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The College Essay Guy Podcast: A Practical Guide to College Admissions


Apr 20, 2017

I chat with Parke Muth, former Associate Dean of Admissions at UVA. We cover, among other things:

  • What Parke has learned reading over 10,000 college essays
  • We’ll go behind-the-scenes to look at how close decisions are sometimes made by committees at highly-selective universities (and why essays matter even more as a result)
  • What Parke wrote his college essay about
  • Parke’s 10% rule for when students should/shouldn’t write about their activities or achievements
  • What an “authentic voice” is and why, contrary to popular wisdom, we maybe shouldn’t be encouraging students to write in it
  • Some dos and don’ts for the “Why us” essay, including one thing students should definitely do but most don’t, and
  • Why Parke believes his job is better than being a king