This workshop teaches students skills necessary in a college-level writing course: idea development, organization, revision and editing. Students spend the first two sessions on the common application website, registering & organizing their college applications and essays. If their college selections aren’t included in the common application choices, we collect applications and essay topics from individual university websites. After students have organized their application essays, we work on:

• Selection of unique, meaningful and specific topics
• Preserving students’ individual writing styles & voices
• The writing process (outlining, drafting, revising & editing)
• Prioritizing the writing process, teaching students to outline, draft, revise, and edit.

Throughout the workshop, students do their own writing, focusing on the common application essay first, then moving on to shorter, supplemental essays (which colleges tend to require several of—along with guided research on their academic and athletic resources).

The session culminates in a completed portfolio of students’ essays, presented to the family well in advance of their due dates.

Offered: Fall, spring and summer. Expect approximately two hours of homework weekly.