Tips for Writing Your College Essay from Harvard, Stanford, Yale & Dartmouth Students

The college-essay writing process can be stressful and daunting. It's no easy task to sum up your personality, a major life event, an academic or extracurricular passion of yours, or an impactful story in 500 words or so! So how do you start to tackle the blank document screen before you, and get your ideas down in a way that is compelling and authentic to you?

Fear not! We asked Five Curious Cardinals mentors, now successful students at top colleges, to share their advice on where to begin, and how to make your way through the essay-writing process. Here are their top tips for approaching the dreaded college essay:

Read More