The People's Guide to College Applications

The People’s Guide to College Applications is a fast, last-minute, it’s-going-to-be-okay guide for college applicants and their families (biological, adoptive, and chosen). In a week-by-week format that can begin as late as September 1st of senior year, this book guides families through the application process. Weekly projects build skills, curiosity, courage, and connection before young adults step into independence and parents gain a new perspective on their family dynamic.
Jill Constantino taught writing to thousands of students at the University of Michigan and at Harvard. She also taught Harvard instructors how to teach writing to their students. In this explicitly how-to book, Constantino deconstructs the personal essay and delivers small chunks of instruction through a clear and kind process. Readers harness the process of writing, thinking, and rewriting to produce self-awareness and constructive movement toward new ideas, which, in turn, creates confidence, hope, and a completed application. Through weekly exercises, Constantino guides students into independence without losing their vulnerability and thoughtfulness. Meanwhile, she teaches parents to become good accountability partners by walking them through their own writing exercises so that they may empathize with their students’ processes of defining themselves and their next steps. By encouraging audaciousness and authenticity, Constantino offers invaluable insights on researching colleges, writing essays, having conversations about money and moving, and the application process as a whole.
This indispensable guidebook offers a safety net that will catch families as they fall through the fabulous advice already on the market. The People’s Guide to College Applications throws a bit of forgiveness, a manageable structure, and reassuring guidance at an occasionally debilitating process.

Author Biography

Jill Constantino is a college coach, flower farmer, and writer who lives in Middletown, Maryland. Constantino received her doctorate in cultural anthropology from the University of Michigan, then taught writing and anthropology at Harvard where she was also a dean. She was a fox researcher in the Channel Islands, a high school science teacher in rural North Carolina, a bike messenger in Seattle, and a bartender and Fulbright Scholar in the Galápagos Islands.
Always seeking adventure, Constantino and her husband moved to a farm in Maryland where they raise their four kids, a dog, and some chickens. When she’s not writing, chasing raccoons and hawks from her chickens, or selling iris rhizomes to the greater DC area, she teaches college application and essay writing workshops from her barn. She coaches students into their favorite schools across the country while mentoring parents into contentment.