“Students are planning their summer experiences to augment who they are and discover who they are, and that absolutely helps the college process.” Jill Tipograph, college consultant. “For a Standout College Essay, Applicants Fill Their Summers” (NY Times, August 6)
You’ve done the research—hell, even the locker guy at the gym knows it. Taylor’s going to need a little tweaking in order for his authentic self to become what you know it can be…what it needs to be, if all the maneuvering since the Kindergarten entrance exam is going to pay off. But pretending to be a drug dealer and “reforming” is not just old hat, it is a transparently aspirational college essay theme that you can bet will make even State U’s admissions committee give a grim chuckle.
How can you ensure that the topic you and your child’s admissions team comes up with will “pop” the folder into the early admit pile? At Triple Canopy Admissions, we’ve brought together a team of Special Forces veterans and psy-ops experts who know that getting the kid into the freshman triple in Williston Hall is a life-or-death, one-chance mission. Nothing will jolt the committee out of the sameness of perfection like your child’s 250 words on how she saw Hell, and came back in time to start seven AP classes. We carve out a brutally enlightening summer experience for your child that pairs with your own travel plans. What we’re promising is a win-win summer as your child traverses one of our harrowing AdmitScenarios:
We're driven to expand your child's horizons
Secuestro Express: Looking to shore up your daughter’s language ability while she achieves must-read experiences? While your family vacations in Venezuela (or even Bonaire, it’s close enough), our partner organization will kidnap her and give you 24 hours to ransom her. ¿Cómo se dice “tick-tock”? You can be sure your daughter will know the answer with native fluency at the end of her stay, and know who the hell Simón Bolivar was too. The body art option in this package includes a work-safe cigarette burn mark and/or light handcuff scarring. Sign up in time to take optional spring weapons training (she’ll think it’s part of being Federalist Club president), and we’ll let the girl pop the guards and set herself free. The resulting essay will make it crystal clear that Stanford associate deans best not make the same mistake in getting between her and a capella tryouts.
Flowers for Wesleyan: 4.0 to 4.3 is not a trajectory that’s going to make anyone at the Ivys sit up and notice. But what if it’s institutionalized to 4.3? The last week of junior year, we’ll engineer a very public accident for your child that reduces him to a catatonic, babbling mess in front of his peers. Our media unit will target first-phase regional human-interest stories about your child’s tragedy in order to raise his profile. Then, by August 15, our medical liaison (based in a major city that your spouse may want to visit) will put your child on a Tweet-ready daily road to not just full recovery, but a new, lyric sensibility and awareness of the mental abyss he escaped in order to help heal the world. Skews towards Little Three sensitivities.
Fetch My Golden Lash: Our deep regional experience in the Middle East allows us to offer your child a true immersion experience in human trafficking that will make her friend in Amnesty International look like a cardboard cutout. After flying on our airline partner Emirates and a brief orientation in Dubai, your daughter will awaken to find herself no longer in the Burj Al Arab but in the servant’s quarters of a nearby mansion. Our “host family” will add a surreal but revelatory note to your daughter’s nightmarish servitude by forcing her to help their idiot son with his application for a PG year at Northfield-Mount Hermon. Good for kids who need the extra writing practice.
Join the Team: If you’re willing to have your child actually work instead of do an internship or raise vicuñas, we’re looking for a few hard-edged kids who can help their peers make their essays shine. There’s nothing that spurs honest regret and personal growth like being behind the Balaclava and holding your lacrosse rival by his ankles as you chopper over the whitecaps. And your son will know that, come next fall, this same kid’s essay will be better off for putting the state championship into some serious perspective.