ACT Announcement!

Personal statements offer the best opportunity to humanize yourself to the admissions officers, so it’s vital to take advantage of them. Readers already know your statistics and have seen your list of extracurricular activities, so the essay is not a chance to brag about something you’ve done or accomplished; it is a chance to give colleges a glimpse of who you really are—not as a student, but as a person.

When you think of your ideal college experience, do you imagine yourself following a straight academic track, or do you want the flexibility to design your own course load and explore different subjects? Do you picture yourself attending large lectures or small seminars, where the professor knows you by name? Do you want to live on a sprawling campus that can be mistaken for a small city, or a smaller one with a student body size of an average public high school? If you found yourself gravitating to the latter options, you should consider applying to a liberal arts college. 

If you’re a student trying to make your transcripts look better for college but who is wary of APs, an AP History course could be a good fit — and actually may be a better experience than standard history! Why? Here are several reasons: