by Aimee Weinstein

There’s never a perfect time to buy a car, catch a cold, have a kid… or write an essay. I am specifically thinking of parents of high school juniors who most often agree that there hasn’t been enough time for their kids to do anything beyond schoolwork in months. The popular parenting-older-kids website, Grown and Flown, agrees that junior year is the most stressful of all the high school years, but it’s right up there with the first few months of senior year too.

Senior year will open and kids will, as usual, jump right into their classes, managing expectations and homework as best they can, but there’s something specific that will weigh them down right away in September: college applications. Even though more and more schools are accepting the Common Application, often they have an additional question or two so the application is personalized to their school. Kids no longer have to fill out forms, but they have to write paragraphs, ask for letters of recommendation, and other assorted tasks that pop up during the months-long process of applying to college.

Here’s an easy way to avoid the start of senior year stress that bogs down most kids: start over the summer, when ostensibly things are quieter. Most teachers at least look at their email during the summer so kids can get a jump-start on making those requests. And the biggest to-do: write the essay.

Students will most likely have at least some time to think about the college essay over the summer. They can consider topics, try out ideas and write slowly. Often kids need help writing somewhat differently than they do all year in school. Kids often master the literary or non-fiction essay, but have little experience writing about themselves, much less writing meaningfully about a highly personal experience.

But students don’t have to dilly around in the dark, wondering how to start and how to do it. Inspiring Test Prep will offer two summer workshops and one right after school begins for students who want to get a jump on the process. We will teach the kids how to write personally about their experience in a way that will get the admissions people to keep reading after the first sentence, one of the main goals of the essay. Students who take the workshop will get instruction and a lot of personal attention as they begin the process. They will also get a few reviews of their essay as it progresses, and most students will be able to finish the entire essay in just a few weeks. Dr. Weinstein’s goal is to carry the kids through the process from start to finish, which means one less thing that the parents have to do with and for the kids.

If a workshop format is not for you, then Dr. Weinstein is offering a personalized format with a flat-rate price for completed essays as well. She will meet with the student, get ideas, send him/her home with a good start, and then do as many reviews as necessary until the student is comfortable with the finished product. When she works with students, Dr. Weinstein’s first job is to listen to the kids, think through their experiences, figure out what they want to write about, and then help them craft their ideas into a winning essay. It just takes a bit of time. Instead of using the title “tutor” when working with high school seniors, Dr. Weinstein likes to call herself the College Essay “Coach”.

For more information about the workshops or the one-on-one format, contact Inspiring Test Prep. Summer is right around the corner – help your kids make the most of it, so senior year opens with lower stress.

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