Education: Crunch Time For Grads

Late October can be the spookiest of seasons for you high-school seniors--and not just because your kid brother's dressing up as SpongeBob again. College applications are coming due, and the pressure can be terrifying. What if your extracurriculars sound dorky? What if your earnest community service reads as Machiavellian? Some educators joke about it. "No Yale for you," said one teacher after spying a misplaced comma on a student's essay. Since the deadline for some early-admissions programs is Nov. 1, it's too late to sign up for Latin. But here's some last-minute advice from admissions experts:

• Burn the resume. It's fine for your first job at IBM, but don't include a resume with your application form unless one is requested. "The worst is in reporting extracurricular activities," says Occidental College admissions counselor Whitney Jenkins. It's OK to attach a page providing more information. But you must fill out the boxes on the form. "If we have to spend 10 minutes translating your resume into the categories on our form, that is 10 minutes' less quality time to consider the merits of your application," says Jenkins.

• Don't be cute. Decorative fonts will only make your application look silly. One college admissions officer recalled an application essay that had been written in a spiral, forcing her to rotate the page to read the words that swirled in steadily tightening circles--much like the applicant's chances going down the drain.

• Penmanship counts. The opening parts of paper applications--name, address, etc.-- often can be done only with a typewriter or very legible handwriting. Some high schoolers have never seen a typewriter, and good handwriting became unfashionable years ago. So make your mother happy and let her fill out this part, or follow the example of seniors at one Washington, D.C., school who each paid a sure-handed classmate $5 to do the honors.

• Otherwise, don't let your parents touch anything. It's OK for your folks to read your essays and make comments, but they must keep their hands off. If not, you may suffer the fate of the applicant whose paperwork looked odd to Princeton Dean of Admissions Fred Hargadon. On examination, he noticed that the box asserting that all statements on the application were true had been signed by the student's mother.

• Nobody's perfect. No college essay is a success without some sincere self-deprecation. Here is a no-no: "The hospital administrator said my work as a candy striper was so good that I should apply to medical school." Here is how to fix it: "My first week at the hospital, I wondered why I ever considered medicine as a career. I tripped over older patients' walkers. Once, I almost disconnected an intravenous drip. But I learned my way around a bedpan and gained new respect for nurses." You actually have to believe that you have imperfections for this to work. If you can't think of any, ask a sibling.