LMO (Like Many Others)

Happy Constitution Day, America. 

Did you know that it took our courageous Founding Fathers 

one hundred days to write the Constitution?

That statistic got me thinking about college applications. Did you know that students can expect to spend up to a hundred hours on applications their senior year, especially if they're applying to more than just one or two colleges? And this is the time of year when acceptance and rejection letters start coming out to those students who got their applications in early. Once they're admitted, students can then work on scholarship applications.

For seniors who might be procrastinating, juniors or sophomores who are looking ahead, freshmen who seem to have all the time in the world but really don't, or junior high students who have absolutely no idea what's around the corner, 

serious help is here!

Who better to author a book on this topic than the experts,

two former college admissions counselors?

It was in sixth grade when our daughter studied architecture in a careers unit, then shadowed an architect for a week the following summer. She decided just after her 12th birthday that that's what she was going to study. In seventh grade, John took her to the University of Texas in Austin, because their School of Architecture is nationally-ranked. School officials told Kaitlyn that they would receive 800-1000 applications from wanna-be architect students each year and that about ten percent of those applicants would be admitted. We worked with her for the next six years as she built her resume and prepared to write that standout application. I kept telling her that those eighty students that were going to get in were all like her, 

so what would set her apart?

In How To Prepare A Standout College Application, authors Alison Cooper Chisolm and Anna Ivey say that the power is the application itself. Their book sets out to answer the question: How does your child keep his/her application from simply being LMO (like many others)? 

Intended primarily for students, this comprehensive resource is chunk full of examples, ideas, and even parenting tips to get future college applicants thinking about, preparing, and ultimately writing a standout application. This valuable guide, divided into three sections - getting started, completing the application, and crossing the finish line - walks students through short-answer questions, essay questions, resume writing, application updates, and what to do if/when they don't get into the school of their dreams.

Oh, how I wish that our two older kids would have had this

incredible manual. The good news is that it'll help us with Joshua's application process in just a few years. 

Before we know it, really. 

The other good news is that I have a copy of this 

AmAzInG resource to give away.

If you'd like a chance to win this book, just leave a comment below between now on Thursday, September 19th at noon central telling us what college you attended {or would have liked to attend}. Then check back on Friday and see if you won.

This giveaway is now closed.