English is a highly competitive major in college, attracting aspiring journalists, readers, novelists, teachers, and more. As such, English programs at top-tier universities receive a flood of applications each year. Popular majors equal competitive majors, so you need to make your application shine to stand out from the crowd.
11th Grade College Strategy for English Majors
From crafting the next Pulitzer-winning novel to dissecting the works of Shakespeare, English offers a rich tapestry of disciplines for students to explore as they consider their college major. It's a field that captivates minds worldwide! If you’re interested in English, you need to know how to stand out.
9th Grade College Strategy for English
Do you like writing? Well, what about her sister — reading? We hope you like reading, since it’s time to read this blog post!! If you’re here, we’re assuming you’re a literary-minded 9th grader who’s thinking about the idea of majoring in English in college. We love it; let’s talk about it.
9th Grade Summer Plans: English Major Edition
Remember 1972, when rock legend Alice Cooper infamously sang, “School’s out for summer! School’s out forever!?” Well, while we love the liberatory spirit and undeniably sick electric guitar backing this song, we are here to be the voice of reason and say: No, Alice Cooper, that’s not true. Think of the children! School’s out for summer — but school is not out forever.
The Best Extracurriculars for English Majors
If you’re thinking of becoming a teacher, writer, journalist, academic, or researcher, or even just love reading, you may be considering majoring in English in college. Since you’ve been taking English classes since practically your first day of school, you may be thinking you don’t have to do much to make yourself look like a strong applicant. Get good grades, take additional classes, and read an extra book or two — right? Well, we wish it was that simple. The ubiquity of English courses is actually what makes standing out as a prospective English major quite difficult. Everyone is studying nearly the same topics and reading nearly the same books, so it’s hard to colleges to differentiate you from anyone else unless you do something to stand out beyond the confines of your in-school curriculum.
English Major Strategy: How to Stand Out
Fun Fact: English is one of the most popular humanities majors for students to list when applying to college. It has also been the default major for students who don’t know what they want to study, aren’t STEM-y, and don’t want to click “undecided” (which, by the way, is something you should never do). So, there are a lot of people selecting it and, if you truly do want to study English, it is important that you make yourself stand out from the pack. Here are some things that you can do before writing your application and in your application itself to ensure your application makes a serious impact.
The Best Places for High School Students to Publish Short Stories
At The Koppelman Group, we love working with student writers. After grades and activities, college applications are really just one enormous writing project, after all. While our number one goal is to help kids get into their dream colleges, we also want our students to become better writers, storytellers, and, essentially, communicators, outside of their college applications.
How to Build Out Your Extracurriculars for English
Twain. Dickinson. Christie. Dickens. Hemingway. Vonnegut. You’ve read them all and maybe even have some hot takes. Some people like to act like being an English major is code for undeclared, but we vehemently disagree. If you can’t tell from our use of five-dollar words, we have great respect for the academics who navigate the written word. And English is a highly applicable major to other fields. Obviously, famous writers take the #1 spot in the major, but you’d be among astronauts, politicians, lawyers, scientists, actors, comedians, directors, CEOs, and doctors.