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ILUMIN Blog

Helpful tips about college admissions, test preparation and just being a better student, leader and person from ILUMIN Education.

Webinar Transcript: College Essay Series: Live Essay Edit

Elton Lin

We're presenting a topic that I think is relevant for a lot of our seniors right now: thinking about how to tackle the essays. How to improve their essays, I think, is a big thing. If you've already started it, you'll be in really good shape if you're already thinking about the next steps of how to make adjustments.

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Webinar Transcript: College Essay Series: Crafting Your Personal Statement

Elton Lin

Hi everyone, welcome. Thanks for joining us tonight. We have another exciting topic lined up for you today. You guys have probably all heard about the Common App – pretty big application platform! Over 1,000 colleges will accept the Common App.

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Webinar Transcript: College Essay Series: UC PIQs

Elton Lin

This evening we'll start getting into the college essay specifics: starting with the University of California “Personal Insight Questions,” or the UC PIQs. These UC essay prompts stand apart from others out there and require a different approach – and that is exactly what we'll be covering today.

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5 Questions for Kyra Jee

Elton Lin

We asked Kyra Jee five questions to help you get to know her better.

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What Does the Supreme Court’s Ruling Against Affirmative Action Mean for Your Student?

Elton Lin

The status of affirmative action in college admissions, or admission policies that consider the race of applicants in order to admit more students of underrepresented and historically-discriminated groups into higher education, has been in question for years

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Why ChatGPT Won’t Help You Write Your Perfect College Essay

Elton Lin

Chances are good that you’ve heard people wondering how ChatGPT-influenced essays will affect the college admissions process. It’s guaranteed that the available resources — everything from the advancement of AI to official guidelines from the universities themselves — will always turn over new updates for the most effective strategies. As for now, we’ve experimented with different ways that using ChatGPT can benefit or harm a student’s college application essays.

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Webinar Transcript: College Essay Series: Intro to WRITE! Workshops

Elton Lin

Thanks for joining this evening for the second installment of our college essay webinar series. We've got an exciting topic planned for tonight: our WRITE! workshops, which will be starting this July, and how these workshops can help your student get a strong and effective head start on their college essays.

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How to Stay Productive Over the Summer

Elton Lin

With summer comes warmer weather, a freer schedule, and significantly less academic and extracurricular obligations. It’s no wonder that it can be difficult to muster up the motivation to be productive over summer break! Still, making the most of summer is crucial for students preparing for college applications. Here are some of our tips for staying productive this summer:

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Webinar Transcript: College Essay Series: College Essays 101

Elton Lin

Today we're talking about college essays. I’m glad that we're able to highlight something new: something that students are starting… hopefully soon – and giving you an idea of how to get started here.

I'm joined by Katie and Lindsey today, who will be our guides throughout this process. Katie, do you want to introduce yourself, and then Lindsey?

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