Do you find yourself staring at an empty document day after day, thinking, “what does ‘show, don’t tell’ even mean, anyway?!” Or are you on your seventh first paragraph of your Common App personal statement - all trying different prompts? Or do you know you have the perfect idea for your personal statement, but you just can’t seem to get around to putting it into words? If any of these sound like you - or even and especially if you are avoiding any thought of the Common App personal statement like it’s a contagious disease - this course is a perfect fit.
In the increasingly competitive field of college admissions, the personal statement is the all-important element to show admissions committees how your unique strengths, achievements, and values connect with your academics and extracurriculars in a coherent personal mission that not only impacts your community, but also impacts your own personal growth. Hermiona’s experienced admissions mentors are here to break down the entire process for you, starting with, what do the prompts really mean? From there, you will move on to topic brainstorming, low-stakes freewriting (to get used to the idea of drafting), topic-sentence breakdown and other scaffolding processes, making narrative decisions, drafting, and, most importantly, learning the critical evaluation necessary for good editing through the peer review process. Throughout, students also review past personal statements as models of what to do/avoid.
Each student will have weekly one-on-one break-out sessions with a Hermiona writing mentor selected based on optimal personal fit, and also will receive detailed written feedback from Hermiona’s Director of Education at the end of the course.