Masuk Free Press

It is 2024 and that means one thing for students at Masuk: midterms, studying for AP tests, then finals chasing at the heels of the chaos. This stress is particularly extreme for juniors who are beginning to seriously look into applying to college. Masuk’s guidance department does their best to ease this stress.

For the past 20 years, Masuk has hosted a college planning night for juniors. It walks students through everything they need to know about the process of applying to colleges. 

“We’ve changed it a little bit as we’ve gone through the years, honed it,” said Masuk school counselor Ann Odoy. “In the last decade or so we’ve had a college admissions person, and she offers a different twist.”

The most recent of these events was Wednesday, Jan. 10.

“All the school counselors will be there,” said Odoy. “We’re hoping to alleviate people’s preconceived notions of what it’s all about, we’re hoping to alleviate some stress, we’re hoping to show them with guidance, and if all the juniors meet with their counselor and go step-by-step through the process that we have set forth, they’re going to be in fine shape going into the college application season come September and October and November.”

The daunting process begins in earnest here. And who better to give students specialised advice than Ann Fleming-Brown, the Director of Admissions at Union College in Schenectady, NY?

Brown’s status as Director of Admissions gives her a valuable insight that she shared with the Masuk community last night. Brown identified many of the areas that students struggle with when applying to college.

“Students, I want them to know that the process is clear, that there are no secret tricks or things they should worry about,” said Brown. “The goal of college admissions is, in fact, not getting in, but being successful when you get to college. There’s a big distance there. We all focus on if you can get into the college of your dreams, if you can get into the best college, then my life will be perfect.”

After first focusing on the general anxiety around the idea of applying for college, Brown detailed more specific ways to make the process as straightforward as possible. Specifically, regarding application essays.

“Sometimes I suggest students write down a word that they’d like to have represent them, or two or three words, and see if that’s achieved in their essay. Something like ‘I want to be thought of as considerate of others or hyper intelligent’ or whatever it is,” said Brown. “And think, does your essay represent that?”

This idea of creating a theme to follow makes the writing process simpler. It allows students a directive to work towards— something that is deeply needed for a task that has so much pressure surrounding it.

Yet once students overcome the concept of the essay, there are further complications.

“I think the issue most people have is that very few people write about themselves,” said Brown. “There’s that rare person who keeps a diary or a journal of some kind. But most people don’t write about ourselves. And the college application is not the time to be modest.”

While being boastful of one’s achievements may come across as arrogant or self-important under any other circumstances, the reality is that each student needs to prove why they should be accepted above every other applicant.

After all, there is only a maximum of 650 words on the Common Application’s essay. “You can’t tell your whole story. But you can tell a piece of it,” said Brown.

Which is truly what it all comes down to: knowing your life story that has brought you to apply to a specific school, and even more so, where that story will go after that.