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View our selected titles that essay-writing applicants will find most useful.
Chicago Manual of Style
In the 1890s, a proofreader at the University of Chicago Press prepared a single sheet of typographic fundamentals intended as a guide for the University community. That sheet grew into a pamphlet, and the pamphlet grew into a book--the first edition of the Manual of Style, published in 1906. Now in its fifteenth edition, The Chicago Manual of Style--the essential reference for authors, editors, proofreaders, indexers, copywriters, designers, and publishers in any field--is more comprehensive and easier to use than ever before.
Elements of Style
Composition teachers throughout the English-speaking world have been pushing this book on their students since it was first published in 1957. Co-author White later revised it, and it remains the most compact and lucid handbook we have for matters of basic principles of composition, grammar, word usage and misusage, and writing style.
Essays That Will Get You Into College
Includes over fifty actual essays submitted to colleges by successful applicants. The authors also include tips on how to organize your information and how to plan your attack. The sample essays are numerically graded so that you can see what a perfect essay looks like as well as what a more mediocre essay looks like.
Graduate Admission Essays: What Works, What Doesn't, and Why
Get the scoop on how to write a winning graduate admissions essay. Of all the graduate admissions essay books that are out there, this is the one to get.
How They Got into Harvard
In How They Got into Harvard, fifty successful applicants to Harvard University share their tips and tactics for succeeding in the college admissions process. Through each concise account of a single resume and admissions story, you'll learn lessons and strategies that you can use on your own applications. (This excerpt was taken from the back cover of the book.)
How to Go to College Almost for Free
While still in high school, Ben Kaplan won more than two dozen merit-based scholarships amounting to more than $90,000 in funds for use at any school. After graduating from Harvard magna cum laude in 2001, he self-published How to Go to College Almost for Free: The Secret of Winning Scholarship Money, selling more than 65,000 copies out of a custom tour bus dedicated to raising awareness about scholarships. Now reissued, his book offers advice on how to find and win money for college, delivered in an energetic and inspiring voice with broad appeal.
How to Write a Winning College Application Essay
With this book you get the author's opinion on what works, what doesn't, and what admissions officers are looking for. The book also includes special tips for SAT and scholarship essays as well as a last-minute checklist to review before submitting your essay.
On Writing Well
Whether you write an occasional professional letter or a daily newspaper column, William Zinsser's On Writing Well should be required reading. Simplicity is Zinsser's mantra: he preaches a stripped-down writing style, strong and clear. He has no patience for excess (most use of adjectives and adverbs, he writes, just adds clutter) or tired phraseology (for instance, he'd like to outlaw all leads involving those "future archaeologists" most often found "stumbl[ing] upon the remains of our civilization"). He recommends that all writers of nonfiction read their work aloud (don't commit something to paper that you wouldn't actually say) and write under the assumption that "the reader knows nothing" (not to be confused with assuming the reader's an idiot). In addition to the chapters on the expected--usage, audience, interviews, leads--Zinsser also focuses on such trouble spots as science and technical writing, business writing, sports, and humor.
Paying for College Without Going Broke
Paying for College Without Going Broke takes the stress, confusion and guess-work out of applying for financial aid. Students and their parents learn how to calculate their aid eligibility before applying to college and plan ahead to improve their chances of receiving aid. Parents and students will learn to negotiate with financial aid offices, handle special circumstances (for single parents or independent students) and receive educational tax breaks.
Paying for College Without Going Broke is the only book to include both the FAFSA and the CSS PROFILE to make things even easier for students and parents. (review from Amazon.com)
The Chosen
The hidden history of admission and exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. I am not sure who outside of the college admissions crowd is going to find this interesting. It is a thorough examination of the history of admissions at the Big Three. The book looks at how Harvard, Yale, and Princeton have "shaped the American elite and bequeathed to us the peculiar system of college admissions that we have today." The book is enjoyable enough but at 711 pages it is not for the faint of heart. Reading it left me with a strange longing for Fitzgerald.
"...I think of Princeton as being lazy and good-looking and aristocratic - you know, like a spring day. Harvard seems sort of indoors --"
"And Yale is November, crisp and energetic," finished Monsignor.
Fitzgerald, This Side of Paradise.
The Everything College Survival Book: From Social Life to Study Skills - all you need to fit right in.
The title says it all. This is a guide book written for the soon-to-be student that helps the reader learn to
pack for the big move away from home, manage their money, make new friends, balance academic and social life, etc. It contains enough useful information (if you're patient) and is written in a style that few students will find intimidating.
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