Beginning college-level writers – DeAnza College:
I can’t believe you were willing to help me from home after the Writing Center closed today. Thank you so much!…No one explained how to make sentences connect the right way to me before. The way you explained it, it seems so easy now…I didn’t realize that the words I hear, like “here”, are not the same as the way I am writing them. Thank you for being so patient…I’m sorry my English is not good and also I am not a good speaker, but I hope you can know that I’m very appreciate (sic) and thank for your help…I will never forget you!
Attendees at a DeAnza College Personal Statement Workshop:
The workshop today made everything so clear…Knowing that the people who read my essay might be really tired and that it’s OK to make them laugh a little was really helpful…I liked your tips about how to reduce the number of words and vary the vocabulary…I understood your examples even better than the things the Admissions rep. from U.C. Berkeley told us… It seems like you really care about all of us even though you don’t know any of us yet…Even though she is only in high school, my daughter heard about your application workshop and we sat in at the back of the session. She was so excited when she came home. She said she knows exactly what she needs to do now to get into a good college, and she’s already upstairs writing down some ideas for her essays!
Successful DeAnza College transfer applicants:
I got into Wharton…I got into Berkeley…I got into UCLA…I got into every school I applied to!…I could never have done it without you…You were so patient with all my revisions…I like that you kept my ideas, even in not so good English, but you helped me make them sound like I would say them even though it was first hard for me to write them down…In just that fifteen minute conversation you figured out exactly what was bothering me, blocking my writing, and how to help me express what I really want to do for the rest of my life – it was magic!
Stanford University Rhodes and Marshall Scholarship applicants and winners:
I can’t believe it! I won a Rhodes!!!…Thank you SO MUCH for believing in me from the beginning…If you hadn’t answered that desperate e-mail from me at 11:30 last night I would never have made the midnight deadline…Your consistent and unflagging encouragement, even when I was ready to bail on the whole process, is what really made the difference for me…In four years as a student at Stanford, you are by far the most patient, helpful and friendly person I have ever encountered in a Student Services capacity…Your witty and detailed messages to all of us about the application process clarified so much of the “fine print”…The last critique you gave me of my final draft made all the difference…I could never have done this without you, Carroll!
Successful Master’s Degree Candidates:
The grad school application questions all sounded alike to me. I thought I could just use the same essay for all of them. You gently helped me understand why I had to make each one unique, and when we talked through the reasons why I was applying to all those different programs I really figured out which ones were most important to me and why I would be so well-suited to them. Deciding not to apply to the others was just as important as deciding how to apply to the ones I really wanted, so you saved me some time and a whole bunch of money”…”That Haas application was giving me fits, but those edits you suggested smoothed the whole thing right out”…”You caught every typo and waded through all that Geology terminology in my thesis like a pro. Thanks, Carroll!
