Education: Crunch Time For Grads

• Learn to share. Even though parents absolutely may not tinker, feel free to give copies to your friends and teachers. That is the way writers work. Anyone who thinks it is cheating to let her essay be critiqued by others should use this in her essay as an example of a charming character flaw.

• Don't cave. Seventy-five percent of the time, your critics will probably be right. That 40-word sentence really doesn't work. The idea that came to you in a flash of inspiration is really not well developed. But if you sleep on it and find the next morning that the original still pleases you, keep it. You don't want to be holding the rejection letter and wondering if it might have been different if you had not cut that paragraph you liked about the gopher.

OK, so none of these strategies will make up for low SATs. But they will help you make a good impression on the people who count the most in the admissions game.

© 2002