Posts by Andrew Belasco:

Cornell Supplemental Essays 2023-24 – Prompts and Advice

Posted on: 06 Sep 2023

The 7.3% acceptance rate for Cornell’s Class of 2027 was just a touch higher than last year’s 6.9%; as late as 2003, the school still had as high as a 31% acceptance rate. Clearly, getting into Cornell in 2023-24 is a vastly different enterprise than earlier in the millennium. Even if you earned a 1450+ […]

Northwestern Supplemental Essays 2023-24 – Prompts and Advice

Posted on: 06 Sep 2023

With an acceptance rate of just 7% for the Class of 2027, Northwestern University is very much an “Ivy-equivalent” school. This is true both in terms of quality academics and selectivity. Last fall, incoming Wildcats almost universally placed within the top 10% of their respective high school class. They also boasted average SAT scores in […]

University of Miami Supplemental Essays 2023-24 Prompts and Advice

Posted on: 28 Aug 2023

In the 1980s and ‘90s, the University of Miami was a football powerhouse; albeit one with its fair share of controversy. In the 2020s, the school has more to brag about on the academic front than on the gridiron. Now attracting close to 50,000 applications and sporting an acceptance rate of just 19% (and dropping), U […]

College Application Essay Topics to Avoid – 2023-24 Edition

Posted on: 19 Aug 2023

We would never unequivocally tell an applicant that any proposed college essay topic is off-limits. Great writers can take the most mundane, banal, and generic topic and transform it into a captivating composition. However, in our experience reading thousands of college essays, we are able to say with confidence that students are wise to steer […]

University of Virginia (UVA) Supplemental Essays 2023-24 Prompts & Advice

Posted on: 16 Aug 2023

The University of Virginia is one of the handful of flagship public institutions in the United States that attract massive numbers of high-achieving applicants from around the country/globe each and every year. In the most recent admissions cycle, over 56,000 students applied (up 10% from the previous year) and only 16% were accepted. While becoming […]

Duke Supplemental Essays 2023-24 – Prompts and Advice

Posted on: 14 Aug 2023

With a 5.9% acceptance rate, getting into Duke in 2023-24 is now as daunting a challenge as gaining acceptance into just about any Ivy League school. While Duke University may immediately conjure up images of the “Cameron Crazies” decked out in devil masks and blue face paint, make no mistake—those rowdy-looking students are really as […]

Stanford Supplemental Essays 2023-24 – Prompts and Advice

Posted on: 14 Aug 2023

With an acceptance rate of 3.68% in 2023, Stanford University is in a league of selectivity with only a handful of other schools including Harvard, MIT, and Princeton. At Stanford, the median SAT is a 1500 and 96% hail from the top 10% of their high school class. As a result, you need more than just […]

UPenn Supplemental Essays 2023-24 – Prompts and Advice

Posted on: 11 Aug 2023

The University of Pennsylvania accepted 40% of applicants back in 1980—as of 2023, that figure had plummeted to 7.4%. Those wanting to join the Quaker campus a generation ago could gain acceptance simply by producing strong grades and test scores. Today, applicants find themselves in a hyper-competitive admissions process. In 2023-24, they need to find […]