Admissions Office offers college essay workshops.

For the past two years, the university’s Admissions Office has been offering college essay writing workshops to prospective students during open houses, thanks to the idea of a St. Joe’s student.

Kasie Bourque ’18, a tutor in the St. Joe’s Writing Center, created workshops that allow potential students to have their college essays workshopped by admissions counselors and writing center tutors during open houses.

“Because I worked in Admissions as a Hawk Host, it just seemed like a natural thing to do, combine the two things I was really involved in on campus with this one event or workshop,” Bourque said.

Bourque and classmates Paulina Syracuse ’18, Daniel Hughes ’18 and Gina Kokosky ’18 designed and presented the workshop in their Tutor Practicum, Writing Center Theory & Practice course, as well as at a national writing center conference.

“We framed it as like attracting students who weren’t even at St. Joe’s yet to writing centers and also making high school students who might not even come to St. Joe’s aware of what writing center is,” Bourque said.

Syracuse said the project was fueled by memories writing her own college essay and the stress she felt while doing so.

“No matter how good of a writer you are, you never really know what to write in a college application essay,” Syracuse said. “So having this workshop where you have the dos and don’ts of what to say or examples of things that stuck out to admissions counselors before is really beneficial and helpful.”

St. Joe’s is rare to offer such workshops, which are not widely offered at open houses across college campuses, according to St. Joe’s Admissions Counselor Robert Cusella, who has been running the workshop since fall 2017.

“We are not just helping prospective students hopefully find a good fit at St. Joe’s, but regardless of where they end up, when they come visit us, they’re gonna learn a little bit more about the admissions process overall,” Cusella said.

The workshop has been received positively by potential new students and their parents, Cusella said.

“Any kind of bit of information that helps demystify the college process especially for families who are going through this for the first time is always going to be helpful,” Cusella said, “I try to focus on in my workshops really trying to help students discover like what is it about you that makes you unique.”

The advice Cusella said he gives most often to prospective students writing admissions essays is to give a true sense of themselves, outside their transcripts or resumes.

“So many kids have been cut from a softball team or lost the championship, or have had parents who have been divorced or lost someone important to them,” Cusella said. “We read thousands of essays that all have those same topics. What is it about your story, your experience, that makes you unique and that makes you stand out?”

The next workshops will take place on April 29 during Spring View, when high school sophomores, juniors and transfer students will visit Hawk Hill.