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Gabrielle Glancy

About Gabrielle Glancy

http://newvisionlearning.org

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“College Admissions In a COVID Year: SAT’s are Out, Personal Stories are In”

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Personal stories have always been “in!”  

But Douglas Belkin, in his recent article in the Wall Street Journal, is correct in saying that they are more “in” than ever! 

Indeed, now is the time to grab the attention of college admissions by writing essays that shine.

This year, like never before, personal stories are not only “in,” they could very well be game-changers — partly because there are fewer criteria by which colleges can assess students, but also because we are all hungry for contact, for sense-making, for communication.

Memo to high-school seniors applying to selective colleges: A high score on your SAT is out. A Covid-19 epiphany is in.

Hundreds of colleges dropped their mandate for a standardized test score this year as a result of the pandemic, but the replacement criterion at many schools may be just as daunting for would-be college freshmen: a new understanding of themselves and their place in the world as a result of the pandemic.

While the senior class of 2020 was hit with a double whammy — they did not get to fulfill the promises of their senior year (prom, graduation) nor did they get to enter their freshman year in college in the (normal) way that generations of college freshman had before them — the freshman class of 2021 (hopefully!) will be blessed with a kind of tabula rasa and call to action like never before.

Students entering college in the fall of next year will have a greater appreciation for in-person contact with teachers and peers, will have a feeling of having survived a trauma that others were not as lucky to have survived, and will have a far-from-theoretical imperative to do something to make the world and the planet more safe, more viable, and hopefully more hospitable, for generations to come.

This is a generation faced with questions not just of coping, but of survival.

Fires, hurricanes, pandemics, irreversible damage to the planet — you would have to be deaf and blind not to see what is right in front of your eyes.

 

 

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The question of how the present circumstances impact you and what you might do to help save the species and the planet is exactly what the COVID Supplement to the Common App asks of you:

Community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces.

In the last six months, I have received a barrage of questions concerning the COVID Supplement.  Because no such prompt has ever been put forth in the history of college admissions, students, parents and college counselors are understandably flummoxed when it comes to the COVID Supplement.

Although the question is very literal in the way that it is asked — it refers to “the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces” — your answer can be much more profound.

I have been advising teachers and counselors to have their students keep a COVID journal.  This is an easy ask:  Simply record, daily or whenever the moment arises, any thoughts, insights, articles, dreams, conversations, adjustments related to and/ or springing from COVID.

Once you have recorded your observations, insights and reactions — and perhaps recounted moments in which the effects of these present circumstances have impacted you — you are ready to read what you’ve written to figure out what you’re trying to say!

Look over what you’ve written and see if you can reflect on and make sense of it.  Then you can write a kind of overarching statement that helps support the details.

I’ll give you an example.  Recently, a student I was working with recorded, in his COVID journal, recurring dreams involving dodging mask-less people in crowded places and then discovering in himself the miraculous ability to fly or rise above the crowd to safety.

Reflecting on these dreams, he was able to see how they illuminated a general ability he has to drive forward, survive, and even excel in the most difficult of circumstances.  COVID has helped him realize that he one day wants to run for office, and speak for those who cannot speak for themselves, to help those who cannot “rise above” their circumstances.

Had he not recorded his dreams — and then reflected on them — I am sure he would not have had any idea of how to write his COVID supplement.

My advice is always the same:  Write First, Think Later.  If you then pan for gold, as it were, the nuggets will find their way to you (rather than the other way around!)

Start writing, no matter what. The water does not flow until the faucet is turned on. — Louis L’Amour

I would be happy to guide you and help you with your Common App Essays as well as with the COVID (and other) supplement(s).  You don’t have to go it alone. Feel free to shoot me an email or give me a call at 415-637-1955.   I’m here to help. You can book an appointment here.

 

 

 

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Tips for the COVID Supplement: Keep a COVID Journal

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As I discussed in my last three posts, The Common App has opened up the option to students applying to college for the 2021 academic year to respond to a question concerning their experience with COVID. 

Next year, on the 2020-2021 application, The Common App will provide students who need it with a dedicated space to elaborate on the impact of the pandemic, both personally and academically. We want to provide colleges with the information they need, with the goal of having students answer COVID-19 questions only once while using the rest of the application as they would have before to share their interests and perspectives beyond COVID-19.

Below is the question applicants will see:

Community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces.

  • Do you wish to share anything on this topic? Y/N
  • Please use this space to describe how these events have impacted you.

The question will be optional and will appear in the Additional Information section of the application.The response length will be limited to 250 words.

Parents, students and college counselors alike have been asking me for tips on how to approach this the COVID Supplement.  Since everyone is in the same boat, but each of us has a unique experience — and also because the landscape of college admissions, and the landscape in general, in this time of COVID, is constantly changing — it is important for each student to track and record their own perceptions and responses.

For that reason, I have suggested to students that they keep a running COVID journal.

Your COVID journal does not need to be handwritten, nor do the entries need to be long and elaborate.

Sometimes a simple sentence or headline or feeling or dream is enough.

Since many times a day, every day, some element of our experience relates to COVID, it will not be difficult to find moments to record. 

The trick is you need to be committed to recording these moments, and you need to take the time (even if it’s just one minute a day) to do so.

Let me give you an example or two from my own experience.

In the dream, I was swerving to avoid one of my oldest friends whom I had run into at the grocery store.  Her red hair bobbed between the aisles like a darting bird and I tried to avoid her when I realized I had forgotten to bring my mask!

The CDC today announced today that they are endorsing the opening of schools in the fall.  Here is the link.

While neither of these entries will form an essay in and of itself, if you record your dreams, perceptions, snippets of news for a while, you may come to see a pattern.

Many nights I have dreamed that I forgot my mask.  At the very least, I can hear the metaphorical significance of this kind of moment:  I feel naked, unprepared and unprotected.

Simply the recurrence of this same image speaks volumes.

Then later, once you have gathered your “moments,” you can look for patterns, find metaphors, and track your own experience.

Recently, there has been a movement to solicit COVID artifacts for museums.  As Adam Popescu describes in The New York Times article:  How Will We Remember the Pandemic?  Museums Are Already Deciding:

Museums are not just seeking artists’ works but everyone’s memories — the more personal, the better — in an effort that recalls the repositories of first-person testimony, along with material evidence and historical records, gathered by cultural institutions after Sept. 11. But some scholars and historians point to today’s challenges of depicting an event authentically and from many angles when there is still no end in sight to the pandemic. And, they ask, when everything is an artifact, what is truly historically important — and just whose Covid stories are being told in these archives, and whose are not?

The article continues:

In the cases of Holocaust and September 11 museums, personal items represented the memories and traumas of everyday people. As institutions rush to bear witness to the pandemic, some historians ask, will they serve us all and account for the deep divides this virus has tapped?

“Museums are places where we convene to make sense of our shared human experience,” said Martha S. Jones, a history professor at Johns Hopkins University. “Still, the burden, pain and grief of this pandemic are not being experienced in the same way across the nation’s many communities.”

The article then provides questions for students to respond to:

  • How will we remember the coronavirus pandemic? How do you think history books will record this moment? What will you tell your grandchildren about what it was like to live during this time?

  • Choose at least five artifacts that you would submit to museums to tell the story of the pandemic. Explain the meaning of each and why they best capture this moment.

  • What is your reaction to the artifacts that have been collected by museums described in the article, like Navajo-inspired P.P.E. masks or six-year-old Franklin Wong’s remote-learning assignment? Which resonate most with your own experience of the pandemic?

  • What kinds of materials do you think are most important for museums to preserve? First-person testimonies? Diaries? Objects like face masks and toilet paper? What perspectives and viewpoints should be included?

  • Some critics are concerned about documenting and depicting present history when there is still no end in sight to the pandemic. Did you think it’s too soon to begin to tell the story of this moment?

  • Tyree Boyd-Pates, an associate curator, says, “Museums have a responsibility to meet history head on” and sees collecting moments of shared experience as “a chance to record how the West navigated this epidemic.” Do you agree? Why is it important for museums and other institutions to begin documenting the pandemic? What can future generations learn from these materials?

At this point, since so much is changing and up in the air, I think it’s best just to record these moments and see how they add up, rather than try to write a full essay now without having a full experience.

Keeping a COVID journal is a way to create an artifact of your own experience, one to which you can refer to write the COVID Supplement essay.

Of course, if you’re so moved, ready and able to write the essay itself, go to it!

Otherwise, a COVID journal is a great way to start!

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Tips for The COVID Supplement: View from Your Window

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In an unprecedented move, in unprecedented times, The Common App has added a COVID Supplement. 

This essay is a great opportunity both for students and for admissions.

The Common App made this move in response to requests from people working in admissions at colleges and universities across the country:

“We are grateful for the feedback we received from our college and university members and the counseling community about how to help students share how the current health crisis has impacted them personally and educationally. The goal is to have a central place for students and counselors to describe their experiences due to COVID-19 only once while providing colleges and universities the information they need to understand each student’s unique context.”

Jenny Rickard, President & CEO, Common App

The COVID Supplement gives students an opportunity to describe their experiences and express their feelings about a global situation which impacts everyone but to which each individual responds uniquely.

Not only is this supplement advantageous to the student.  It also gives admissions a window into the minds and hearts of the students whom they are considering in relation to a challenge that faces us all.

Why pass up an opportunity to give admissions a broader or wider view of yourself?

From The COVID Supplement, admissions will be able to see how you handle adversity, how you make sense of a situation none of us could have anticipated, how you find creative solutions and personal ways to survive and thrive in the face of this pandemic.

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Fairly early in the game, a Facebook group called View From My Window popped up and became all the rage.  The premise is that people Share and Connect by posting a “view from [their] window.”

There are now over 2 million followers to this group and the moderators are completely overwhelmed!

If you’d like to see some of these images, you can find them here.

 

What does View From My Window have to do with The COVID Supplement?

When students are asked to write about their own experiences, they often freeze.  The blank page can be daunting.  It’s one thing to write about the causes of the Second World War and another to write about your response to the pandemic.

I often suggest students start where they are.

This is similar to the idea of connecting with others in these isolated times by posting a view from your own window.

In writing, this translates to giving the reader a view into your world, as it is, or as you see it, the view that is right in front of you or inside you.  Of course, you never know once you start writing where the words will take you.

As William Saroyan describes in “Starting with a Tree and Finally Getting to the Death of a Brother”:

How do you write?  My answer is that I start with the trees and keep right on straight ahead . . .  I start with these companions of place, each fixed into the soil of where it is, and sometimes the rock or rocks, and very little else, and after that the going is not only easy, it is very near rollicking.

A writer writes, and if he begins by remembering a tree in the backyard, that is solely to permit him gradually to reach the piano in the parlor upon which rests the photograph of the kid brother killed in the war.

Recently, I was struck by a beautiful articulation of this very same idea by my good friend Erin Van Rheenen who is offering a writing class entitled:  A Sense of Place:  Writing Your Own Backyard:

“We love new places in part because they yank us out of the ordinary, allowing us to see with new eyes,” says instructor Erin Van Rheenen. “We notice the quality of light, the lilt of the local accent, or the startling architecture of how water meets land.”

In this online course, Erin invites students to turn that fresh gaze on their current surroundings, mining the depths of their daily routines, however impacted by the current crisis, and celebrating the marvelous in the familiar . . .”

Writing the view from your window is what I’m suggesting you try as you begin thinking about The COVID Supplement.

What view you choose is up to you.  It can of course be the one facing your own backyard and/or the one facing inward to the glass bottom boat of your heart and mind.

Along these same lines, I have found some of the poems in Alice Quinn’s pandemic anthology: Together in a Sudden Strangeness, America’s Poets Respond to the Pandemic to be doing exactly what I’m suggesting here.

Witness this poems by Garrett Hongo:

Watching the Full Moon in a Time of Pandemic

I watch the full moon’s light

slide like silver water through the silhouettes

of trees that cast long shadows over mounds

and rocks, a hidden stream, and the expanse of lawn.

I think back to when I played hide-and-seek games with cousins

at the shoreline,

Pūpūkea near Shark’s Cove on Oʻahu,

dodging in and out of the shadows

of ironwood trees.

We hid amidst the vapors of murk

mixed with sea spray and wild laughter, sought

one another in sands under the glassy moonlight that

splashed our bodies like surf.

We stood as though rooted, silent while

sighs from the sea carried through cool

night air.

I was four or I was five and I was not Leanne

or Neal or Kerry, but myself,

counting my own breath, one with the dark,

gazing at the silver gleam of heaven’s road

making its path from below the moon

across heaving, purple waters to where

I stood as I do tonight, sixty years from that first

shining. I told it to my daughter,

who hid in moonshade, isolate and lonely,

missing the welter of what life had been,

her father five as a child unfathomable, her

slim form disappearing, while I stood, seeking.

Together in a Sudden Strangeness (pp. 76-77). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Here the poet starts with a description of himself watching the moon from his own backyard (which reminds him of when he was a child) and comes to the sense that he can only describe himself, and be himself, no one else:

I was four or I was five and I was not Leanne

or Neal or Kerry, but myself,

counting my own breath, one with the dark . . .

So, too, are you you.

COVID SUPPLEMENT TIP OF THE DAY:  Write your own backyard.  And see where the river, or moonlight, rain or parlor take you.

I will be hosting a two-week COVID SUPPLEMENT WRITING ZOOMINAR in August.  Stay tuned for the announcement!

 

 

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CORRECT LINK TO REGISTER: THE COVID SUPPLEMENT ZOOMINAR, Wednesday, July 1, 4pm PST/7pm EST

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Here is the formal announcement for this Wednesday’s Essay Writing Workshop:  THE COVID SUPPLEMENT.  Space is limited so please register as soon as you can.

See you there!

Former Admissions Director, College Admissions Expert and College Essay Writing Guru, back by popular demand, will be hosting a ZOOMINAR this Wednesday, July 1 at 4-5PM PST/7-8PM EST on How to Approach the New COVID Supplement.  This is a rare opportunity as no one has yet spoken on this subject and Glancy is a real expert.

 This year, in an unprecedented move, the Common App has added an essay, The COVID Supplement, giving students the opportunity to write about their response to and experience with COVID-19. But how would you go about writing this essay? There are no models to refer to.

Using the writing method that has helped thousands of students get into the colleges of their dreams, I will be discussing tips, tricks and inspiring approaches to writing what will most likely prove to be the most important essay of the coming year.

 I am limiting this writing workshop to 10 students, so everyone will get a chance to ask questions and share their brainstorms if they so desire. The previous workshop was over-enrolled so please register right away to reserve a place in Inspiring Approaches to The COVID Supplement:  College Essay Writing Workshop.

 Here is a video I recently did on The COVID Supplement, as well as a link to an article just published on College and COVID.

 First come, First serve.  I’ll make a waiting list if this workshop is oversubscribed, which is what happened last time ‘round.

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The COVID Supplement: Tips and Tricks from an Expert

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In an unprecedented move, the Common App has added a COVID supplement, providing a space for students to write about how they have been impacted by this life-altering event.

Responding to feedback given to them by many colleges and universities, the Common App decided to add a question asking students to reflect on their experiences in the time of COVID:

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives and postsecondary plans for many students. We want to reduce anxiety for applicants affected by these events and provide them with a way to share their experience with colleges and universities.

Next year, on the 2020-2021 application, Common App will provide students who need it with a dedicated space to elaborate on the impact of the pandemic, both personally and academically. We want to provide colleges with the information they need, with the goal of having students answer COVID-19 questions only once while using the rest of the application as they would have before to share their interests and perspectives beyond COVID-19.

Below is the question applicants will see:

Community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces.

  • Do you wish to share anything on this topic? Y/N
  • Please use this space to describe how these events have impacted you.

The question will be optional and will appear in the Additional Information section of the application.The response length will be limited to 250 words.

The question will be accompanied by a more detailed FAQ to help students consider the kinds of impacts they may wish to report, including illness and loss, housing and employment disruptions, and shifting family obligations.

The new language will not replace the current Additional Information question inviting students to discuss circumstances and qualifications not reflected elsewhere in the application. That question, along with its 650 word limit, will remain.

Although the COVID supplementary question is optional, I suggest students do ALL optional questions. 

In this particular case, anything less would reflect a kind of backing away from personal responsibility.  Instead, it is an opportunity to show your awareness of and locate yourself in this very grave moment in history.

But how should you approach such a question?  After all, you can’t rely on models from the past.

It’s a brave new world we are living in — and one which asks more of us than ever before.

Parents and students alike have been asking me how I would approach the COVID supplement.

I’d like to offer some concrete advice and some tips that will help you think about what to write and how best to use this opportunity.

Let me say first that you’ll need to decide how much you have to say on the subject.

Of course, as I mentioned, whether or not you have a lot to say, you still need to answer the question (IMHO 😉

I have a student who wrote his 650-word Common App essay on COVID.  His family is Italian and was particularly impacted by the first wave that hit Italy.  He wrote a beautiful, full-length essay on the subject which showed his unique relationship to COVID under the circumstances that ended with his desire to make a contribution through science, which is his intended course of study.

Should he write another essay on the subject of COVID and his response to it for the COVID supplement if he has already written on the subject for his required Common App Essay?

My answer is . . . absolutely!

But from another point of view.  His first essay was about his family and the impact of COVID in Italy, specifically — the impact of his grandfather, the death of one of his grandfather’s friends.

He did not speak at all about his experience with remote learning, his relationship to his other grandfather, who is a doctor, or even how it is for him to shelter in place.

So in addition to his 650 word Common App essay on COVID, he, too, is working on the COVID Supplement.

With regard to the pandemic, we are riding out the same storm, but we are all in different boats, meaning each of us has a unique experience based on where we live, how old we are, how healthy we are, what resources we have available to us.

So it is important to reflect directly on one’s own experience.  That is the place to start and really is what the question is asking:

Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces.

Because of the rapidly-changing nature of this situation, I have suggested to students that they might want to wait a few months before actually writing this supplement, unless they have a burning desire to do it now, and feel equipped to go through the process of writing it from beginning to end.  But what if the situation takes a radical turn in a few weeks?  Perfectly possible.

So rather than set out to write the COVID supplement now, what I have suggested is that students do the following as a way to prepare for an essay they will write after there is more water under the bridge, so to speak:

  • Make a personal timeline for yourself.  When did you find out about the virus?  When was your last day of classes?  What other salient events unfolded because or in light of COVID-19?
  • Keep a running journal of what you feel in response to the situation, notes on articles you have read or news stories you have listened to, or even conversations you have had about the pandemic.
  • Read what others have written about the subject.  There are personal stories out there, very much along the lines of the COVID supplement. Look in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic . . .  publications which will highlight personal responses to the pandemic.

Don’t let these ideas sit in your head without writing them down.

It might even be useful to keep a COVID journal.

In my work with students on this supplement, I have found myself emphasizing again and again that they need to look within for their own personal responses to this situation. For the last three months, no one went to school, so there’s nothing particularly unique in the experience of remote learning — unless there is! What I mean here is that you have to dig deep to find your own responses to a situation that affects everyone on the planet.

Recently, I purchased an anthology that just came out called Together in a Sudden Strangeness:  America’s Poets Respond to the Pandemic.  

(I use the cover photo for this blog.)

This book is a perfect example of what I’m speaking about.  Here are the responses, in the form of poems, of many, many people looking inward and expressing in words how COVID has impacted them.

I’ve compiled a list of approaches and points of inspiration that I’ve gotten from this book for students to use in thinking about how to write a uniquely personal and powerful Common App COVID Supplement.

I would be happy to guide you in the process of writing this essay.  Personally, I think a deeply felt and beautifully written COVID supplement could make a real difference in your application, and potentially tip the scales in your favor.

Colleges are always interested in how prospective students respond to adversity, and there is no doubt that this pandemic is testing the strength, creativity, patience and adaptability of us all.  Stay well, stay safe!

Call on me if you need me.  I’m here for you.

 

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Gabrielle Glancy LIVE: Synthesis and Unpacking in Writing College Essays

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I love these live videos Gabrielle Glancy is doing every week on the subject of writing college essays.  Glancy is knowledgable, dynamic and insightful and there is no one with more energy and expertise in the field.  Every week I send the link to my students as a way to expose them to amazing college essays and to show them how to go about writing one . . .

 

In this short, but informative video, I read two very different essays and speak about the processes by which they were written.

One weaves together moments that seemed disparate but were actually connected.  This essay helped the student get into MIT.

The other essay unpacks a very loaded experience of being white and protesting gun violence and the treatment of black people in our society.

By way of comparison, you can use these essays as models for your own writing.

It’s not too late to sign up for my online ZOOM Webinar on Jumpstarting your common app and COVID supplement.  Click here to register.

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Jumpstart Common App Essay NOW? Join Gabrielle Glancy’s ZOOM Writing Workshop June 17th, 4:30PST

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Register NOW for Gabrielle Glancy’s College Essay Writing Workshop, June 17, 4:30PST/7:30EST.  Filling up Fast

Gabrielle Glancy takes the anxiety out of the process and replaces it with an organic, common sense way to get to the heart of what you’re trying to say . . .

Gabby helped me push my limitations . . .  She taught me that good writing isn’t just the refinement of grammar and word choice.  It is what blossoms from the core of what you’re trying to say, and sometimes that core is unrefined . . .  But it is powerful.

I couldn’t have done it without Gabby’s help.  She taught me to trust myself and express myself freely.  Before I met her, I had a lot of trouble writing.  She helped me loosen up and write great essays. Her way of doing it makes it easy.  She helped me get into my top choice school!

Jump Start Your Common App Essay & COVID Supplement with College Essay Guru Gabrielle Glancy

The time is now to start your Common App Essay and COVID Supplement.

Join College Essay Writing Guru Gabrielle Glancy in a ZOOM Webinar on Wednesday, June 17, 4:30PM PST/7:30PM EST. Click here to register.  Limited to 20.  Will fill up fast.

Ten years as an admissions director showed me just how important it is to write an essay that wakes up college admissions and makes it impossible for them to pass you by.  In fact, USAToday interviewed me on this very subject in an article entitled “Waking Up College Admissions.”

Now that SAT’s are optional for many schools, more weight than ever will be given to your college admissions essays. And there’s not just one!  Many schools have supplementary essays in addition to the Common App essay, and this year, the Common App itself has added a COVID SUPPLEMENT. 

To tip the scales in your favor, you must write an essay that gets the attention of admissions and shows them what you are made of!

But how do you do that?

Writing is hard.  And writing the most important essay you’ll ever write in your life is even harder.  After all, your future hinges in large part on your college essays.

Over the years I have developed a method that takes the anxiety out of the process of writing and replaces it with a common sense, organic way to write essays that will get you into the college(s) of your dreams.

This method is outlined in my books The Art of the College Essay and UNSTUCK: How to Break Through Writer’s Block, Find Your Voice and Get Into the College of Your Dreams

I recently hosted two ZOOMS on The Impact of COVID on College Admissions.  Both, which were for parents and students, were over-enrolled.

This writing workshop WEBINAR is for students only — rising 11th graders and seniors — and will be focused on the following:

  • What do you write about? How do you find a topic?

  • How do you begin writing?

  • What can you do to avoid the anxiety of facing a blank page?

  • How do you write an essay that’s super compelling?

Recently, I’ve been reading model essays on Facebook LIVE and commenting on the process by which they were written.  You can really get a sense of me and of the essays from these videos.  Here is a link to the most recent videos I recorded.

May 30, Product, Process and Pole Vaulting

June 4, Inexplicable Beauty and Magic Everywhere 
 

Gabrielle Glancy’s students will never, never forget her.  Her gift is not simply the dedication of the inspired teacher; it is the uncompromising truth of genius, the laser-like insight of honesty, and the courage of the divine.  — Stanley Bosworth,  Founder of The Saint Ann’s School for Gifted and Talented, Brooklyn Heights.

By the time this one hour workshop is over, students will have answers to the questions above and will have the beginning of a draft of the Common App Essay and instructions for the COVID Supplement.  You don’t have to do it alone!  I’m here to help. 

Look forward to seeing you soon and getting you started on the most important essay of your life!

Please feel free to call or email me if you have any questions.  gabglance4@gmail.com.  415-637-1955
Gabrielle Glancy 

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COVID and COLLEGE TIPS: How to Help Recommenders Know Who You Are

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College applications require one, dedicated recommendation from a college counselor at the school which the student attends.

In this brave new world in which we live, however, it is highly likely that high school college counselors may never have met their advisees in “real life,” in the flesh, when they are called upon to recommend them.    

The meeting that would normally take place in Spring of 11th grade, will have to be postponed till the fall of 12th grade, IF it can even take place then.

But no one knows whether schools will open or not, and thus whether that meeting will happen online, just as all the others have since March of 2020, or whether students and their counselors will actually meet in person.

Many college counselors, even under normal circumstances, require their advisees to fill out a questionnaire or “rave sheet” that will help the counselor write a recommendation when he or she sits down to do so.

This year that “rave sheet” is more important than ever!

In fact, in lieu of actually meeting, the rave sheet will act as a bridge between the virtual and real and help the counselor either recall or get to know for the first time the student for whom they are writing a recommendation.

Although not all counselors will request one, I personally think it’s a great idea to provide them with one anyway.

And these rave sheets need to be super well-written.  It is likely the counselor will pull phrases from the rave sheet, or even use pieces of what you have written about yourself verbatim.

Helping edit rave sheets is one of the tasks I am asked to help with.  In fact, I’m working with students on these right now.

Recently, parents have asked me to send them sample rave sheets so they can start their kids working on them.

Here is a sample I have quilted together from various rave sheets that have passed across my desk.

This year in particular, I would add a question about how distance/remote learning has impacted you, as well as how you’ve been affected by COVID-19.

If you’re interested in receiving a sample rave sheet, here is one I have created as a guideline or template for students wanting to give their college counselors a good sense of who they are.

I would be happy to review your rave sheet once you complete it and even to help you edit it before you submit it to your recommenders.

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Test Optional? The Wave of the Future?

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Reversing more than fifty years of reliance on standardized tests, this week the University of California decided to make the SAT and ACT optional until 2022.

This is a radical move in the sense that these standardized tests have been the bedrock of college admissions for a long, long time.

But the fairness of the tests has always been in question.

“The main reason we are looking at SATs is because they are racist,” said Kum-Kum Bhavnani, chair of the Academic Senate. “No one disputes that.” 

And it has long been known that they are not necessarily predictors of success, in college and beyond.

What this means for college admissions is profound.

Last year I was invited to speak on a panel at the Oak Grove School in Ojai, California about The Test and the Art of Thinking, a film debunking the validity of the SAT’s after it was reviewed in The New York Times.

It was clear even then that the UC’s were considering tossing them out or at least going test optional.

Now, in the wake of COVID-19, they have done just that.

Many believe the University of California will be the first of many schools to make this move. 

Having been in admissions myself, I can tell you that this will definitely change the face of college admissions.

The focus will (hopefully) now be more wholistic.  The college essays will carry more weight than ever before.

As described in CalMatters.org, here are the new rules:

The revised admissions rules, spearheaded by Napolitano in a plan she unveiled last week, spell out different realities depending on whether a student is a California resident or not between now and 2024: 

  • For all students, the SAT and ACT will be “test-optional” in the admissions process until 2022. Students who don’t submit a test score won’t be penalized. 

  • For the 2023 and 2024 school years, the UC will not consider test scores from California students for admissions purposes.  

  • California students can still submit test scores to become eligible through the “statewide guarantee admissions,” which combines high school grades and test scores to give students a spot in any campus that has space if the student is in the top nine percent of applicants. 

  • Students can submit their test scores for certain scholarships and placement in courses.

  • Out-of-state students will be governed by the “test-optional” rules until 2024.

  • The essay and writing portions of the SAT and ACT requirements are  dropped beginning next year.

  • Non-resident students may still have to take the SAT or ACT in 2025 and beyond. They may also be able to take UC-designed test if it’s ready in time. The rules for non-resident students, who make up nearly 20 percent of undergraduates, are an open question.

Let us hope this very trying moment in history will have some silver linings.  In my opinion, letting the SAT’s go, is one of them! 

Coronavirus and College Admission

COVID and College Admissions ZOOM: Focus on 11th Graders

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I highly recommend Gabrielle Glancy. My daughter has been working with her since mid August, primarily on her college essays, but also on making a college list, and supplementals. While she had a good essay from the start, what she now has after working with Gabby is phenomenal! Gabby gave her guided freedom to brainstorm and free write and provided structure at the end to put it all together into a polished piece. My daughter definitely feels supported by her and Gabby always keeps me in the loop and is always responsive to my questions (and my anxiety)! 

–LK, Brooklyn Prospect Charter, Attending Penn State

Zoom Meeting

Wednesday, May 20, 4:30 PST/7:30EST

Register Here

The Impact of COVID-19 on College Admissions for 11th Graders:  FOCUS on Writing Winning College Essays

Former Admissions Director, College Admissions Expert and College Essay Writing Guru, Gabrielle Glancy, is hosting a ZOOM Meeting to discuss the impact of COVID-19 on college admissions for 11th graders and their parents with a focus both on how to turn the virtual experience to your advantage and how to begin writing your college admissions essays.

It’s a new and complex world we’re living in.  And it doesn’t look like it’s going to change or go back to “normal” anytime soon.  All over the world, schools are closed and students are glued to their computers (for better or worse!) They are even taking their AP exams “virtually.” Last week, the CSU system announced closure for the fall. It is uncertain whether other colleges will also close and/or to what extent they will remain “open.” 

 
Just this week Business Insider asked me to write an article on Real Tips for Virtual Internships. There is a great need for good advice regarding the college admissions process in light of the COVID pandemic.
 
I recently hosted two ZOOM’s to speak to 11th and 12th grade students and their parents about the impact of COVID-19 on college admissions.  I expected these to be well attended because I know parents are really at sea in their efforts to help their kids navigate the whole college process at this critical time.
 
In fact, both ZOOM’s were overenrolled with 25+ families desperate to ask their questions and get some sound advice about what they should do moving forward.
 
Over the years, I have worked with students from schools all over NYC including Murrow, LaGuardia, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech, Bard, Prospect Charter, Stuyvesant, Saint Ann’s, Midway, NEST and from students in the San Francisco Bay and LA Area including Hollywood High School, Santa Monica High School, the Marlborough School, Loyola, Palos Verdes, Cal Math and Science, Pasadena High School, Granada Hills, Oakland Tech, Berkeley High School, Albany High School, the list goes on.
 
This time I’d like to focus on the questions and concerns of current 11th graders and their parents as they start thinking seriously about applying to college for the Fall of 2021. 
 
I’d also like to give tips for starting work on what (in light of the current situation) is going to be the most important piece of the college admissions puzzle — the college essays. 
My sense is that because many schools have gone or will go test optional and because of the disruption to the 2020 school year, more weight will be given to the already important COLLEGE ADMISSIONS ESSAYS.
At helping students write standout college essays with the least anxiety and the most success possible, I am an expert.  You may already be familiar with my books: The Art of the College Essay and Unstuck:  How to Break Through Writer’s Block, Find Your Voice and Get Into the College of Your Dreams.
 
In this ZOOM meeting, I would like to focus on:
  • What to expect from the college process in the coming year
  • How to optimize distance learning
  • How to create opportunities for internships/summer work
  • How to find ways to contribute during this difficult time
  • How to begin work on the Common App and Supplemental Essays
ZOOM Meeting Date:  Wednesday, May 20, 2020 
ZOOM Meeting Time:  4:30 PST/7:30 EST
The cost of this workshop is $45.00
Click here to register.
Feel free to contact me at gabrielle@newvisionlearning.org if you have any questions or need more information.
 
This has been quite a journey, and we have been so appreciative to have Gabrielle Glancy as Ben’s (and my) guide.  It is an extraordinary point in life for a young adult to think about what they want, who they are, what they value, what they have to offer.  And on top of this, to learn how to express it in writing.  I feel like Benjamin knows himself so much better because of the journey he took with Gabrielle Glancy and as someone who never felt writing was their thing, he could enjoy the thrill and satisfaction of writing something beautiful — about himself no less.  — MJL, Berkeley High School Parent

I highly recommend Gabrielle Glancy. My daughter has been working with her since mid August, primarily on her college essays, but also on making a college list, and supplementals. While she had a good essay from the start, what she now has after working with Gabby is phenomenal! Gabby gave her guided freedom to brainstorm and free write and provided structure at the end to put it all together into a polished piece. My daughter definitely feels supported by her and Gabby always keeps me in the loop and is always responsive to my questions (and my anxiety)! 

–Lana K, Brooklyn Prospect Charter

Gabrielle Glancy’s students will never, never forget her.  Her gift is not simply the dedication of the inspired teacher; it is the uncompromising truth of genius, the laser-like insight of honesty, and the courage of the divine. — Stanley Bosworth, Founder of The Saint Ann’s School, Brooklyn Heights
 

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