essay on deadlines

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Deadlines Matter

By  Nate Kreuter

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I have never worked in any community where deadlines are as routinely disregarded as they appear to be in the academy. I can offer no explanation for why. Students routinely complain about instructors who do not return graded tests and papers when promised; faculty routinely complain about colleagues who neglect to complete their committee work on time; and I have seen administrators at the department level simply plead with faculty, time and again, to complete long-overdue assessments or other important work. I’ll grant that in the current economic circumstances, with many academic units at many colleges and universities underfunded and understaffed, faculty and staff alike are being asked to do more and more work with fewer people, fewer resources, and less time. But if we’re being honest we have to admit that the problem of faculty who are unaccountable to deadlines is an older problem than the current economic crisis; within academe the problem is endemic, systemic, epidemic. Regardless of the cause, when the routine, sometimes mundane business of the university is neglected or even just delayed, complications and stress cascade through the ranks, amplifying the problems that fellow faculty, staff, and even students must then deal with and solve. Even worse, sometimes the most egregious offenders when it comes to blowing off deadlines are senior faculty, who should, frankly, know and behave better. One step toward reducing the stress and work we create for others, and ourselves, might be to take more seriously the deadlines that often accompany our work, but that are sometimes neglected when faculty perceive, often quite wrongly, that there are no negative consequences for missing a deadline. Some deadlines are absolutely rigid, such as the filing dates for theses and dissertations, the sorts of deadlines that must be met if one hopes to graduate on time. These rigid deadlines are the types of bureaucratic deadlines that we have to navigate routinely in order to complete graduate degrees, apply for grants, or otherwise navigate the complex institutions of the modern academy.  Other deadlines are effectively rigid. When your department chair or a fellow faculty member assigns you a task with a due date, it behooves all faculty members to regard those sorts of deadlines as rigid, especially if you don’t have tenure. Such deadlines might be negotiable in some circumstances, but they aren’t to be disregarded altogether. Blowing off your campus bookstore’s deadline for textbook orders, for example, may seem like a trivial lapse. But potentially, missing even such a seemingly small deadline creates additional work for the already-swamped employees placing the orders, and it can result in higher costs for students if books have to be rush-shipped or if the window to order used texts is missed. Even though you are unlikely to suffer personally for missing the deadline, others may suffer. A whole other set of the deadlines that we face in academe are self-imposed, milestones that we set for ourselves in order to complete the nebulous, long-running projects that often comprise research and scholarship. Even though such self-imposed deadlines are "soft," in that there is no enforcer that will come forward and punish, chastise, or cajole us if we miss them, I think that it’s generally a bad idea to miss even the deadlines that we set for ourselves. Assuming, and this is a big assumption, that the deadlines we set for ourselves are realistic. These soft deadlines can’t be taken too lightly — the ability, or inability, to set and meet goals without external guidance or enforcement will determine whether or not a tenure-track faculty member is able to meet expectations for scholarly productivity and ultimately win tenure. One of the tricks to managing these soft deadlines is learning to set goals that are both meaningful and realistic.  It is much easier said than done, and hopefully an advanced graduate student receives extensive mentorship on how to manage the research workload.  Cooperative, self-policing structures like writing groups are one way to formalize soft deadlines and hold ourselves accountable to ourselves and to others to complete, or at least make progress on, our long-term projects. An important part of managing our work is knowing how to differentiate between soft and rigid deadlines, and how to prioritize deadlines across all of the varieties of work required of faculty. Deadlines matter in our interactions with students as well. My feeling is that if I am going to hold students strictly accountable to a deadline, then I too need to be accountable in similar ways. When I give my students writing assignments, each assignment is accompanied by a specifically articulated series of deadlines for when drafts and peer reviews are due, a deadline for each stage of the writing process, each of which students are expected to meet.  But my assignments also include deadlines for myself, essentially promises of when I will return things like graded papers. Holding students strictly to deadlines, but then failing to return work in a timely manner, sends a message of hypocrisy to students that they immediately detect and disdain. I hold myself as accountable to self-imposed deadlines, just as I hold my students accountable. By advertising my own deadlines for tasks like grading, in this case on the writing assignment itself, I create a mechanism that forces me to be accountable. When it comes to interacting with colleagues, I also work hard to meet deadlines. As a junior faculty member, I never want to be the squeaky wheel, never want to be the committee member who fails to turn in work on time and holds up other people and an entire process. My unwillingness to be branded as a shirker is in addition, of course, to the glaringly obvious point that it is simply a common courtesy to meet administrative deadlines. Everyone in the university has work to do, much of it important work, and failing to do our own work in a timely, professional manner unnecessarily delays the work of others. There are certainly times when we realize that we will be unable to meet a deadline. If you foresee missing an externally imposed deadline, it’s both courteous and good policy to let interested parties know, sooner rather than later, that you may be delayed in delivering your work. Such a warning at least allows others involved in the work to improvise an accommodation.  Simply allowing a deadline to pass without a word of warning is discourteous and doesn’t allow others to help ameliorate the effects of your own delays. And missed deadlines are almost always noticed, even when the matter at hand may seem trivial. As you progress in your career, you may be asked to peer-review manuscripts that have been submitted to journals in your subdiscipline. It is especially important to meet an editor’s deadlines when conducting reviews of manuscripts. Some disciplines have a culture of turning reviews around quickly, while other disciplines (particularly in the humanities) are notorious for a tradition of taking months, sometimes even over a year, simply to review manuscripts. As a result of slow turnarounds and senior scholars who can sometimes be cavalierly unconcerned about conducting reviews in a timely manner, junior scholars often suffer. I once had a journal hold onto an article of mine for four months, during which time a staffer sent me a cryptic message implying that the article was undergoing review. After four months had passed, I was notified that the editor had decided not to send out the article for review, and to reject it outright. The editor was well within his rights to reject the article, but to take four months to do so was lazy and unprofessional in the extreme, and borderline unethical. Secondarily, because the article had not been sent out to reviewers, but simply sat on the editor’s desk, I did not even have the benefit of the feedback of reviews. Those four months were time that I could have spent revising the article, or submitting it at a different journal.  Unfortunately, such stories are legion, and I have heard much more egregious examples of how editors’ or reviewers’ failures to keep to a reasonable schedule have hurt the publication prospects of junior scholars. Unfortunately, we are often tasked with work that feels trivial or futile. Or meaningful work simply piles up into seemingly unmanageable stacks. Every faculty member I know feels overwhelmed at some point in the semester. Nonetheless, when we neglect to complete work in a timely manner, our colleagues and students sometimes suffer. Sometimes there isn’t as much accountability in the academy as there should be, which is all the more reason to hold ourselves accountable.

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Experiences With and Lessons Learned on Deadlines and Submission Behavior

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3564721.3564728 Koli 2022: Koli Calling '22: 22nd Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research , Koli, Finland, November 2022

Course exercises are typically given so that the time it takes to finish them fits in the time constraints of the academic system. Exercises come with deadlines that are considered to help students plan their schedules and consequently help get the exercises done. Without deadlines, exercises that need to be done may easily slide away to make room for other tasks that are seemingly more important. Even with deadlines, however, some students procrastinate and leave their tasks without attention until the very last moment. In this article, we study computer science course exercise deadlines by analyzing data from a course that had different deadline placements over the years. The deadline placements of the course were varied to identify a deadline that would be suitable for the majority—if not all—of students. Our analyses from six different deadlines demonstrate that some deadlines seem to reduce last-minute work on exercises. Our findings highlight that not all deadlines are the same and serves as a call for more research into deadline placement and their potential impacts on student time management and performance.

ACM Reference Format: Francisco Enrique Vicente Castro, Juho Leinonen, and Arto Hellas. 2022. Experiences With and Lessons Learned on Deadlines and Submission Behavior. In Koli Calling '22: 22nd Koli Calling International Conference on Computing Education Research (Koli 2022), November 17–20, 2022, Koli, Finland. ACM, New York, NY, USA 13 Pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3564721.3564728

1 INTRODUCTION

Identifying deadlines that work for all students can be challenging. Deadlines given in courses may not always be favored by course participants, even if the deadlines would have justifications behind them. While deadlines can be helpful, they may also create anxiety and stress [ 44 ] among students. Some benefits to deadlines include supporting students’ study strategies and, when designing deadlines in collaboration with other courses, helping avoid situations where multiple deadlines are clumped together.

Research into deadlines and earliness of study work ( i.e. , when students start working on exercises) has provided some insight into work behavior and how that relates to study performance. Edwards et al.  [ 11 ] and Parson and Seidel [ 38 ] observed that starting early led to better outcomes when compared to starting late, and Leinonen et al.  [ 28 ] observed that students who started early tended to have better grades than those who started late.

Instructors’ beliefs and notions may also influence which days instructors pick to schedule deadlines. Some may, for example, prefer to place deadlines on Fridays, with the hope that this would allow students to relax during the weekend. On the other hand, some may prefer to place deadlines on Sundays, with the hope that this would give students enough time to work on the exercises. There are also preferences and beliefs related to the time of the deadline. For example, some may place deadlines in the mornings, which would allow grading during the day, while others may prefer middle-of-the-night deadlines to also allow students to work for a whole day on the day of the deadline. While the notions above were identified in our own informal discussions with the course faculty responsible for the data that we have at our disposal, these beliefs and notions are also commonly discussed in informal contexts such as in mailing lists and at academic conferences. However, while such beliefs exist, quantitative evidence in favor or against them is lacking in research.

Our work provides a starting point for filling this gap in research. We quantitatively analyze data from course iterations with different deadlines. We first study to what extent course exercise deadlines relate to when students submit their work, after which we examine to what extent when students are working relates to the correctness of their work. To quantify when , we look into two metrics: time of day ( i.e. , if they submit during the day or night, which hours of the day do students submit their work) and distance to deadline ( i.e. , the number of hours and days from the submission to the deadline). Formally, our research questions are as follows:

• How are course exercise deadlines related to when exercises are submitted?
• How are the time of day and the distance to deadline related to the correctness of submissions?

We also look into evidence corroborating prior studies; prior work focusing on course deadlines and students’ work has suggested that starting early in general tends to lead to more working days as well as better outcomes [ 8 , 11 , 28 ], but beyond noting that students often tend to work close to the deadline [ 9 ], the effects of specific deadlines have received little attention. The closest matches to the present work are works studying: (1) the relationship of earliness and outcomes ( e.g.  [ 11 , 15 , 30 , 38 ]), (2) interventions designed to nudge students to start their work earlier ( e.g.  [ 21 , 22 , 36 ]), (3) earliness and activity ( e.g.  [ 28 ]), (4) work patterns through exercise submissions ( e.g.  [ 45 ]), and (5) quality of work and when the work was conducted ( e.g.  [ 13 ]).

2 BACKGROUND

2.1 deadlines and time management.

When students start their work in relation to course deadlines ( e.g. , for weekly exercises or course projects) has been studied using data from learning management systems, course materials, and instrumented programming environments ( e.g. , [ 11 , 24 , 25 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 45 ]). Such data has also sometimes been combined with survey data to study the relationship between students’ metacognitive strategies ( e.g. , time management) and course outcomes ( e.g. , [ 3 , 31 , 33 , 43 , 52 ]).

In general, the lack of time management skills among students has been found to be related to lower academic performance [ 34 ], which may manifest through a variety of ways. For example, poor time management can manifest as procrastination , where tasks are delayed until they can no longer be completed at an expected level (or at all) [ 14 ]. Similarly, poor time management skills can lead to poor study strategies including plagiarism [ 7 ], and can cause stress and anxiety [ 37 ]. The way individuals handle deadlines can have an effect on teamwork, as poor time management practices of individuals can influence the time management of team members [ 2 ]. On the other hand, good time management is linked with higher academic performance [ 34 ]. For example, students who start their work earlier are likely to perform better ( e.g. , [ 9 , 11 , 36 , 38 ]) and distribute their work over multiple days ( e.g. , [ 8 , 28 ]); this spacing of work over multiple days can already have a significant effect on learning [ 10 , 17 ].

Students’ time management is inevitably linked with course deadlines. Some studies within MOOCs have shown that having deadlines can increase retention in contrast to not having deadlines [ 20 ]. At the same time, motivations and attitudes related to joining courses can differ depending on whether courses have deadlines or not [ 53 ]. Naturally, in cases where courses do not have explicit deadlines, attendees can self-impose deadlines for themselves, although such deadlines are not as efficient for time management or controlling procrastination as compared to evenly spaced deadlines imposed by others [ 1 ]. How students behave with deadlines may be related to their feelings or preferences towards the course and to their other commitments; if given two events associated with different values and the possibility to decide whether the event associated with a higher value comes first or not, there are differences in the choices between individuals [ 32 ].

2.2 Deadlines and Procrastination

In principle, as some students have the tendency to procrastinate, poorly placed deadlines could potentially lead to students working during sub-optimal hours such as in the middle of the night, which may lead to more mistakes. Developers, for example, are more likely to introduce bugs in code during the night [ 13 ], and there is anecdotal evidence that some students may be more susceptible to poor decisions (such as committing plagiarism) during the night [ 16 ]. Simply requiring everyone to work during the day may also not be effective due to individual differences in the natural inclination to sleep or be active at certain times— i.e. , chronotypes [ 23 , 40 ]—as certain chronotypes are more inclined to perform better early in the day [ 51 ]. Giving students flexibility to choose when to work may help students work during hours that fit them [ 54 ].

2.2.1 Temporal motivation theory. In studies of students’ time management, one theory that has been proposed to explain why deadlines can be helpful to curb procrastination is temporal motivation theory [ 48 ]. Temporal motivation theory is an extension of expectancy-value theory. In expectancy-value theory, it is posited that an individual's motivation to perform a task ( i.e. , the task's utility ) is reliant on both their prediction of their performance in the task, as well as the subjective benefit or worth of the task to the individual. Temporal motivation theory extends this by arguing that in addition to expectancies and values, the utility of a task is also dependent on time, that is, while motivation may increase when people are confident of achieving a desired outcome, motivation may decrease when there is a large amount of time before the outcome is achieved [ 49 ]. In essence, temporal motivation theory posits that the utility of a task, or the motivation to perform a task, increases as the deadline of that task becomes closer [ 47 ].

Steel et al. [ 49 ] have used the lens of temporal motivation theory to explain findings from prior studies on procrastination. For example, in prior classroom studies, researchers found that students’ exercise submission patterns tended to form a hyperbolic curve, with procrastinators’ submissions clustering around deadlines ( i.e. , steeper curves) [ 18 , 41 ]. Steel et al. explains that this is due to motivation being dependent on a goal's temporal distance, with motivation hyperbolically increasing as the deadline gets closer (in the studies above, submissions served as proxy for motivation). Temporal motivation theory has been used by other work to drive the design and embedding of anti-procrastination strategies within systems, such as the implementation of goal- and reward-setting to incentivize users to complete tasks on time [ 39 ], or the use of calls to action (CTAs) within massive online open course (MOOC) platforms, such as the use of deadline reminders to call students’ attention to the proximity of deadlines and descriptive norms that communicate task completion by peers to influence students’ perceived self-efficacy and increase motivation to complete tasks [ 19 ].

2.3 Good Deadlines

Ideally, good deadlines would account for multiple factors, such as avoiding deadline conflicts with other courses, providing ample time for students to complete their exercises, considering students who also have other critical priorities ( e.g. , students who are parents or who also have professional jobs), or providing space for student well-being ( e.g. , not having students work late into the night so they can get ample rest and sleep). As discussed, deadlines do matter, but setting good deadlines is not easy. There is prior work on the effect of deadlines on student behavior and outcomes [ 6 , 9 , 20 , 42 , 53 ], for and against using deadlines [ 1 , 4 , 5 ], and for longer deadlines leading to poorer outcomes when no reminders are used [ 50 ]. However, outside these examples and a few online resources such as  [ 46 ], little empirical evidence or discussion exists on how deadlines should be placed, and whether some specific times or days are better for deadlines than others. The findings of our work contributes to this space.

3 METHODOLOGY

3.1 course contexts.

To address our research questions, we analyzed submission timestamp data collected from three courses offered by a research-intensive university in Northern Europe with approximately 30,000 enrolled students. The courses from which we collected submission data include:

• An introductory programming ( INTROCS ) course (6 iterations),
• A web software development ( WEBDEV ) course (6 iterations), and
• An introductory statistics ( INTROSTATS ) course (4 iterations).

Each course is seven weeks long and worth 5 ECTS 1 credits (approximately 125 to 150 hours of study time). A student typically takes two to three courses in an academic quarter. All of the courses have exercises that are submitted to a learning management system for assessment. We used data from multiple courses in our analyses in order to create a form of baseline submission pattern to which we can compare different deadlines. Only the submission data that was collected by the learning management system was available, which did not include student demographic information.

All three courses focused heavily on the completion of course exercises and reading online course materials. The introductory statistics ( INTROSTATS ) course was in an online MOOC format (no face-to-face/synchronous lectures), the web software development ( WEBDEV ) course typically had a single lecture in the beginning of the course with the rest of the course delivered online, and the introductory programming ( INTROCS ) course typically had one face-to-face lecture each week. All courses had online support available through course chat rooms, and the INTROCS course had walk-in labs where students could receive support from teaching assistants.

3.1.1 The web development course. Of the three courses we collected submission data from, the WEBDEV course had varying deadlines over the iterations, where the course instructor (the third author) had explicitly sought to find a deadline that would reduce procrastination and last minute submissions as much as possible. Within that course, the instructor and the teaching approach remained the same over the years when the data was collected. The WEBDEV course also has fewer confounding variables since the content across iterations was only marginally modified and it was offered in the same semester of every year, thus the students taking the course are likely in the same stage of the degree program (second-year students). Hence, our analyses focus on the WEBDEV course in more detail.

3.1.2 Exercises for all the courses. The INTROCS and INTROSTATS courses are typically taken during the first year of studies, while the WEBDEV course is taken during the second year of studies. Each course uses a many small exercises model and hands out weekly exercise sets with five to twenty exercises per set, and the students have approximately ten to eleven days to work on an exercise set. For all the courses, students have one exercise set deadline per week. All exercises in the courses were assigned to be done individually. Similar to the WEBDEV course, across different course instances, the INTROCS and INTROSTATS course instructors were the same and course materials only had minor modifications. The same instructor taught the INTROCS and WEBDEV courses, while the INTROSTATS course was taught by a different instructor. The instructor for INTROCS and WEBDEV was the third author of this paper.

The exercises are automatically assessed and the courses have no upper limit to the number of submissions per exercise. This means that a student can submit an exercise as many times as they wish. If a submitted exercise does not pass the automated tests, the student is given feedback that includes, for example, suggestions on the types of inputs to try and the types of outputs to expect, which then helps students to pinpoint issues in their exercises. Late submissions are not allowed.

3.2 Analysis Approach and Data

In the analyses, we excluded exercises that were submitted more than 12 days before the deadline to limit issues caused by differences in the release schedules of exercises. In addition, we only included the submissions (both correct and incorrect) for an exercise up to the first correct submission of that exercise for each student. In case a student had no correct submissions for a particular exercise, all submissions from the student were included in the data. We filtered out duplicate correct submissions to remove noise from the data ( e.g. , there were a handful of students who submit exercises multiple times just before the deadline to confirm that they have submitted their work).

This led to a data set with 229,589 submissions from 3,514 students 2 . For the WEBDEV course instances, the weekly deadlines, number of submissions, number of students, and number of exercises are outlined in Table  1 . For “midnight” deadlines ( e.g. , “Wednesday Midnight”), we mean that students had time to submit exercises until the end of the day ( e.g. , the midnight between Wednesday and Thursday). In practice, deadlines were explicitly reported to the students using the 24-hour time format ( e.g. “Wednesday, 23:59”) to reduce confusion among students about the time and day of submission; the 24-hour time format is commonly used in Finland where the courses were run.

For RQ1 , we used all the data outlined in Table  2 for calculating baseline submission behavior, and submissions from the different iterations of the WEBDEV course were compared to that baseline. For RQ2 , we utilized all the submission data from all courses. Note that as some students took the WEBDEV course multiple times ( e.g. , due to failing the first time), the numbers of students for the WEBDEV course in Table  1 summed for all years does not equal the number of students in Table  2 for that course.

4.1 Submission Behaviors Over the Week Before the Deadlines

Using the submission data collected from the six WEBDEV courses (deadlines and submission counts outlined in Table  1 ), we analyzed how the deadlines relate to when students submit their exercises ( RQ1 ). Submission behavior during the week ( i.e. , the last seven days) before the deadline, calculated over all course weeks, is shown in Figure  1 (a-f). The lines display a probability density function that shows the likelihood of a submission being at a specific time in the data (averaged to the closest hour; the line has been smoothed for visualization purposes). The blue solid line represents the specific WEBDEV course and the dashed orange line represents the average over all our data (all WEBDEV , INTROCS , and INTROSTATS courses). The red vertical line marks the specific time of the deadline. In practice, when looking at, for example, Figure  1 , we could interpret the highest peaks on Wednesday and Thursday so that it is about twice as likely that an exercise is submitted during the peak hour on Thursday than during the peak hour on Wednesday.

First, when visually analyzing students’ submission behavior, we observe that for the WEBDEV courses where the deadline was varied, students were more likely to work close to the deadline in some iterations. Noticeable peaks are visible for the Monday 6 AM (Figure 1 .a), Thursday 6 PM (Figure 1 .c), and Monday 4 PM (Figure 1 .d) deadlines, while for the other deadlines, the peaks are more subtle. For the deadlines placed at midnight, there are no considerable spikes, even during the day. Additionally, it seems that for deadlines placed on Mondays, students are more likely to work on the exercises in the preceding weekend, as opposed to deadlines in the latter part of the week ( e.g. , Thursday or Friday), where the students could also have started their work early during the previous weekend.

Acknowledging that the figures only show activity during the last week before the deadline, which excludes those who submitted prior to the last 168 hours before the deadline (7x24 hours), we calculated the average and median distance of submissions to deadline (in hours) for the WEBDEV course instances, shown in Table 1 . The data shows that the Monday 4 PM deadline yields the smallest average and median distance to deadline, while the Friday midnight deadline yields the largest average and median distance to deadline. In terms of differences in median time to deadline, the difference between the Monday 4 PM deadline and the Friday midnight deadline is approximately 35.4 hours.

In addition to the visual analysis, we conducted a Kruskal-Wallis H test to examine whether there are statistically significant differences in the distribution of the “ distance to deadline in hours ” between the different WEBDEV course instances—a significant difference would suggest that submission behavior was different between the courses. The Kruskal-Wallis H test resulted in a very low p-value ( p < 0.0001, Bonferroni corrected), indicating that the distributions were different across course iterations. We then further conducted pairwise Mann-Whitney U tests between the course iterations to determine which pairs are significantly different. We found that for all of the courses, the distributions are different ( p < 0.01, Bonferroni corrected) with the exception of the Monday 6 AM deadline (Fall 2012) and the Tuesday midnight deadline (Fall 2016). The effect sizes, calculated using Epsilon squared (ϵ 2 )  [ 12 ], are mostly negligible (ϵ 2 < 0.01, 7 observations) to weak (ϵ 2 < 0.04, 5 observations), with the exception of moderate effect size (ϵ 2 < 0.16, 2 observations) between the Wednesday midnight deadline (2013) and the Monday 4 PM deadline (2015), as well as between the Monday 4 PM deadline (2015) and the Friday midnight deadline (Fall 2017). These results are summarized in  Table 3 .

4.2 Submission Behaviors Closer to the Deadlines

To explore the extent of submissions done closer to the deadline, we quantitatively analyzed the proportion of submissions within a set of windows before the deadline, calculated over all course weeks (Table 4 ). For these windows, we chose 72 hours, 24 hours, 12 hours, 6 hours, and 2 hours before the deadline. From Table 4 , we can see that the Monday 4 PM deadline has the most submissions done in the last 72 hours, while the Friday midnight deadline is the opposite and has the least submissions done. Similarly, but not surprisingly, the Monday 6 AM deadline has the least submissions during the last 2 hours before the deadline, while the Tuesday midnight deadline has the most submissions in the last 2 hours before the deadline. We also observed differences in the full data set when compared to the WEBDEV course; we elaborate on this further in the limitations (Section 5.4 ).

We then analyzed the submission behavior during the last 24 hours before the deadline. This is shown in Figure 2 (a-f), where the lines show the probability density function of the specific WEBDEV course instances and the full dataset (all WEBDEV , INTROCS , and INTROSTATS courses) similar to Figure 1 (a-f). A visual analysis shows that the submission behavior (blue line in the subfigures) differs between the courses. We conducted pairwise Mann-Whitney U tests to determine whether the submission behavior during the last 24 hours is different between the different WEBDEV course iterations. The results of the pairwise tests are shown in Table 5 . From the table, we can observe that in most cases, there are significant differences ( p < 0.01 after Bonferroni correction). However, in most of the cases, the effect sizes are weak to negligible with a few exceptions. Notably, the effect size between the Monday 6 AM deadline and the Tuesday midnight deadline is relatively strong, and the effect sizes between the Monday 6 AM and Wednesday midnight and Friday midnight deadlines are moderate.

4.3 Deadlines, Times of Work, and Correctness of Submissions

When analyzing correctness of submissions, we looked into (a) the average correctness over the week and (b) the average correctness over the hour of data. We performed the analysis on (1) submissions until, and including, the first correct submission, and on (2) all submissions ( i.e. , including those after the first correct submission). The analysis here uses data from all the courses at our disposal— i.e. , the INTROCS , the INTROSTATS , and the WEBDEV courses.

4.3.1 Submissions until (and including) the first correct submission. On average, when looking at submissions in the data until, and including, the first correct submission ( n =229,589), 74.0% of the submissions passed the automated tests. There are differences between the courses, however. The percentage of passing submissions was 83.0% for INTROCS , 64.0% for WEBDEV and 19.1% for INTROSTATS . A chi-squared test between the different course iterations suggests that there are differences in the number of passing and failing submissions ( p < 0.0001, Bonferroni corrected). This is true also when only testing for differences between the WEBDEV course iterations ( p < 0.0001, Bonferroni corrected).

We then analyzed the correctness of submissions made within the seven days preceding the deadline by calculating the average correctness of the submissions based on distance to deadline and then observing trends in the data. Overall, as shown in Figure  3 a, there seems to be a trend that submissions made closer to the deadline are less likely to be correct. A Mann-Kendall statistical test for trend [ 26 , 35 ] confirms the observation; there is a statistically significant decreasing trend in average correctness when approaching the deadline ( z =-3.74, τ =-0.89, slope =-0.022, p ≈ 0.0002).

Additionally, to exclude the possibility of this being due to weaker students working closer to the deadline, we separately analyzed the trend for students who worked both close (<12h) and further away (>72h) from the deadline. The Mann-Kendall result for these students also reveals a decreasing trend in submission correctness closer to the deadline ( z =-2.75, τ =-0.59, slope =-0.01, p ≈ 0.006).

We further looked into if when the work was conducted influenced correctness of submissions. Overall, as shown in Figure  3 b, the average correctness of submissions seems to be somewhat related to the time of day. Using definitions for night and day based on Finnish law regarding night work 3 , we divided the data into day (6 AM to 11 PM, n =219,839 submissions) and night (11 PM to 6 AM, n =9,750 submissions). During the day, approximately 74.7% of the submissions were correct, while during the night, approximately 66.0% of the submissions were correct. A chi-squared test indicated that the groups differ ( χ 2 ≈ 339.7, df = 1, p ≈ 0.0); Cramer's V ( V ≈ 0.038) indicates that the effect is negligible.

Additionally, again to exclude the possibility of the time of day results being due to weaker students working during the night, we separately analyzed only students (n=1493) who worked both during the day and during the night. A chi-squared test shows ( χ 2 ≈ 197.2, df = 1, p ≈ 0.0) that for these students too, submissions during the night have lower average correctness (66.7%) compared to submissions during the day (73.3%).

4.3.2 All submissions. For completeness, we also considered all submissions in addition to the submissions until, and including, the first correct submission. When considering all submissions ( n =234,336), the observations are similar to the observations focused on submissions until, and including, the first correct submission. In all submissions, 74.3% of the submissions are correct. First, when considering the correctness of the submissions over the seven days preceding the deadline, Mann-Kendall statistical trend test shows a statistically significant decreasing trend in average correctness ( z =-2.85, τ =-0.86, slope=-0.024, p ≈ 0.004).

Second, when considering the correctness of the submissions during day and night, 74.6% of the submissions ( n =224,031) made during the day are correct, while 67.7% of the submissions ( n =10,305) made during the night are correct. Chi-Squared test indicated that the groups differ ( χ 2 ≈ 250.8, df = 1, p ≈ 0.0); Cramer's V ( V ≈ 0.033) indicates that the effect is negligible.

5 DISCUSSION

While there is some research into deadlines such as exploring the impact of “optional” early deadlines for feedback [ 9 ] and comparing courses with and without deadlines [ 20 ], the placement of deadlines with regards to time of day and day of the week has not been studied extensively. Most research into deadlines thus seems to implicitly assume that all deadline placements are equal. The results of our study contest this assumption as we found that students’ submission behavior was different when the placement of the deadline—both regarding time of day and day of week—was different.

5.1 Deadline Placement and Students’ Work

We found that WEBDEV students from different course iterations, each with different deadlines, exhibited different submission behaviors. In general, across the different deadlines, students tended to work closer to, than further away, from the deadline, but perhaps not to the extent we suspected a priori. Out of the WEBDEV deadline placements that we analyzed (Table 1 ), the Monday 4 PM deadline had the lowest average (65.7 hours) and median (48.3 hours) time to deadline for submissions, and the Friday midnight deadline had the highest average (96.8 hours) and median (83.7 hours) time to deadline. One likely explanation for this is that the Monday deadline is directly preceded by the weekend while the Friday deadline is further away from the preceding weekend. For example, if there are students who only have time to work on course exercises on the weekend, their work (submissions) will be closer to the deadline with deadlines that occur in the beginning of the week, e.g. , Monday, compared to deadlines that occur further away from the preceding weekend, e.g. , Friday. We also observed that deadlines placed early in the week seem to have more students submitting during the preceding weekend, while deadlines towards the end of the week ( e.g. , Thursday and Friday) show fewer students submitting exercises during the weekend.

Interestingly, we found that in our context, the placement of deadlines affected whether there were noticeable peaks with regards to day of the week in students’ submission activity (see Figure  1 ). Specifically, when the deadline was on Monday 6 AM, Thursday 6 PM, and Monday 4 PM, students were very active in the last 24 hours before the deadline; while for Wednesday midnight, Tuesday midnight, and Friday midnight, the activity peaks were not as noticeable. Our results thus seem to suggest that a midnight deadline could discourage working close to the deadline. However, even in the courses with high activity peaks near the deadline, there were many submissions further away from the deadline too; considering all the data (the WEBDEV , INTROCS , and INTROSTATS courses), approximately 36.8% of the submissions (50.7% considering only the WEBDEV course) were made during the last 72 hours before the deadline.

A peak in activity near the deadline could indicate procrastination, and it is possible that in these cases, students would have preferred to continue to work on exercises after the deadline, suggesting that a later deadline would have been preferable to them. On the other hand, we do not have information on why the peaks happened. For example, the deadlines of other courses students are taking concurrently likely affects students’ submission behavior.

Regardless of the chosen deadline, we observed that the day of the deadline had either the highest (Monday 6 AM, Thursday 6 PM, Monday 4 PM) or the second highest (Wednesday midnight, Tuesday midnight, Friday midnight) peak in submission activity (shown in Figure  1 ). This result is in line with temporal motivation theory [ 47 , 48 ], supporting the notion that the utility value of the task, or the motivation to do a task ( e.g. , to complete exercises, receive points from exercises, or learn about the topic from the exercises), increases towards the deadline. Interestingly, it seems that for the midnight deadlines, the peaks were on days other than the day of the deadline (Figure  1 ). Future work should examine whether this is due to students perceiving the midnight deadline to be closer than, for example, a 6 PM deadline (affecting the “time” aspect of temporal motivation theory), or due to other factors affecting the utility of the task.

5.2 Deadlines, Time of Work, and Correctness of Submissions

Overall, our analysis showed that submissions (across all courses and course iterations) made during the night (between 11 PM and 6 AM) were more likely to be incorrect as compared to the submissions made during the day (between 6 AM and 11 PM). Similar results have been previously observed in the context of software development, where code committed to version control systems at night was more likely to contain bugs [ 13 ]. Our analysis extends and provides further value on these prior results by observing this phenomenon in the educational context. This information could be taken into account when designing deadlines and could potentially be used in the design of automated assessment systems, for example, by disallowing or limiting submissions during the night.

Quantity-wise, only approximately 4% of the submissions (across all courses and course iterations) were done during the night, which in general indicates that the majority of the students tend to work during the day ( i.e. , 6 AM to 11 PM); although we did find that 1509 students had at least some submissions during the night ( i.e. , 11 PM to 6 AM) and 16 students worked exclusively during the night. There was also evidence of submissions made closer to the deadline being more likely faulty—this could partially be explained by increased time pressure related to the closeness of the deadline, which is known to decrease software quality in software development [ 27 ]. In particular, these results also held when analyzing only students who had submissions both close and further away from the deadline, and students who had submissions both during the day and during the night, indicating that the effects are not solely due to more poorly performing students working during the night and closer to the deadline.

We note that the submission behavior differs between students—some need multiple submissions to reach a correct solution, while others need only a few (or only one). Some students never reach a correct solution for all the exercises. Overall, submission behavior could be used, for example, for tailored and data-driven interventions, as students who work close to the deadline might need different support than students who work during the night. One could also prioritize such interventions by, for example, giving higher priority to students with clearer time management challenges.

We observed that students’ submissions were somewhat more likely to be incorrect closer to the deadline (see Figure  3 a). There are multiple possible explanations for this. Firstly, it is possible that this is due to struggling students wanting to submit at least something before the deadline and thus more likely having errors in their programs, whereas better performing students might have already submitted their exercises earlier in the week. Another explanation based on the temporal motivation theory [ 48 ] is that students whose expectancies of performance on the task are low ( e.g. , due to having less programming experience or having struggled in previous weeks) only start work on the exercises closer to the deadline when the utility of the task increases as posited by the theory. Indeed, based on temporal motivation theory, those with higher expectancies of performance—for example, students with more prior programming experience—will start work earlier as their motivation will be higher due to the higher expectancy. Another factor that may play a part is survivorship bias: students who complete all exercises are removed from the pool of submitters. However, we found that there is a trend of submissions tending to be of lower quality closer to the deadline also for students who worked both close and further away from the deadline, suggesting that survivorship bias is not the sole reason for the observed trend.

Our observation that submissions further away from the deadline were more likely correct supports much of the prior work ( e.g. , [ 9 , 11 , 28 , 36 ]) that has found that students who start their work early tend to perform better. As there were differences in submission patterns with different deadlines, with some deadlines having median submissions over a day earlier than others, one concrete way instructors could nudge students to start their work earlier would be adjusting the placement (day in the week and hour of day) of course deadlines, which potentially might then affect when students start work on course exercises and help students reach better performance and in the end, better learning outcomes.

5.3 Suggestions on Deadline Policies

Overall, based on our data, if it is desired that submissions happen well before the deadline, one could consider placing the deadline towards the end of the week as we found that the average and median distance to deadline was largest for deadlines near the end of the week (Thursday and Friday). Regarding the time of day of the deadline, we found that in our context, the submissions in the courses with the midnight deadlines seemed to be more spread out over the week as evidenced by more equal peaks in Figure 1 . Thus, if instructors want students to spread out their work over the week, our results suggest that a midnight deadline could help with that. We acknowledge that the issue is more complex than this, however. We have no information on deadlines from the other courses that the students were taking, and if all courses would place the deadlines at similar days and times ( e.g. , towards the end of the week and at midnight), it would be only up to the students to prioritize their work—having courses with different deadlines can help students manage their time. We also do not have information on students’ specific circumstances ( e.g. , day jobs outside of school, coursework schedule, extracurriculars) that could have influenced students’ priorities.

The optimal placement of the deadline also differs depending on what we desire to “optimize”. For example, the Monday 6 AM deadline had the fewest submissions in the few hours directly preceding the deadline, likely because most students were asleep then. On the other hand, if we want to purely optimize consistent work over the week, the Monday 6 AM deadline would not work as well as the Tuesday midnight deadline, which had the most consistent submission patterns across different days of the week (see Figure 1 ). If, instead, we want to optimize the deadline regarding early start of work, the Friday midnight deadline had the largest average and median distance to deadline. We recommend that instructors who may want use our findings should compare it with data from their own contexts and potentially craft deadline scheduling plans collaboratively with their colleagues if and when possible.

5.3.1 Opinions of the WEBDEV instructor. In discussions about the WEBDEV course instructor's ( i.e. the third author's) motives for trying out different deadlines, the driving observations were that there were always some students for whom the deadlines were not suitable. Some asked for time to finish exercises during the weekends as they were working during the weekdays, while some asked for time to finish work during the weekdays as they had jobs in the weekends. The instructor also noted that the only deadline that they would not try again was the 6 AM deadline, highlighting that they were often awake late until the night to support the few students who were working last minute and to check that everything was working, despite having office hours at 9 AM. Additionally, the instructor noted that courses may receive a stigma—although the course was well-liked among students (and highly ranked in departmental statistics), it was still referred to as “the course with the wacky deadlines” by some students in 2017. As a final note, the WEBDEV course instructor also remarked that “ after years of trying out these different deadlines, it seemed that no matter what the deadline was, there were always some students who complained about them ”. While we agree that there likely is no perfect deadline, our findings point to course deadline setups that could inform course designs and deadline policies to better support students. Interesting future work could examine the extent to which our deadline setups in conjunction with calls to action [ 19 ] could help students start work earlier, manage time, or perform better on exercises.

5.4 Limitations and Threats to Validity

5.4.1 Generalizability towards students. We acknowledge that there are multiple student-related factors that can affect submission behavior that we have not taken into account. For example, students are likely working on multiple courses at the same time and we do not have information on the deadline setups or policies for those courses. Similarly, students can have different circumstances—some students may be studying full time while others may have jobs or family responsibilities ( e.g. childcare) that could naturally affect when they can work on their studies. An additional factor that likely affects students’ behavior regarding submission patterns is their prior programming experience and competence in programming in general. As we had not collected data on these student-related factors, we are unable to study their effects on submission patterns post hoc.

Our main analysis, however, compares the same course over multiple years, and we have no reason to believe that the general distribution of different student factors would significantly differ between the years. Essentially, even though, for example, having a job versus studying full time likely affects submission behavior, the proportion of students who are studying full time and who are working a job is likely similar across the years and thus any effects this has on the results should be similar across the years. Future work should examine how the circumstances of individual students affect submission behavior: the focus of our work is studying the effects of deadlines in the aggregate.

5.4.2 Generalizability towards courses. There are many aspects of the WEBDEV course studied here that should be taken into account when considering whether the results we report might generalize beyond our study context. Firstly, in all the courses included in this study ( WEBDEV , INTROCS , INTROSTATS ), students could submit their exercises as many times as they wished to the automatic assessment system. Had the number of submissions been limited, we might have observed different submission patterns ( e.g. , students might have tried to “save” their submissions).

Additionally, the WEBDEV course where we varied the deadlines is a second year optional course. As the course is typically taken in the second year of studies, students are likely already somewhat accustomed to the environment of university studies, which could affect submission behavior. For example, many studies in computing education research focus on introductory programming courses (CS1), which are typically the very first courses that computer science students take at university. As can be observed in Table  4 , comparing the full data (including introductory courses) to only the WEBDEV course, there are more submissions close to the deadline for the WEBDEV course.

It is possible that replicating this study in CS1 would yield different results because, among others, students might not have yet adjusted or become accustomed to university studies and thus may, for example, be less experienced or adept at estimating the time it takes to complete exercises or at time management (or the other way around). Additionally, introductory first-year courses are likely to have a more varied student population, for example, in terms of proficiency or competence, or in terms of student interest ( e.g. , there are more students in introductory courses who are only taking a CS minor); by the second year, the worst-performing students are unfortunately likely to have dropped out or changed programs. The fact that the course was optional ( i.e. , not required to graduate) can also affect the results as students may, for example, prioritize mandatory courses they might have running parallel to the WEBDEV course.

5.4.3 Internal validity. In the WEBDEV course, students typically had a little over a week to work on an exercise set from the release of the exercise set to the deadline of that set. However, the exact time window they had for each exercise set varied slightly: for example, in some weeks, the exercises might have been released ten days before the deadline, while they might have been released eleven days before the deadline on another week.

Part of the analysis combined data from WEBDEV , INTROCS , and INTROSTATS ; but INTROSTATS had considerable differences in the number of passing submissions compared to the other two courses. While we believe that this should not affect submission behavior significantly, it could affect the results related to correctness. In future work, we will analyze each course separately to explore potential differences in submission behavior in relation to average correctness.

When looking at the submission data, we did not consider the difficulty of the exercises. We acknowledge that some exercises in the latter weeks of the course are more complex, which could affect the results. For example, if students work on exercises in the order they are presented in the course, the latter exercises are more likely to be worked on close to the deadline, and might also require more submissions ( e.g. , students might make submissions for partial points) if students struggle more with them.

The choice of what is considered day and night time (see Section 4.3.1 ) may affect the results related to the time of day analysis. However, studying different options for this choice is out of scope of this paper, but could be interesting future work. Lastly, for RQ2 , we used data from multiple iterations of three different courses ( INTROCS , INTROSTATS , and WEBDEV courses), which differed in pedagogy and content. Looking at data over three different types of courses can miss some course-specific factors that can affect the results, but on the other hand makes the findings more robust.

6 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

In this work, we analyzed submission timestamp data from a learning management system to explore differences between a variety of deadlines. We summarize our findings as follows:

RQ1 : How are course exercise deadlines related to when exercises are submitted? Our findings suggest that the placement of deadlines does correlate with when students work, and in many cases there is an observable peak in submissions close to the deadline. Out of the deadlines we analyzed, Friday midnight led to the largest average and median distance of submissions (in hours) from the deadline; the difference in median distance of submissions between the largest median and the smallest median was over 30 hours. Additionally, the Monday 6 AM deadline was the deadline where students were least likely to work very close to the deadline (see Table 4 and Figure 2 ).

RQ2 : How are the time of day and the distance to deadline related to the correctness of submissions? We observed that submissions made during the night were more likely to be incorrect than those made during the day. Submissions made closer to the deadline were more likely to be incorrect compared to those made further away from the deadline. However, it is possible that the latter result is in part due to students potentially completing easier exercises first.

Our results have implications for both research and teaching. Firstly, our work provides quantitative evidence on deadline placement correlating with student submission behavior. This opens new research avenues, such as exploring why students are more likely to submit their work on the day of the deadline when the deadline was something else besides midnight, understanding the effect of student prioritization ( e.g. , prioritization between deadlines across different courses, or student-specific contexts such as day jobs), and exploring the placement of deadlines quantitatively in general. We hope to see replications of these analyses in other contexts to increase our understanding of how contextual factors affect the results and the extent to which findings generalize to other contexts. Regarding teaching, our results shed light on the effect of deadlines on the correctness of students’ work, and more broadly provide evidence and guiding points for how deadlines might affect student submission behavior, which can be used to inform course designs and deadline policies and how to best schedule deadlines in ways that support students meaningfully.

Future work could explore the effects of different deadline placements in other contexts. Additionally, it is possible that there are exercise and student-specific factors that could affect which deadlines work best, for example, whether there are potential differences between setting deadlines for larger projects compared to smaller exercises. Other avenues for research include exploring differences in submission behaviors of novice and more experienced students, whether submission or time management behaviors differ for varying difficulty of exercises or policies regarding late work, and how different deadlines might work in conjunction with strategies for combating procrastination ( e.g. , calls to action [ 19 ]). As part of our future work, we are interested in continuing this work on data-driven deadline placement by analyzing dynamic deadlines where students would have personalized deadlines, for example, by being assigned (or suggested) optimal deadlines based on their previous activity in the course (and the ethical implications of such an approach). In addition, we are considering comparing multiple submission setups such as (1) optionally submitting multiple times, (2) being required to submit multiple times ( e.g. , as milestones/check-ins), and (3) submitting only once—these could help us tease out more specific factors that influence student submission behavior.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the SIGCSE members mailing list discussion related to “Cinderella deadlines”, which reminded us of our exploration of deadlines that had happened years before the discussion and inspired us to publish our findings.

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• Piers Steel, Frode Svartdal, Tomas Thundiyil, and Thomas Brothen. 2018. Examining Procrastination Across Multiple Goal Stages: A Longitudinal Study of Temporal Motivation Theory. Frontiers in Psychology 9 (2018). https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00327
• Dmitry Taubinsky. 2014. Essays in Behavioral and Experimental Economics . Ph.D. Dissertation.
• Vincent van der Vinne, Giulia Zerbini, Anne Siersema, Amy Pieper, Martha Merrow, Roelof A Hut, Till Roenneberg, and Thomas Kantermann. 2015. Timing of examinations affects school performance differently in early and late chronotypes. Journal of biological rhythms 30, 1 (2015), 53–60.
• Christopher Watson, Frederick WB Li, and Jamie L Godwin. 2014. No tests required: comparing traditional and dynamic predictors of programming success. In Proceedings of the 45th ACM technical symposium on Computer science education . 469–474.
• William R Watson, Ji Hyun Yu, and Sunnie L Watson. 2018. Perceived attitudinal learning in a self-paced versus fixed-schedule MOOC. Educational Media International 55, 2 (2018), 170–181.
• Albina Zavgorodniaia, Raj Shrestha, Juho Leinonen, Arto Hellas, and John Edwards. 2021. Morning or Evening? An Examination of Circadian Rhythms of CS1 Students. In 2021 IEEE/ACM 43rd International Conference on Software Engineering: Software Engineering Education and Training (ICSE-SEET) . 261–272. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICSE-SEET52601.2021.00036

1 European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System. One ECTS accounts for approximately 25 to 30 hours of study work.

2 Note that a student might be counted multiple times: for example, if they took all three courses ( INTROCS , INTROSTATS , and WEBDEV ), they will be counted once for each course. The number of students is reported to contextualize the data; all analyses focus on aggregate submission behavior and thus in practice does not consider individual students.

3 Definition of night work from Finnish law (translated from Finnish): “Work that is conducted between 23 (11 PM) and 6 (6 AM) is night time work”, https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/2019/20190872

Koli 2022, November 17–20, 2022, Koli, Finland

© 2022 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-9616-5/22/11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3564721.3564728

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• Writing Tips

Deadlines (Why They’re Important and How to Meet Them)

3-minute read

• 25th February 2016

Even famous writers struggle with deadlines: George R. R. Martin made the news by missing one, while Douglas Adams used to joke about the ‘whooshing sound they make as they fly by’. Unfortunately, missing a deadline is rarely a laughing matter for students , as submitting work late will mean you lose out on valuable marks. As such, deadlines are a frequent source of anxiety when writing an essay . It needn’t be this way though.

Why Deadlines Matter

Hitting deadlines makes sure you don’t lose marks or become overwhelmed by heavy workloads when you fall behind, thereby aiding your academic performance. But this applies outside university too, since the whole world runs on deadlines ! Learning to work to a schedule is thus a valuable skill.

4 Tips for Getting Stuff Done On Time

1. start early.

Leaving your work until the last minute is rarely a good idea, forcing you to rush and making essay writing a far more stressful experience.

Starting well ahead of the deadline, on the other hand, will allow you to produce a well-written essay on time (without any of the anxiety) by working on it in smaller, manageable chunks. Even if you only write a few paragraphs a day, it can quickly add up! And you should have tie for redrafting, too.

2. Plan Your Essay

A common mistake is launching into your essay without planning. This may mean your work is not well structured, or you could run out of steam if you run into a problem or struggle to express a particular point.

By planning your essay, on the other hand, you’ll have a much better sense of what you want to say and how to structure your arguments. A good way to do this is to note the deadline and schedule accordingly, setting aside enough time for research and re-drafting as well as writing the essay itself.

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3. Prioritise and Organise

Prioritising means recognising the amount of time you need to get your work done. In other words, it’s about knowing the deadline and tailoring your activities accordingly. Have an essay due on Tuesday? This might not be the moment to go away for the weekend.

Meanwhile, being organised simply involves having a grip on what you’re doing. Planning is a big part of this, letting you work out when you will have time to write your essay. But having a regular working routine can also help, allowing you to make the most of the time available.

4. Request an Extension

If you really don’t think you can get an essay done on time, you need to request a deadline extension from your school or tutor.

These are generally only granted in exceptional circumstances, such as serious illness. Thus, you can’t rely on an extension as an alternative to doing the work on time. It should only be a last resort!

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Mike Delgado

Why deadlines matter (and how to set deadlines you’ll achieve).

It’s crucial to create deadlines for yourself to help you achieve your goals.

Whether you want to complete a project at work – or achieve a personal goal – it’s important to set realistic deadlines for yourself.

I started this blog to force myself to publish content every week. If I don’t set deadlines, then I’ll just let articles sit forever because I’m never fully satisfied. There is always a way to tighten it up a paragraph. There’s always a way to tweak a word and make a sentence sound better.

If I don’t set deadlines, then I’ll just keep tweaking my work and never accomplish anything.

Here are some reasons why deadlines are important:

Deadlines force you to think about what it will take to accomplish your goal. When creating a deadline for yourself, it forces you to think through the steps you need to achieve it. Each step will require a certain amount of time – and that will better inform how long it will take you to finish the project. Visualizing all the steps involved (and finishing it) can help motivate you to start tackling each small step.

Deadlines help you prioritize what you’ll work on (and for how long). There is nothing like a strict deadline to help you prioritize your workflow. Even while writing this article, I’ve set a deadline to finish this before getting out of my seat. This helps me avoid checking email or doing anything else on the web before finishing this article. My self-imposed deadline is forcing me to stay on task so I will move on to other tasks later.

Deadlines push us. Do you remember all the papers and projects you were assigned in school? You had to push yourself to get everything done – and sometimes stayed awake all night just to finish an important paper. If we didn’t have deadlines with consequences, we would never push ourselves. The same is true now. You need to set deadlines (and possibly consequences) for yourself so that you will push yourself.

The trouble with setting deadlines is that we often don’t know how long something will take. Psychologists refer to this problem as the planning fallacy – wherein we often underestimate how long it will take to achieve something. We often set goals that are too ambitious – and don’t think about all the challenges along the way.

So how do we create better deadlines we’ll achieve?

Some suggestions:

Create realistic deadlines by thinking through all the steps and challenges involved. Don’t think about the “best case scenario” to get a project done. Instead, think through each step and any challenges you might experience along the way. Give yourself some wiggle room when creating a deadline date to ensure you’ll meet it. The deadline date shouldn’t be too easy to achieve – or too challenging.

Create deadlines with consequences and rewards. In school, there were consequences for missing deadlines on papers – and there were rewards for doing a good work by getting higher grades. Give yourself deadlines with consequences and rewards. For example, if you achieve your deadline, you will celebrate by doing something fun or buying something you’ve been wanting. If you miss your deadline, you’re not allowed to do something you enjoy.

Get others involved to hold you accountable to your deadlines. An important way to achieve important deadlines is to have someone hold you accountable. This can be your boss at work, your partner, or a trusted friend. Choose someone that will ask you about your goals and check in with you. Getting others involved can drastically help you stay focused so that you have both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation to get your goal achieved.

Lastly, remember that setting deadlines for yourself is geared to help you finish. Don’t create a deadline if you don’t intend to achieve it. After all, if the date doesn’t matter – then it’s not really a deadline.

So how do you set deadlines? What strategies work for you? 

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Tips for Writing an Effective Application Essay

Find the right college for you.

Writing an essay for college admission gives you a chance to use your authentic voice and show your personality. It's an excellent opportunity to personalize your application beyond your academic credentials, and a well-written essay can have a positive influence come decision time.

Want to know how to draft an essay for your college application ? Here are some tips to keep in mind when writing.

Tips for Essay Writing

A typical college application essay, also known as a personal statement, is 400-600 words. Although that may seem short, writing about yourself can be challenging. It's not something you want to rush or put off at the last moment. Think of it as a critical piece of the application process. Follow these tips to write an impactful essay that can work in your favor.

1. Start Early.

Few people write well under pressure. Try to complete your first draft a few weeks before you have to turn it in. Many advisers recommend starting as early as the summer before your senior year in high school. That way, you have ample time to think about the prompt and craft the best personal statement possible.

You don't have to work on your essay every day, but you'll want to give yourself time to revise and edit. You may discover that you want to change your topic or think of a better way to frame it. Either way, the sooner you start, the better.

2. Understand the Prompt and Instructions.

Before you begin the writing process, take time to understand what the college wants from you. The worst thing you can do is skim through the instructions and submit a piece that doesn't even fit the bare minimum requirements or address the essay topic. Look at the prompt, consider the required word count, and note any unique details each school wants.

3. Create a Strong Opener.

Students seeking help for their application essays often have trouble getting things started. It's a challenging writing process. Finding the right words to start can be the hardest part.

Spending more time working on your opener is always a good idea. The opening sentence sets the stage for the rest of your piece. The introductory paragraph is what piques the interest of the reader, and it can immediately set your essay apart from the others.

4. Stay on Topic.

One of the most important things to remember is to keep to the essay topic. If you're applying to 10 or more colleges, it's easy to veer off course with so many application essays.

A common mistake many students make is trying to fit previously written essays into the mold of another college's requirements. This seems like a time-saving way to avoid writing new pieces entirely, but it often backfires. The result is usually a final piece that's generic, unfocused, or confusing. Always write a new essay for every application, no matter how long it takes.

5. Think About Your Response.

Don't try to guess what the admissions officials want to read. Your essay will be easier to write─and more exciting to read─if you’re genuinely enthusiastic about your subject. Here’s an example: If all your friends are writing application essays about covid-19, it may be a good idea to avoid that topic, unless during the pandemic you had a vivid, life-changing experience you're burning to share. Whatever topic you choose, avoid canned responses. Be creative.

6. Focus on You.

Essay prompts typically give you plenty of latitude, but panel members expect you to focus on a subject that is personal (although not overly intimate) and particular to you. Admissions counselors say the best essays help them learn something about the candidate that they would never know from reading the rest of the application.

7. Stay True to Your Voice.

Use your usual vocabulary. Avoid fancy language you wouldn't use in real life. Imagine yourself reading this essay aloud to a classroom full of people who have never met you. Keep a confident tone. Be wary of words and phrases that undercut that tone.

8. Be Specific and Factual.

Capitalize on real-life experiences. Your essay may give you the time and space to explain why a particular achievement meant so much to you. But resist the urge to exaggerate and embellish. Admissions counselors read thousands of essays each year. They can easily spot a fake.

9. Edit and Proofread.

When you finish the final draft, run it through the spell checker on your computer. Then don’t read your essay for a few days. You'll be more apt to spot typos and awkward grammar when you reread it. After that, ask a teacher, parent, or college student (preferably an English or communications major) to give it a quick read. While you're at it, double-check your word count.

Writing essays for college admission can be daunting, but it doesn't have to be. A well-crafted essay could be the deciding factor─in your favor. Keep these tips in mind, and you'll have no problem creating memorable pieces for every application.

What is the format of a college application essay?

Generally, essays for college admission follow a simple format that includes an opening paragraph, a lengthier body section, and a closing paragraph. You don't need to include a title, which will only take up extra space. Keep in mind that the exact format can vary from one college application to the next. Read the instructions and prompt for more guidance.

Most online applications will include a text box for your essay. If you're attaching it as a document, however, be sure to use a standard, 12-point font and use 1.5-spaced or double-spaced lines, unless the application specifies different font and spacing.

How do you start an essay?

The goal here is to use an attention grabber. Think of it as a way to reel the reader in and interest an admissions officer in what you have to say. There's no trick on how to start a college application essay. The best way you can approach this task is to flex your creative muscles and think outside the box.

You can start with openers such as relevant quotes, exciting anecdotes, or questions. Either way, the first sentence should be unique and intrigue the reader.

What should an essay include?

Every application essay you write should include details about yourself and past experiences. It's another opportunity to make yourself look like a fantastic applicant. Leverage your experiences. Tell a riveting story that fulfills the prompt.

What shouldn’t be included in an essay?

When writing a college application essay, it's usually best to avoid overly personal details and controversial topics. Although these topics might make for an intriguing essay, they can be tricky to express well. If you’re unsure if a topic is appropriate for your essay, check with your school counselor. An essay for college admission shouldn't include a list of achievements or academic accolades either. Your essay isn’t meant to be a rehashing of information the admissions panel can find elsewhere in your application.

How can you make your essay personal and interesting?

The best way to make your essay interesting is to write about something genuinely important to you. That could be an experience that changed your life or a valuable lesson that had an enormous impact on you. Whatever the case, speak from the heart, and be honest.

Is it OK to discuss mental health in an essay?

Mental health struggles can create challenges you must overcome during your education and could be an opportunity for you to show how you’ve handled challenges and overcome obstacles. If you’re considering writing your essay for college admission on this topic, consider talking to your school counselor or with an English teacher on how to frame the essay.

Related Articles

Essay on Why Deadlines Are Important

Students are often asked to write an essay on Why Deadlines Are Important in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Why Deadlines Are Important

Why deadlines are important.

Deadlines are important because they help us stay on track and get things done. When we have a deadline, we know that we have a certain amount of time to complete a task. This motivates us to start working on the task right away and to keep working on it until it is finished.

Finally, deadlines help us to produce better quality work. When we know that we have a deadline, we are more likely to take the time to do our best work. We are less likely to rush through our work or make mistakes. This results in higher quality work that is more likely to be successful.

250 Words Essay on Why Deadlines Are Important

Helps you stay organized.

When you have a deadline, you have a clear goal and a specific timeframe to work towards. This helps you to stay organized and focused, as you know exactly what you need to do and when it needs to be done by. Having a deadline also helps you to prioritize your tasks and allocate your time effectively, so that you can get the most important things done first.

Improves Your Time Management Skills

Having deadlines helps you to develop good time management skills, as you learn to plan and organize your work in order to meet them. By setting realistic deadlines for yourself, you can avoid procrastination and make sure that you are making progress on your tasks on a regular basis. This can also help you to avoid feeling overwhelmed, as you know that you have a set amount of time to complete each task.

Boosts Your Motivation and Productivity

Having a deadline can give you a sense of urgency and motivation, which can help you to stay focused and productive. When you know that you have a deadline approaching, you are more likely to put in the effort and work hard to get your task done on time. Deadlines can also help you to stay motivated by giving you a sense of accomplishment when you meet them.

Helps You to Achieve Your Goals

Finally, having deadlines can help you to achieve your goals. When you set a deadline for yourself, you are more likely to take action and work towards your goal. By breaking your goal down into smaller, more manageable tasks with specific deadlines, you can make it seem less daunting and more achievable.

500 Words Essay on Why Deadlines Are Important

Deadlines are important because they help us manage our time and stay on track. When we have a deadline, we know that we need to start working on a project or task in order to finish it on time. This helps us stay focused and avoid procrastination.

Deadlines Help Us Prioritize

When we have multiple projects or tasks to complete, deadlines help us prioritize our work. We can look at all of our deadlines and decide which ones are most important and need to be completed first. This helps us make sure that we are spending our time on the most important tasks and not wasting time on less important ones.

Create a Sense of Urgency

Improve our time management skills, help us achieve our goals.

Deadlines help us achieve our goals. When we have a deadline, we are more likely to stay focused and motivated to complete our work. This helps us make progress towards our goals and achieve them sooner. Deadlines can also help us stay accountable for our work. When we know that someone is expecting us to complete a task by a certain date, we are more likely to follow through and get it done.

Deadlines are an important part of our lives. They help us manage our time, stay on track, and achieve our goals. By understanding the importance of deadlines, we can use them to our advantage and improve our productivity.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

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• College essay

How to Write a College Essay | A Complete Guide & Examples

The college essay can make or break your application. It’s your chance to provide personal context, communicate your values and qualities, and set yourself apart from other students.

A standout essay has a few key ingredients:

• A unique, personal topic
• A compelling, well-structured narrative
• A clear, creative writing style
• Evidence of self-reflection and insight

To achieve this, it’s crucial to give yourself enough time for brainstorming, writing, revision, and feedback.

In this comprehensive guide, we walk you through every step in the process of writing a college admissions essay.

Table of contents

Why do you need a standout essay, start organizing early, choose a unique topic, outline your essay, start with a memorable introduction, write like an artist, craft a strong conclusion, revise and receive feedback, frequently asked questions.

While most of your application lists your academic achievements, your college admissions essay is your opportunity to share who you are and why you’d be a good addition to the university.

Your college admissions essay accounts for about 25% of your application’s total weight一and may account for even more with some colleges making the SAT and ACT tests optional. The college admissions essay may be the deciding factor in your application, especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurriculars.

What do colleges look for in an essay?

Admissions officers want to understand your background, personality, and values to get a fuller picture of you beyond your test scores and grades. Here’s what colleges look for in an essay :

• Demonstrated values and qualities
• Vulnerability and authenticity
• Self-reflection and insight
• Creative, clear, and concise writing skills

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

It’s a good idea to start organizing your college application timeline in the summer of your junior year to make your application process easier. This will give you ample time for essay brainstorming, writing, revision, and feedback.

While timelines will vary for each student, aim to spend at least 1–3 weeks brainstorming and writing your first draft and at least 2–4 weeks revising across multiple drafts. Remember to leave enough time for breaks in between each writing and editing stage.

Create an essay tracker sheet

If you’re applying to multiple schools, you will have to juggle writing several essays for each one. We recommend using an essay tracker spreadsheet to help you visualize and organize the following:

• Deadlines and number of essays needed
• Prompt overlap, allowing you to write one essay for similar prompts

You can build your own essay tracker using our free Google Sheets template.

College essay tracker template

Ideally, you should start brainstorming college essay topics the summer before your senior year. Keep in mind that it’s easier to write a standout essay with a unique topic.

If you want to write about a common essay topic, such as a sports injury or volunteer work overseas, think carefully about how you can make it unique and personal. You’ll need to demonstrate deep insight and write your story in an original way to differentiate it from similar essays.

What makes a good topic?

• Meaningful and personal to you
• Uncommon or has an unusual angle
• Reveals something different from the rest of your application

Brainstorming questions

You should do a comprehensive brainstorm before choosing your topic. Here are a few questions to get started:

• What are your top five values? What lived experiences demonstrate these values?
• What adjectives would your friends and family use to describe you?
• What challenges or failures have you faced and overcome? What lessons did you learn from them?
• What makes you different from your classmates?
• What are some objects that represent your identity, your community, your relationships, your passions, or your goals?
• Whom do you admire most? Why?
• What three people have significantly impacted your life? How did they influence you?

How to identify your topic

Here are two strategies for identifying a topic that demonstrates your values:

• Start with your qualities : First, identify positive qualities about yourself; then, brainstorm stories that demonstrate these qualities.
• Start with a story : Brainstorm a list of memorable life moments; then, identify a value shown in each story.

After choosing your topic, organize your ideas in an essay outline , which will help keep you focused while writing. Unlike a five-paragraph academic essay, there’s no set structure for a college admissions essay. You can take a more creative approach, using storytelling techniques to shape your essay.

Two common approaches are to structure your essay as a series of vignettes or as a single narrative.

Vignettes structure

The vignette, or montage, structure weaves together several stories united by a common theme. Each story should demonstrate one of your values or qualities and conclude with an insight or future outlook.

This structure gives the admissions officer glimpses into your personality, background, and identity, and shows how your qualities appear in different areas of your life.

Topic: Museum with a “five senses” exhibit of my experiences

• Introduction: Tour guide introduces my museum and my “Making Sense of My Heritage” exhibit
• Story: Racial discrimination with my eyes
• Lesson: Using my writing to document truth
• Story: Broadway musical interests
• Lesson: Finding my voice
• Story: Smells from family dinner table
• Lesson: Appreciating home and family
• Story: Washing dishes
• Lesson: Finding moments of peace in busy schedule
• Story: Biking with Ava
• Lesson: Finding pleasure in job well done
• Conclusion: Tour guide concludes tour, invites guest to come back for “fall College Collection,” featuring my search for identity and learning.

Single story structure

The single story, or narrative, structure uses a chronological narrative to show a student’s character development over time. Some narrative essays detail moments in a relatively brief event, while others narrate a longer journey spanning months or years.

Single story essays are effective if you have overcome a significant challenge or want to demonstrate personal development.

Topic: Sports injury helps me learn to be a better student and person

• Situation: Football injury
• Challenge: Friends distant, teachers don’t know how to help, football is gone for me
• Turning point: Starting to like learning in Ms. Brady’s history class; meeting Christina and her friends
• My reactions: Reading poetry; finding shared interest in poetry with Christina; spending more time studying and with people different from me
• Insight: They taught me compassion and opened my eyes to a different lifestyle; even though I still can’t play football, I’m starting a new game

Brainstorm creative insights or story arcs

Regardless of your essay’s structure, try to craft a surprising story arc or original insights, especially if you’re writing about a common topic.

Never exaggerate or fabricate facts about yourself to seem interesting. However, try finding connections in your life that deviate from cliché storylines and lessons.

Admissions officers read thousands of essays each year, and they typically spend only a few minutes reading each one. To get your message across, your introduction , or hook, needs to grab the reader’s attention and compel them to read more..

Avoid starting your introduction with a famous quote, cliché, or reference to the essay itself (“While I sat down to write this essay…”).

While you can sometimes use dialogue or a meaningful quotation from a close family member or friend, make sure it encapsulates your essay’s overall theme.

Find an original, creative way of starting your essay using the following two methods.

Option 1: Start with an intriguing hook

Begin your essay with an unexpected statement to pique the reader’s curiosity and compel them to carefully read your essay. A mysterious introduction disarms the reader’s expectations and introduces questions that can only be answered by reading more.

Option 2: Start with vivid imagery

Illustrate a clear, detailed image to immediately transport your reader into your memory. You can start in the middle of an important scene or describe an object that conveys your essay’s theme.

A college application essay allows you to be creative in your style and tone. As you draft your essay, try to use interesting language to enliven your story and stand out .

Show, don’t tell

“Tell” in writing means to simply state a fact: “I am a basketball player.” “ Show ” in writing means to use details, examples, and vivid imagery to help the reader easily visualize your memory: “My heart races as I set up to shoot一two seconds, one second一and score a three-pointer!”

First, reflect on every detail of a specific image or scene to recall the most memorable aspects.

• What are the most prominent images?
• Are there any particular sounds, smells, or tastes associated with this memory?
• What emotion or physical feeling did you have at that time?

Be vulnerable to create an emotional response

You don’t have to share a huge secret or traumatic story, but you should dig deep to express your honest feelings, thoughts, and experiences to evoke an emotional response. Showing vulnerability demonstrates humility and maturity. However, don’t exaggerate to gain sympathy.

Use appropriate style and tone

Make sure your essay has the right style and tone by following these guidelines:

• Use a conversational yet respectful tone: less formal than academic writing, but more formal than texting your friends.
• Prioritize using “I” statements to highlight your perspective.
• Write within your vocabulary range to maintain an authentic voice.
• Write concisely, and use the active voice to keep a fast pace.
• Follow grammar rules (unless you have valid stylistic reasons for breaking them).

You should end your college essay with a deep insight or creative ending to leave the reader with a strong final impression. Your college admissions essay should avoid the following:

• Summarizing what you already wrote
• Stating your hope of being accepted to the school
• Mentioning character traits that should have been illustrated in the essay, such as “I’m a hard worker”

Here are two strategies to craft a strong conclusion.

Option 1: Full circle, sandwich structure

The full circle, or sandwich, structure concludes the essay with an image, idea, or story mentioned in the introduction. This strategy gives the reader a strong sense of closure.

In the example below, the essay concludes by returning to the “museum” metaphor that the writer opened with.

Option 2: Revealing your insight

You can use the conclusion to show the insight you gained as a result of the experiences you’ve described. Revealing your main message at the end creates suspense and keeps the takeaway at the forefront of your reader’s mind.

Revise your essay before submitting it to check its content, style, and grammar. Get feedback from no more than two or three people.

It’s normal to go through several rounds of revision, but take breaks between each editing stage.

Also check out our college essay examples to see what does and doesn’t work in an essay and the kinds of changes you can make to improve yours.

Respect the word count

Most schools specify a word count for each essay , and you should stay within 10% of the upper limit.

Remain under the specified word count limit to show you can write concisely and follow directions. However, don’t write too little, which may imply that you are unwilling or unable to write a thoughtful and developed essay.

Check your content, style, and grammar

• First, check big-picture issues of message, flow, and clarity.
• Then, check for style and tone issues.
• Finally, focus on eliminating grammar and punctuation errors.

Get feedback

Get feedback from 2–3 people who know you well, have good writing skills, and are familiar with college essays.

• Teachers and guidance counselors can help you check your content, language, and tone.
• Friends and family can check for authenticity.
• An essay coach or editor has specialized knowledge of college admissions essays and can give objective expert feedback.

The checklist below helps you make sure your essay ticks all the boxes.

College admissions essay checklist

I’ve organized my essay prompts and created an essay writing schedule.

I’ve done a comprehensive brainstorm for essay topics.

I’ve selected a topic that’s meaningful to me and reveals something different from the rest of my application.

I’ve created an outline to guide my structure.

I’ve crafted an introduction containing vivid imagery or an intriguing hook that grabs the reader’s attention.

I’ve written my essay in a way that shows instead of telling.

I’ve shown positive traits and values in my essay.

I’ve demonstrated self-reflection and insight in my essay.

I’ve used appropriate style and tone .

I’ve concluded with an insight or a creative ending.

I’ve revised my essay , checking my overall message, flow, clarity, and grammar.

I’ve respected the word count , remaining within 10% of the upper word limit.

Congratulations!

It looks like your essay ticks all the boxes. A second pair of eyes can help you take it to the next level – Scribbr's essay coaches can help.

Colleges want to be able to differentiate students who seem similar on paper. In the college application essay , they’re looking for a way to understand each applicant’s unique personality and experiences.

Your college essay accounts for about 25% of your application’s weight. It may be the deciding factor in whether you’re accepted, especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurricular track records.

A standout college essay has several key ingredients:

• A unique, personally meaningful topic
• A memorable introduction with vivid imagery or an intriguing hook
• Specific stories and language that show instead of telling
• Vulnerability that’s authentic but not aimed at soliciting sympathy
• Clear writing in an appropriate style and tone
• A conclusion that offers deep insight or a creative ending

While timelines will differ depending on the student, plan on spending at least 1–3 weeks brainstorming and writing the first draft of your college admissions essay , and at least 2–4 weeks revising across multiple drafts. Don’t forget to save enough time for breaks between each writing and editing stage.

You should already begin thinking about your essay the summer before your senior year so that you have plenty of time to try out different topics and get feedback on what works.

Most college application portals specify a word count range for your essay, and you should stay within 10% of the upper limit to write a developed and thoughtful essay.

You should aim to stay under the specified word count limit to show you can follow directions and write concisely. However, don’t write too little, as it may seem like you are unwilling or unable to write a detailed and insightful narrative about yourself.

If no word count is specified, we advise keeping your essay between 400 and 600 words.

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Meeting Deadlines: A Comprehensive Guide [Tips & Infographic]

There are countless articles online that teach you how to meet deadlines. However, most of them only provide general strategies. In this article, we’ll focus on the root of the problem instead of the minor issues.

We’ve prepared a complete guide to turning your assignments in on time and meeting other deadlines.

There are two crucial things to understand about deadlines:

• Why do we need them?
• WHY DO WE MISS THEM?

Below, you will find helpful information on what to do, what not to do, and how to develop a positive attitude towards deadlines.

Get back to that burning deadline you have right now! And come back when you’re done.

• ❓ Why Are Deadlines Good?
• ⭕ What Are Some Common Mistakes?
• ❗ How Do You Meet Deadlines?

📢 Meeting Deadlines: Recap

❓ why do we need deadlines.

To be honest, deadlines motivate us to do more in a limited time.

Being able to meet deadlines = being productive. Consider deadlines as small targets that help you to achieve a bigger goal.

In this section, we will explain why everyone needs to set deadlines.

Deadlines Stimulate Activity

• Deadlines are stimulators. Even if you leave something until the last moment, a deadline still pushes you to finish your work.

People love to procrastinate, right? And sometimes, it’s hard not to. Imagine if there weren’t any deadlines…

It’s quite likely that we wouldn’t do anything at all without a deadline.

Deadlines Clarify Goals & Steps

• When we have a deadline, we try to plan the appropriate steps and time required for the task. Knowing that you have a little time increases awareness and productivity.

It is better to make an action plan and follow it through until the end. You can create a to-do list, a table, a reminder in a calendar, etc.

It’s vital to create a picture of what you need to do before you begin. You might modify it later, but a clear structure will help you achieve your goals.

Deadlines Help You to Stay Balanced

• Some people become more creative under pressure. A deadline can inspire you to look at your work from a different angle and help you to optimize your time. When you think under pressure, your brain can come up with some unexpected ideas.

At the same time, deadlines protect you from perfectionism. There is nothing wrong with striving to do a good job, but focusing too much on perfection can waste your time. A deadline limits the time you have to work and rest. You can still be productive and attain great results without overcomplicating your tasks.

Deadlines Are a Collaborative Tool

• When it comes to teamwork, a deadline is an essential part of efficiency. It is a tool that coordinates people’s schedules and creates the opportunity for them to brainstorm together.

Knowing you are a part of a team creates a sense of responsibility. It gives you an incentive to work harder, knowing that missing a deadline would spoil the outcome for everyone.

⭕ What Do We Do Wrong?

Okay, now we understand the importance of setting deadlines.

But why, on average, are 6 out of 10 deadlines missed?

Here are the most common mistakes we make when working with deadlines.

We Take on Impractical Projects in the Given Time

You might think that working hard and working a lot are hallmarks of productivity. However, they are not. You must strategically plan your work to take advantage of your time.

Taking on a big project means devoting most of your time to it. Taking on several projects simultaneously means multitasking, which inevitably decreases your productivity. You must choose your priorities.

Plan your time wisely so that you have moments to rest and enough energy to work hard.

We Don’t Create Specific Incentives

You need to ask yourself two questions and answer honestly.

What happens if I miss this deadline? The answers might be range from receiving a bad grade to damaging your reputation or getting expelled.

What happens if I meet the deadline? You might have less stress and more free time. Also, you could receive a good grade or a pay raise.

We Use General Statements Rather Than Small Deadlines

Big goals sound great, but they don’t help you to achieve big things.

We’ll explain with this example:

Let’s say you decided to lose weight. “Lose 15 pounds this year” is a vague goal.

However, what if we said instead, “buy a gym membership; do three workouts a week; lose one pound each week.” Now, that is a clear goal that gives you a small, attainable deadline each week, so you’re more likely to stick to your plan.

We Don’t Consider Unpredictable Problems

This is one of the most common reasons for missing a deadline. Don’t overestimate your productivity, especially if you’re starting a new task. You never know what can happen. Being realistic is better than being too optimistic in this case.

Leave 25% of your time to unexpected circumstances. Don’t worry if you don’t need this extra time. It is always better to finish the task earlier than you expected.

❗ How Can You Meet Your Deadlines?

Now, we’ve gotten to the most exciting part of this article. How can we meet our deadlines?

15 Rules for Meeting Deadlines

• Create a list of deadlines and tasks. Even if you are a naturally responsible person, you can’t keep everything in your head. A simple piece of paper will help you to monitor your progress.
• Have a clear and detailed plan, complete with a timeline. You need to know what to do from the very start. Make sure you estimate the time for each of the steps. Complete your daily and weekly goals step-by-step.
• Divide your job into milestones. Set small deadlines for each part of your work and focus on them, not on the entire project.
• Use a timer or clock to track your productivity. This is the most straightforward instrument. Track your time for each task to know your approximate pace and schedule future tasks.
• Devote enough time to the task. Don’t think that you will be productive during the entire work period. You do need to rest from time to time.
• Don’t work overtime (unless it is a critical situation). You become less productive when you are tired. Give yourself scheduled times to rest.
• Create a reward system. Take a break each time you complete an important task or choose other rewards.
• Focus on the current step. Planning is an essential part of your work, but don’t get caught up in it. Avoid spending more time thinking about doing something rather than actually doing it.
• Use backward planning if you have little time. This means you should set a deadline for each milestone first and then think about how you can meet it.
• Keep your workplace clean. Keeping your area tidy will save you time and keep you organized. A neat space keeps your thoughts arranged too.
• Communicate and get feedback. Perhaps your supervisor or friend can look at your work with fresh eyes. Don’t be afraid to ask them for advice.
• Don’t create impossible deadlines . You might be very motivated and productive at first, but sooner or later, you will begin to feel burned out. Having stamina is more important than going at a fast pace.
• Set reminders. A mobile phone or laptop can become your saviors. Set push notifications or note events in a calendar according to your working plan.
• Create a team. People with similar goals and deadlines tend to work more productively together.
• Define the risks. Think of the difficulties that might arise in the process and make sure you can deal with them.

So, here are the main things we learned today:

Good luck and stay productive!

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Writing Deadlines: The Unlikely Secret to Creative Freedom

by Sue Weems | 0 comments

Do you know how to set your own writing deadlines to accomplish your dreams?  Learning to set and meet your own writing deadlines not only helps you get your work done, it provides creative and productive freedom.

Ruthanne wrote here about how a move helped her discover the power of deadlines . Joe heartily endorses setting your own deadlines with consequences as accountability (that's how he wrote his most recent book ).

I’m also a firm believer in deadlines.

Some will argue that creativity has no end point and that they can’t be inspired if there’s a timeline. If that mindset results in powerful writing and stories that resonate with readers as regularly as you’d like, then go forth and continue with the process that is working for you!

If, however, you can’t seem to finish in the time and manner you desire, a little deadline practice might be just the thing you need to propel your writing forward.

Why you need a writing deadline

I’m an instructor. My students regularly develop ideas, draft, revise, and submit their writing.

When I don’t set a deadline for assignments, guess how many students voluntarily turn in their work in a timely manner? Very few.

This probably sounds familiar if you’ve had a traditional school experience (adult working environments often work this way too!).

We tend to think we’ll have more time to do it later, or that we just need a little more research, experience, or coffee. (You probably do need more coffee.) Others believe they do their best work at the last minute, but sometimes that is because it’s the only time they write.

A deadline cuts down all those reasons and forces us to get to work.

Planning for a writing deadline

As I plan for student deadlines, I always make room for thinking and idea development for the writing project. We draft. Then we take several passes at the writing to revise.

I realized early in my teaching career that most students were going to spend about the same amount of time on a first draft whether they wrote it in one speed session the night before it was due or spaced it out over several days. Most students didn’t take the time to revise, because they didn’t know how or there wasn’t time after an all-nighter.

As a result, I began in-class writing sprints, telling students the first draft was due at the end of the period. Whining inevitably ensued, but guess how many students had a draft at the end of the period? All of them. Funny how a ticking clock activated the words.

If you are planning your own deadline, look at when you want the final draft done and then back plan, giving yourself time to revise, write, and develop the idea. (Pro tip: leave yourself a little more time for revision than you think you’ll need if this is your first time revising.)

When you blow a deadline

You might be thinking, “I’ve tried that before and I blew it. Deadlines don’t work for me.” Just because you miss a deadline on one writing project doesn’t mean they don’t work. It means you have an opportunity to grow.

I recently missed a deadline here at The Write Practice. I felt terrible, but I didn’t wallow in it. I apologized and did some self-evaluation. Why did I miss it? What could I do to avoid letting it happen again?

Consider that sometimes your writing deadlines are unrealistic. Manage those expectations more effectively and set a new, better deadline. Sometimes you are in a difficult writing or life season. Be honest about that and forgive yourself, knowing the situation will change.

The more you practice setting and meeting writing deadlines, the better you will get at estimating time and the amount of work needed.

The secret freedom of setting your own deadlines

My high school students claim to want independence, but they are just like me. I want the fun parts of independence without the responsibility. At the beginning of the year, I am the one who provides deadlines and due dates, but I slowly begin to turn that responsibility over to students as the year progresses. Why?

When they require someone else to set their deadlines, they aren’t really in control of their life and process. I’m the same way. If I know an article is going to take me an hour to write and another hour or two to edit, I can wait until the night before it’s due and stay up late to finish, or I can do it when it makes the most sense in my schedule.

Why wait for someone else to tell me when it is due? I take control of my creative process by setting my own writing deadlines.

When you ignore your own deadlines

For a long time, I set writing goals or deadlines for myself, and then I wouldn’t follow through. I thought maybe it was just me. I realized though that no one had ever taught me to push through the process.

I believe it was Tim Grahl who once talked about how he would push through procrastination and tell himself, “You need to do this now, because Friday-you isn’t going to have the time or energy.”

That resonated with me. I have since used it with students to help them think through to the end.

I also realized I couldn’t continue to ignore my own writing deadlines after completing a 60,000 word draft during NaNoWriMo a few years ago. I still needed about 20K to finish the story.

No one had a deadline on that book but me. If I hadn't set my own deadline, the book wouldn't be in revision right now. It would still be sitting on my hard drive — not even collecting dust like a respectable unfinished manuscript of old.

If you are still in the I-should-write-a-book stage, no one is going to give you a deadline. You have to do it for yourself. Accept that truth and find freedom in knowing you are in control of this part of the process.

Deadlines have a best friend: accountability

When you combine a deadline with another writer or group to hold you accountable , you will find yourself meeting writing deadlines left and right. When I first joined the Pro Practice Writing Community here at The Write Practice, I knew I needed to post something each Friday. Suddenly, I had a deadline and a group of people who checked on me.

If you need more help, you could work with a writing coach (see our Certified Book Coaches here !) who can help you break your project into more manageable parts and help you set deadlines. 

If you are struggling to set and meet your own deadlines, find a partner or group to help hold you accountable.

I still work under deadlines that others set for me, but I have found that more often than not, I can challenge myself to beat those deadlines by making my own.

What has been your experience with deadlines? Have you found them to be freeing or constricting? Share in the comments .

Today, we're going to practice setting and meeting deadlines. Here's your challenge: write 300 words in the next fifteen minutes .

If you have a work in progress, continue that. Or, use this writing prompt: Anna's biggest dance performance of the year is a week away. There's just one problem . . .

When your time is up, share your practice in the Pro Practice Workshop . Be sure to leave feedback for your fellow writers and spur us all on to meet our deadlines!

Sue Weems is a writer, teacher, and traveler with an advanced degree in (mostly fictional) revenge. When she’s not rationalizing her love for parentheses (and dramatic asides), she follows a sailor around the globe with their four children, two dogs, and an impossibly tall stack of books to read. You can read more of her writing tips on her website .

Work with Sue Weems?

Award-winning instructor and writer of 20+ years, book coach, and editor. Sue Weems specializes in working with Children's, Memoir, Middle Grade, Mystery, Nonfiction, Romance, and Thriller books. Sound like a good fit for you?

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College admissions

Course: college admissions   >   unit 4.

• Writing a strong college admissions essay
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Top tips for meeting urgent essay deadlines

(Last updated: 20 December 2023)

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We have helped 10,000s of undergraduate, Masters and PhD students to maximise their grades in essays, dissertations, model-exam answers, applications and other materials. If you would like a free chat about your project with one of our UK staff, then please just reach out on one of the methods below.

Do you have a (very) fast approaching deadline? Perhaps your essay is due today, or you have a dissertation deadline looming in just a few days. Well, you’re in luck. We’ve compiled some top tips from some of our most experienced academic writers, so you can learn how to write an essay (or other assignment) fast, without compromising on quality.

Sarah: look our for sneaky deadlines

The first thing I have learned about meeting extremely tight deadlines is, whenever possible, ,b>don’t let a deadline sneak up on you. I take pains not to knowingly let a deadline draw too near without having an essay well underway because I work better when I am not under too much pressure. Moderate pressure focuses my mind. But major deal of pressure? I simply freeze up.

Sometimes, though, a tight deadline is beyond your control. This has happened to me in education and in employment. As annoying as it might be, a short deadline in an educational setting is good preparation for life. For me, the major problem that I have when writing to a short deadline comes from taking pride in what I write. That may sound strange. Let me explain.

Because I take pride in my writing, I want whatever I have written to be the best it can be. That can easily change from being a source of motivation to being a dead weight.

An example: let’s suppose that I am required to write a 2,000-word analysis of a complex problem. It needs complete references, and it must be submitted before 5pm the day after tomorrow. I know perfectly well that, within that time frame, there is no realistic possibility that I’ll produce something that reflects my abilities and satisfies me. Quite simply, I have other responsibilities and plans, other commitments and deadlines, that aren’t going to just disappear so that I can work around the clock on this one thing. Even if I could work around the clock, my analysis would in the end be the worse for it. Working till half past stupid in the morning is one thing. But that’s a punishing regime and inevitably, if I work hours like that, the errors that I make multiply.

If you are a perfectionist, that quandary will probably sound familiar to you.

Experience has taught me to manage my expectations. Not everything that I write will be first-class. Experience has also taught me that’s not a problem. A competent, thoughtful analysis that meets the requirements and is submitted on time is perfectly respectable. Not everything has to be a masterpiece.

Think about it this way: when it comes to assessed work, will you get a better mark for a solid piece of work submitted on time, or a staggering work of genius submitted after the deadline? In many institutions, that would be a trick question: the moment the deadline has passed, electronic submissions close. What’s more, as far as most assessors I’ve known are concerned, nothing takes the glamour off a work genius quite like receiving it after you’ve already received a mountain of submission to assess.

It isn’t that I think complacency is a winning strategy. What I’m saying, rather, is that there are times when counsels of perfection ought to be ignored. “The best is the enemy of the good,” as Voltaire observed. So when I have a short deadline, I focus on the requirements and I meet them and I don’t kick myself later as if I have failed.

Varuj: the power of a really great outline

Time. We all wish that we had just a little bit more of it. Whether it is because there are multiple different assignments due , or whether it was because we spent a little bit too much time procrastinating and facing writer's block, there are instances where we need to write essays quickly.

When I first started writing essays, I would just sit down at the computer and start to write, especially if I was in a hurry. I gave little thought about how my paragraphs would be structured, and the idea of flow never crossed my mind. In these instances, my only focus was getting words down on paper, meeting the word count, and pressing that submit button at least one minute before the deadline.

This strategy rarely worked. My professors would comment that my work was disjointed, unorganised, and lacked critical thinking. I just sort of accepted these comments because I knew that I tried to write my essay quickly and I did not give it my best effort. Yet, as time has passed, I have learned a lot about how to write an essay fast. I have learned that even if I only have a few hours to write it in, an outline saves me so much time.

An outline is basically a short version of my essay, but the outline is like a skeleton, and I fill in the blanks as I go along. I start by breaking down the word count – let’s say I have to write 1500 words. I begin by allocating 10% for the introduction and conclusion (150 words each). This leaves 1200 words for my body paragraphs, so about 5 in total.

I then number out my sections, creating topics that I want to discuss. For each paragraph, I create a topic sentence, and then brainstorm some ideas that I think could fit well in this section. If there are course readings that I need to include, I mention these under each heading.

Once I have all my topics and a basic idea about what I am going to say, I rearrange the paragraphs into the most logical order, using the cut/paste function. Then, I pick what I think will be the easiest paragraph to write and I start there. After I have finished that paragraph, I move on to the next easiest, and then the next.

I never start by writing the introduction. I always write that last. This is because I want to make sure that my thesis or argument is consistent with what I have said in the body. If I want to appear like I put in a lot of effort, my introduction and conclusion have to match (in terms of the argument). Just because the reader will start with the introduction, it doesn’t mean that this needs to be my starting point.

While no method is perfect and will work for everyone, I have found that taking fifteen minutes to write a basic plan can save me hours of editing work later on. Instead of my work coming across disjointed, it now appears organised and ready for submission!

Simon: work out what you really want to say

You attended every lecture and seminar. You took notes assiduously. You did your reading. You even did extra reading. Yet, somehow, that end-of-term deadline slipped away from you. Now, it’s looming close. Too close! And you’ve Googled desperately and found this blog post. How to write an essay fast? How to finish an essay in 3 hours? I will be brief, because I know your time is precious.

Six words for you. No. Four words. My advice in four words, distilled from my twenty-year career in academic writing:

HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.

What? That's it?

That’s it. And here is why it’s important. The word ‘essay’ was originally a French word, coined in the seventeenth century, from essayer, meaning ‘to attempt, to try’. Not many people know that and it wouldn’t be important here.

Except, something of that original sense still lingers in people’s minds, when it comes to writing essays. Students, especially ones desperate to know how to write an essay quickly, latch on to that open-ended, free-form ‘try’. Pre-university schooling plays a role. ‘Just get something down’, teachers often say, ‘we can always tidy it up later’. What emerges, particularly when pressed for time, is a conception of the essay as an improvised piece of writing. It is one that you start without knowing how it will end. Your ideas will flitter onto the page like well-ordered butterflies. It’s a lovely thought. But it’s hugely debatable whether any of the great essayists ever wrote like this, or whether they just practiced that dashed-off, extemporised feel for literary effect. Ars est celare artem, after all. It is true art to conceal art.

I’m actually a huge supporter of drafting paragraphs, pages, and even entire chapters, as a useful way of thinking through complex ideas. But there is no place for this free-form and, quite frankly, self-indulgent thinking, when time is limited. A drafted, prototype ‘try’, done at leisure, can be mulled over, filed away, or even thrown in the bin. And all, in their way, are useful outcomes that propel you forward. But they take time – time you do not have.

If there’s a single route to how to write an essay in an hour, it is having something to say. Read your question, work out what your response is, the thirty-second elevator pitch version of it. The version that is stripped of introductory trappings, historical overviews, summaries of theories, and literature reviews. As soon as you have something to say , you can work backwards. You can work out a route through your given time and word-count as to how your essay can persuade its examiner of your something to say.

Plot that route, on a napkin. It’s easier to make big changes to an essay’s structure before it’s been written, rather than after. So take time with the napkin. It will, I guarantee you, save you time in the small hours of the morning, when you’re exhausted, over-caffeinated, and not at your sharpest. That napkin is your map, your north star. With it, you’ll never be lost for what to say next, or how to finish. With no decisions to be made, all you have to do is sit back. And now, write! Write furiously! Write, like you’re running out of time…

Nina: focus and scan

Picture the scene: you get an assignment from your professor. You then realise, in a slight panic, that the due date is just one week away. What's your approach?

Perhaps you pop on your "Mr/Mrs organised" hat and take your time planning everything out the moment the work is assigned. Or perhaps - and because you're reading this blog post I'll assume this is the more likely scenario - you have left things to the last minute, and now you need to write an essay fast.

My two top tips when it comes to writing an essay in a short deadline are simple: focus and scan.

Switch off your smartphone. Phone calls, social media updates, push messages – these are exactly what we don't need when we are writing an urgent essay. Smartphones are designed to hold our attention, to have us constantly scrolling or swiping. Remove the temptation altogether and either turn your phone off, turn it on to 'do not disturb' mode, or even download an app that locks your social media so that you can't access them, even if you are tempted.

Find a quiet working space. Background noise and distractions are a recipe for disaster if you're working to a tight deadline. Switch off the television, turn down the radio, and find a workspace that's private and quiet. If listening to classical music helps you concentrate, great! But having Friends on in the background or listening to your roommate on TikTok is only going to distract you further, so remove yourself from unnecessary noise and distractions wherever possible.

Don't panic. The more we panic, the more time we waste. It's the ultimate catch 22! You'll be far more productive if you feel cool, calm, and collected. So, take a few deep breaths, make sure you're aware of your deadline but not clock watching, and hunker down with your essay. Calmness helps you work much quicker and be as productive as possible in your limited time frame.

You've got three hours to finish your essay, and a requirement of using at least 10 scholarly sources. On the verge of hysteria, you realise that you simply don't have enough time to scrupulously study all of your sources. Here are three ways to effectively scan your literature and save time, without sacrificing your references:

Read the abstract. The abstract is key for anyone working to a tight deadline. The abstract includes all key information about the article and will help summarise which sections are worth looking through, and whether the article is even helpful or relevant to this specific essay you're writing.

Pick sections to read. As a rule, research articles have a rather rigid structure, and this structure will help you. It is likely that you'll find the required information in either the methods, result, or discussion sections, so head to these parts of the literature first and foremost to save time.

Make notes. Ideas come and go - they are fleeting. Keep track of what you're scanning - that is, note down the title of the article and the list of your findings. As thoughts and ideas come into your head, note these down too. This will help you to keep all your ideas for the essay in one place.

Working on a tight deadline is a difficult and stressful job. Both focusing on your work and scanning sources for ideas will help you save precious time, and enable you to quickly dig out ideas and generate those of your own.

Help is here

Everyone has different methods and techniques for getting academic work done in a hurry, and using all these tips above might not work for you. If one method speaks to you more than another, give it a go and see if helps you get your essay done quickly.

If you’re still feeling overwhelmed, have a look at our Urgent Deadlines Service. We can help you with any assignment – essay, dissertation, exam revision, coursework – in any way you need, whether that’s model writing, marking, editing, or proofreading. We can often deliver your work on the same day, which is ideal if your deadline is really tight. If you’re unsure exactly what you need, contact us and we’ll be happy to talk you through how it works.

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Advice for Writing Application Essays

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Advice for Writing Successful Application Essays

When you sit down to write your application essays, there is very little left that you can control. You should have already taken, or retaken, the SAT and ACT, your grades from your first three years of high school are set on your transcript, and your recommenders all have their impressions of you that are unlikely to change before the recommendation deadline. The only thing that left in your control is your writing for the application essay.

As with all things related to your college application, you will need to start drafting your application essay far ahead of the due date. In fact, you should move each school’s deadline up two weeks so that no unexpected events prevent you from completing and submitting your application. The reason that you need so much time to work on your essay is primarily because many schools will ask you to write about similar topics, but to do so in different ways. You will need enough time to draft essays that address each of these questions or prompts for each school to which you are applying.

Don't use boilerplate essays. That is, resist the urge to reuse the exact same essay for different schools if each of them is giving you a slightly different writing prompt. You can, of course, adapt the same essay for similar prompts. Many schools do allow you to use the Common Application essay for admission to several participating schools. For more information on the Common Application and to check which schools participate as members, click here .

Although using the Common Application does simplify the processes, make sure that you review each of the schools’ application requirements. as many of these same schools also request that you submit a second essay along with the Common Application essay. For instance, in addition to answering one of the standard Common Application questions, Amherst College asks that you write an additional essay responding to one of several quotations.

Before you can start writing your essay, you will need to begin by reading the prompts and questions carefully. Even the Common Application has six prompts that you can choose from. Don’t feel as though you must choose one immediately after reading them. You should ask yourself what sticks out the most for you after having read through them. Think about what is most salient for you.

Brainstorm by putting your thoughts on paper. You can free write (writing without stopping or censoring yourself), create word association maps (visually clustering concepts that you feel go together), or keep a journal over the course of several days so that you can collect your thoughts in one place. See the Purdue OWL's PowerPoint on “ Finding your Focus ” for more details on these strategies.

After you have generated several ideas, reflect on where you find the most intensity or excitement in what you were writing. If nothing jumps out at you, keep brainstorming or talk with others about some possible topics until something grabs you.

Once you know what want to write about, put a rough draft on paper. Don’t be afraid of stray thoughts if they lead you to something more interesting than you had set out to write. Just make sure that you eventually come to have a rough draft that is about one thing.

Look over your draft and check for the following.

• Your writing should be personal. After reading your essay, does it seem like anyone could have written this? Make sure that your essay captures who you are.
• You writing should show, not tell, through vivid language. Successful essays relate an experience or analyze a pattern from the writer’s life. It is not enough to make general claims about what impacted your decision to go to college, for instance; you must elaborate by including evidence that answers “how” and “why” when you make your claims.

It is important to note that admissions officers care as much about your structure, style, and insights as they do about your content. That is not meant to add an extra layer of anxiety to your writing process, but to highlight the fact that you don’t necessarily need to have something life-changing to write about in order to write a successful essay. As Dowhan, Dowhan and Kaufman note in Essays that Will Get You into College , “Personal does not have to mean heavy, emotional or even inspiring” (10). In fact, as the authors explain, students might over rely on the significant event that they write about to speak for itself and don’t “explain what it meant to them or give a solid example of how it changed them. In other words, they do not make it personal” (10).

Finally, your writing should be about a sustained topic. You must use vivid description with a purpose. What is it that you learned because of this experience? What message can you decipher from the series of events that you present? What led you to your conclusions?

Once you have completed your rough draft, put it away for a few days. Afterwards, read the question again and look through your essay. Ask yourself if the essay answers the prompt. Is it personal? Does it use vivid language? Is it focused on one topic? Rewrite whatever needs to be strengthened. This is a great time to have other people look through your draft and get their reaction. Make sure that you ask someone early, and that you trust this person’s judgment; they will be putting in a lot of time to help you, so don’t disregard anything that is inconvenient or that you don’t want to hear.

Again, giving yourself plenty of time to work on this essay is vital. You should have enough time to rewrite or restructure your essay based on the feedback that you have received. As you are drafting and revising, feel free to fix any mistakes that you catch in terms of spelling, grammar, and mechanics, but don’t spend too much time editing early on in the writing process. Working on lower-order concerns can give you the impression that the essay is ready to submit prematurely. Instead, use this time to strengthen the main points of your essay.

To supplement the advice offered on this page, you can find a handout on writing the admissions application essay here .

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When you apply to Stanford, you apply to the university as a whole, not to a particular major, department or school. We encourage you to indicate prospective majors and career interests in the application, but please know you are not bound by these selections in any way.

The Common Application includes essay prompts for your personal essay. In addition to the personal essay, we also require the Stanford Questions, which you can access and submit through the Common Application once you add Stanford University to your list of colleges.

The essays are your chance to tell us about yourself in your own words; there are no right or wrong answers and you should allow your genuine voice to come through. These questions help us get to know you as a friend, future roommate and classmate.

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Getting College Essay Help: Important Do's and Don’ts

College Essays

If you grow up to be a professional writer, everything you write will first go through an editor before being published. This is because the process of writing is really a process of re-writing —of rethinking and reexamining your work, usually with the help of someone else. So what does this mean for your student writing? And in particular, what does it mean for very important, but nonprofessional writing like your college essay? Should you ask your parents to look at your essay? Pay for an essay service?

If you are wondering what kind of help you can, and should, get with your personal statement, you've come to the right place! In this article, I'll talk about what kind of writing help is useful, ethical, and even expected for your college admission essay . I'll also point out who would make a good editor, what the differences between editing and proofreading are, what to expect from a good editor, and how to spot and stay away from a bad one.

Table of Contents

What Kind of Help for Your Essay Can You Get?

What's Good Editing?

What should an editor do for you, what kind of editing should you avoid, proofreading, what's good proofreading, what kind of proofreading should you avoid.

What Do Colleges Think Of You Getting Help With Your Essay?

Who Can/Should Help You?

Advice for editors.

Should You Pay Money For Essay Editing?

The Bottom Line

What's next, what kind of help with your essay can you get.

Rather than talking in general terms about "help," let's first clarify the two different ways that someone else can improve your writing . There is editing, which is the more intensive kind of assistance that you can use throughout the whole process. And then there's proofreading, which is the last step of really polishing your final product.

Let me go into some more detail about editing and proofreading, and then explain how good editors and proofreaders can help you."

Editing is helping the author (in this case, you) go from a rough draft to a finished work . Editing is the process of asking questions about what you're saying, how you're saying it, and how you're organizing your ideas. But not all editing is good editing . In fact, it's very easy for an editor to cross the line from supportive to overbearing and over-involved.

Ability to clarify assignments. A good editor is usually a good writer, and certainly has to be a good reader. For example, in this case, a good editor should make sure you understand the actual essay prompt you're supposed to be answering.

Open-endedness. Good editing is all about asking questions about your ideas and work, but without providing answers. It's about letting you stick to your story and message, and doesn't alter your point of view.

Think of an editor as a great travel guide. It can show you the many different places your trip could take you. It should explain any parts of the trip that could derail your trip or confuse the traveler. But it never dictates your path, never forces you to go somewhere you don't want to go, and never ignores your interests so that the trip no longer seems like it's your own. So what should good editors do?

Help Brainstorm Topics

Sometimes it's easier to bounce thoughts off of someone else. This doesn't mean that your editor gets to come up with ideas, but they can certainly respond to the various topic options you've come up with. This way, you're less likely to write about the most boring of your ideas, or to write about something that isn't actually important to you.

If you're wondering how to come up with options for your editor to consider, check out our guide to brainstorming topics for your college essay .

Help Revise Your Drafts

Here, your editor can't upset the delicate balance of not intervening too much or too little. It's tricky, but a great way to think about it is to remember: editing is about asking questions, not giving answers .

Revision questions should point out:

• Places where more detail or more description would help the reader connect with your essay
• Places where structure and logic don't flow, losing the reader's attention
• Places where there aren't transitions between paragraphs, confusing the reader
• Moments where your narrative or the arguments you're making are unclear

But pointing to potential problems is not the same as actually rewriting—editors let authors fix the problems themselves.

Bad editing is usually very heavy-handed editing. Instead of helping you find your best voice and ideas, a bad editor changes your writing into their own vision.

You may be dealing with a bad editor if they:

• Add material (examples, descriptions) that doesn't come from you
• Use a thesaurus to make your college essay sound "more mature"
• Add meaning or insight to the essay that doesn't come from you
• Tell you what to say and how to say it
• Write sentences, phrases, and paragraphs for you
• Change your voice in the essay so it no longer sounds like it was written by a teenager

Colleges can tell the difference between a 17-year-old's writing and a 50-year-old's writing. Not only that, they have access to your SAT or ACT Writing section, so they can compare your essay to something else you wrote. Writing that's a little more polished is great and expected. But a totally different voice and style will raise questions.

Where's the Line Between Helpful Editing and Unethical Over-Editing?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether your college essay editor is doing the right thing. Here are some guidelines for staying on the ethical side of the line.

• An editor should say that the opening paragraph is kind of boring, and explain what exactly is making it drag. But it's overstepping for an editor to tell you exactly how to change it.
• An editor should point out where your prose is unclear or vague. But it's completely inappropriate for the editor to rewrite that section of your essay.
• An editor should let you know that a section is light on detail or description. But giving you similes and metaphors to beef up that description is a no-go.

Proofreading (also called copy-editing) is checking for errors in the last draft of a written work. It happens at the end of the process and is meant as the final polishing touch. Proofreading is meticulous and detail-oriented, focusing on small corrections. It sands off all the surface rough spots that could alienate the reader.

Because proofreading is usually concerned with making fixes on the word or sentence level, this is the only process where someone else can actually add to or take away things from your essay . This is because what they are adding or taking away tends to be one or two misplaced letters.

Laser focus. Proofreading is all about the tiny details, so the ability to really concentrate on finding small slip-ups is a must.

Excellent grammar and spelling skills. Proofreaders need to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Good proofreaders should correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. They should put foreign words in italics and surround quotations with quotation marks. They should check that you used the correct college's name, and that you adhered to any formatting requirements (name and date at the top of the page, uniform font and size, uniform spacing).

Limited interference. A proofreader needs to make sure that you followed any word limits. But if cuts need to be made to shorten the essay, that's your job and not the proofreader's.

A bad proofreader either tries to turn into an editor, or just lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job.

Some signs that you're working with a bad proofreader are:

• If they suggest making major changes to the final draft of your essay. Proofreading happens when editing is already finished.
• If they aren't particularly good at spelling, or don't know grammar, or aren't detail-oriented enough to find someone else's small mistakes.
• If they start swapping out your words for fancier-sounding synonyms, or changing the voice and sound of your essay in other ways. A proofreader is there to check for errors, not to take the 17-year-old out of your writing.

What Do Colleges Think of Your Getting Help With Your Essay?

Admissions officers agree: light editing and proofreading are good—even required ! But they also want to make sure you're the one doing the work on your essay. They want essays with stories, voice, and themes that come from you. They want to see work that reflects your actual writing ability, and that focuses on what you find important.

On the Importance of Editing

Get feedback. Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College )

Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. This exercise reveals flaws in the essay's flow, highlights grammatical errors and helps you ensure that you are communicating the exact message you intended. ( Dickinson College )

On the Value of Proofreading

Share your essays with at least one or two people who know you well—such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or friend—and ask for feedback. Remember that you ultimately have control over your essays, and your essays should retain your own voice, but others may be able to catch mistakes that you missed and help suggest areas to cut if you are over the word limit. ( Yale University )

Proofread and then ask someone else to proofread for you. Although we want substance, we also want to be able to see that you can write a paper for our professors and avoid careless mistakes that would drive them crazy. ( Oberlin College )

On Watching Out for Too Much Outside Influence

Limit the number of people who review your essay. Too much input usually means your voice is lost in the writing style. ( Carleton College )

Ask for input (but not too much). Your parents, friends, guidance counselors, coaches, and teachers are great people to bounce ideas off of for your essay. They know how unique and spectacular you are, and they can help you decide how to articulate it. Keep in mind, however, that a 45-year-old lawyer writes quite differently from an 18-year-old student, so if your dad ends up writing the bulk of your essay, we're probably going to notice. ( Vanderbilt University )

Now let's talk about some potential people to approach for your college essay editing and proofreading needs. It's best to start close to home and slowly expand outward. Not only are your family and friends more invested in your success than strangers, but they also have a better handle on your interests and personality. This knowledge is key for judging whether your essay is expressing your true self.

Parents or Close Relatives

Your family may be full of potentially excellent editors! Parents are deeply committed to your well-being, and family members know you and your life well enough to offer details or incidents that can be included in your essay. On the other hand, the rewriting process necessarily involves criticism, which is sometimes hard to hear from someone very close to you.

A parent or close family member is a great choice for an editor if you can answer "yes" to the following questions. Is your parent or close relative a good writer or reader? Do you have a relationship where editing your essay won't create conflict? Are you able to constructively listen to criticism and suggestion from the parent?

One suggestion for defusing face-to-face discussions is to try working on the essay over email. Send your parent a draft, have them write you back some comments, and then you can pick which of their suggestions you want to use and which to discard.

Teachers or Tutors

A humanities teacher that you have a good relationship with is a great choice. I am purposefully saying humanities, and not just English, because teachers of Philosophy, History, Anthropology, and any other classes where you do a lot of writing, are all used to reviewing student work.

Moreover, any teacher or tutor that has been working with you for some time, knows you very well and can vet the essay to make sure it "sounds like you."

If your teacher or tutor has some experience with what college essays are supposed to be like, ask them to be your editor. If not, then ask whether they have time to proofread your final draft.

Guidance or College Counselor at Your School

The best thing about asking your counselor to edit your work is that this is their job. This means that they have a very good sense of what colleges are looking for in an application essay.

At the same time, school counselors tend to have relationships with admissions officers in many colleges, which again gives them insight into what works and which college is focused on what aspect of the application.

Unfortunately, in many schools the guidance counselor tends to be way overextended. If your ratio is 300 students to 1 college counselor, you're unlikely to get that person's undivided attention and focus. It is still useful to ask them for general advice about your potential topics, but don't expect them to be able to stay with your essay from first draft to final version.

Friends, Siblings, or Classmates

Although they most likely don't have much experience with what colleges are hoping to see, your peers are excellent sources for checking that your essay is you .

Friends and siblings are perfect for the read-aloud edit. Read your essay to them so they can listen for words and phrases that are stilted, pompous, or phrases that just don't sound like you.

You can even trade essays and give helpful advice on each other's work.

If your editor hasn't worked with college admissions essays very much, no worries! Any astute and attentive reader can still greatly help with your process. But, as in all things, beginners do better with some preparation.

First, your editor should read our advice about how to write a college essay introduction , how to spot and fix a bad college essay , and get a sense of what other students have written by going through some admissions essays that worked .

Then, as they read your essay, they can work through the following series of questions that will help them to guide you.

Introduction Questions

• Is the first sentence a killer opening line? Why or why not?
• Does the introduction hook the reader? Does it have a colorful, detailed, and interesting narrative? Or does it propose a compelling or surprising idea?
• Can you feel the author's voice in the introduction, or is the tone dry, dull, or overly formal? Show the places where the voice comes through.

Essay Body Questions

• Does the essay have a through-line? Is it built around a central argument, thought, idea, or focus? Can you put this idea into your own words?
• How is the essay organized? By logical progression? Chronologically? Do you feel order when you read it, or are there moments where you are confused or lose the thread of the essay?
• Does the essay have both narratives about the author's life and explanations and insight into what these stories reveal about the author's character, personality, goals, or dreams? If not, which is missing?
• Does the essay flow? Are there smooth transitions/clever links between paragraphs? Between the narrative and moments of insight?

Reader Response Questions

• Does the writer's personality come through? Do we know what the speaker cares about? Do we get a sense of "who he or she is"?
• Where did you feel most connected to the essay? Which parts of the essay gave you a "you are there" sensation by invoking your senses? What moments could you picture in your head well?
• Where are the details and examples vague and not specific enough?
• Did you get an "a-ha!" feeling anywhere in the essay? Is there a moment of insight that connected all the dots for you? Is there a good reveal or "twist" anywhere in the essay?
• What are the strengths of this essay? What needs the most improvement?

Should You Pay Money for Essay Editing?

One alternative to asking someone you know to help you with your college essay is the paid editor route. There are two different ways to pay for essay help: a private essay coach or a less personal editing service , like the many proliferating on the internet.

My advice is to think of these options as a last resort rather than your go-to first choice. I'll first go through the reasons why. Then, if you do decide to go with a paid editor, I'll help you decide between a coach and a service.

When to Consider a Paid Editor

In general, I think hiring someone to work on your essay makes a lot of sense if none of the people I discussed above are a possibility for you.

If you can't ask your parents. For example, if your parents aren't good writers, or if English isn't their first language. Or if you think getting your parents to help is going create unnecessary extra conflict in your relationship with them (applying to college is stressful as it is!)

If you can't ask your teacher or tutor. Maybe you don't have a trusted teacher or tutor that has time to look over your essay with focus. Or, for instance, your favorite humanities teacher has very limited experience with college essays and so won't know what admissions officers want to see.

If you can't ask your guidance counselor. This could be because your guidance counselor is way overwhelmed with other students.

If you can't share your essay with those who know you. It might be that your essay is on a very personal topic that you're unwilling to share with parents, teachers, or peers. Just make sure it doesn't fall into one of the bad-idea topics in our article on bad college essays .

If the cost isn't a consideration. Many of these services are quite expensive, and private coaches even more so. If you have finite resources, I'd say that hiring an SAT or ACT tutor (whether it's PrepScholar or someone else) is better way to spend your money . This is because there's no guarantee that a slightly better essay will sufficiently elevate the rest of your application, but a significantly higher SAT score will definitely raise your applicant profile much more.

Should You Hire an Essay Coach?

On the plus side, essay coaches have read dozens or even hundreds of college essays, so they have experience with the format. Also, because you'll be working closely with a specific person, it's more personal than sending your essay to a service, which will know even less about you.

But, on the minus side, you'll still be bouncing ideas off of someone who doesn't know that much about you . In general, if you can adequately get the help from someone you know, there is no advantage to paying someone to help you.

If you do decide to hire a coach, ask your school counselor, or older students that have used the service for recommendations. If you can't afford the coach's fees, ask whether they can work on a sliding scale —many do. And finally, beware those who guarantee admission to your school of choice—essay coaches don't have any special magic that can back up those promises.

Should You Send Your Essay to a Service?

On the plus side, essay editing services provide a similar product to essay coaches, and they cost significantly less . If you have some assurance that you'll be working with a good editor, the lack of face-to-face interaction won't prevent great results.

On the minus side, however, it can be difficult to gauge the quality of the service before working with them . If they are churning through many application essays without getting to know the students they are helping, you could end up with an over-edited essay that sounds just like everyone else's. In the worst case scenario, an unscrupulous service could send you back a plagiarized essay.

Getting recommendations from friends or a school counselor for reputable services is key to avoiding heavy-handed editing that writes essays for you or does too much to change your essay. Including a badly-edited essay like this in your application could cause problems if there are inconsistencies. For example, in interviews it might be clear you didn't write the essay, or the skill of the essay might not be reflected in your schoolwork and test scores.

Should You Buy an Essay Written by Someone Else?

Let me elaborate. There are super sketchy places on the internet where you can simply buy a pre-written essay. Don't do this!

For one thing, you'll be lying on an official, signed document. All college applications make you sign a statement saying something like this:

I certify that all information submitted in the admission process—including the application, the personal essay, any supplements, and any other supporting materials—is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented... I understand that I may be subject to a range of possible disciplinary actions, including admission revocation, expulsion, or revocation of course credit, grades, and degree, should the information I have certified be false. (From the Common Application )

For another thing, if your academic record doesn't match the essay's quality, the admissions officer will start thinking your whole application is riddled with lies.

Admission officers have full access to your writing portion of the SAT or ACT so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home. They can tell if these were written by different people. Not only that, but there are now a number of search engines that faculty and admission officers can use to see if an essay contains strings of words that have appeared in other essays—you have no guarantee that the essay you bought wasn't also bought by 50 other students.

• You should get college essay help with both editing and proofreading
• A good editor will ask questions about your idea, logic, and structure, and will point out places where clarity is needed
• A good editor will absolutely not answer these questions, give you their own ideas, or write the essay or parts of the essay for you
• A good proofreader will find typos and check your formatting
• All of them agree that getting light editing and proofreading is necessary
• Parents, teachers, guidance or college counselor, and peers or siblings
• If you can't ask any of those, you can pay for college essay help, but watch out for services or coaches who over-edit you work
• Don't buy a pre-written essay! Colleges can tell, and it'll make your whole application sound false.

Ready to start working on your essay? Check out our explanation of the point of the personal essay and the role it plays on your applications and then explore our step-by-step guide to writing a great college essay .

Using the Common Application for your college applications? We have an excellent guide to the Common App essay prompts and useful advice on how to pick the Common App prompt that's right for you . Wondering how other people tackled these prompts? Then work through our roundup of over 130 real college essay examples published by colleges .

Stressed about whether to take the SAT again before submitting your application? Let us help you decide how many times to take this test . If you choose to go for it, we have the ultimate guide to studying for the SAT to give you the ins and outs of the best ways to study.

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Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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Essays and Short Answer Prompts

The Penn application process includes a personal essay —which is sent to most schools you apply to—as well as a few short answer prompts . We read your words carefully, as they are yet another window into how you think, what you value, and how you see the world. Through your writing, we get a glimpse of what you might bring to our community—including your voice and creativity. 

Remember, you are the expert on your story. This is an opportunity for you to reflect and understand who you are now, and who you want to be in the future. You have the agency to choose the information you want to share. This is your story: your experiences, your ideas, your perspective.   

A Few Writing Tips

• Review the prompts thoroughly.  Be sure you’re answering the question or prompt being asked. Topics are chosen because the Admissions Committee wants to know specific things about you. If you don’t address them directly, we are left to make decisions regarding your application with incomplete information. 
• Consider your response carefully.  We understand that you may be writing responses for different schools and you may want to reuse material, but be sure to read through your response to make sure it is relevant to the prompt. 
• Double-check your writing.  Give yourself time to revisit your response. Try to avoid rushing your writing process so you have time to revise your work. Ultimately, it is up to you to polish and proofread your writing before you submit. 
• Do your research. Are there classes you’re eager to take? Research opportunities you’d love to pursue? A group or club you want to be a part of? This kind of specificity shows us you’re serious about Penn and have thought about how you’d spend your time here. 

2024-25 Short Answer and Essay Prompts

When answering these prompts, be precise when explaining both why you are applying to Penn and why you have chosen to apply to that specific undergraduate school. Some of our specialized programs will have additional essays to complete, but the  Penn short answer prompts should address your single-degree or single-school choice.  

• Write a short thank-you note to someone you have not yet thanked and would like to acknowledge. (We encourage you to share this note with that person, if possible, and reflect on the experience!) (150-200 words, only required for first-year applicants) 
• How will you explore community at Penn? Consider how Penn will help shape your perspective, and how your experiences and perspective will help shape Penn. (150-200 words) 
• The school-specific prompt is unique to the school to which you are applying. (For example, all applicants applying to the College of Arts and Sciences will respond to the prompt under the “College of Arts and Sciences” section). Considering the undergraduate school you have selected for your single-degree option, please respond to your school-specific prompt below.  

Transfer Essay (required for all transfer applicants): Please explain your reasons for transferring from your current institution and what you hope to gain by transferring to another institution. (4150 characters) 

Undergraduate School-Specific Short Answer Prompts

For students applying to coordinated dual-degree and specialized programs, please answer this question about your single-degree school choice; your interest in the coordinated dual-degree or specialized program may be addressed through the program-specific essay.  

Penn Nursing intends to meet the health needs of a global, multicultural world by preparing its students to impact healthcare through advancing science. How will you contribute to our mission of promoting equity in healthcare and how will Penn Nursing contribute to your future nursing goals? (150-200 words)

To help inform your response, applicants are encouraged to learn more about Penn Nursing’s mission and how we promote equity in healthcare here . This information will help you develop a stronger understanding of our values and how they align with your own goals and aspirations.

The flexible structure of The College of Arts and Sciences’ curriculum is designed to inspire exploration, foster connections, and help you create a path of study through general education courses and a major. What are you curious about and how would you take advantage of opportunities in the arts and sciences? (150-200 words) 

To help inform your response, applicants are encouraged to learn more about the  academic offerings within the College of Arts and Sciences .  This information will help you develop a stronger understanding of how the study of the liberal arts aligns with your own goals and aspirations. 

Wharton prepares its students to make an impact by applying business methods and economic theory to real-world problems, including economic, political, and social issues.  Please reflect on a current issue of importance to you and share how you hope a Wharton education would help you to explore it.  (150-200 words) 

To help inform your response, applicants are encouraged to learn more about  the foundations of a Wharton education . This information will help you better understand what you could learn by studying at Wharton and what you could do afterward. 

Penn Engineering prepares its students to become leaders in technology by combining a strong foundation in the natural sciences and mathematics with depth of study in focused disciplinary majors. Please share how you plan to pursue your engineering interests at Penn. (150-200 words)

To help inform your response, applicants are encouraged to learn more about Penn Engineering and its mission to prepare students for global leadership in technology here . This information will help you develop a stronger understanding of academic pathways within Penn Engineering and how they align with your goals and interests.

Coordinated Dual Degree and Specialized Program Essay Prompts

For students applying to coordinated dual-degree and specialized programs, please answer the program-specific essay below. 

** Numbers marked with double asterisks indicate a character count that only applies to transfer students applying through Common App.  

Discuss how your interests align with the Digital Media Design (DMD) program at the University of Pennsylvania? (400-650 words / 3575 characters**)

We encourage you to learn more about the DMD: Digital Media Design Program .

The Huntsman Program supports the development of globally minded scholars who become engaged citizens, creative innovators, and ethical leaders in the public, private, and non-profit sectors in the United States and internationally. What draws you to a dual-degree program in business and international studies, and how would you use what you learn to contribute to a global issue where business and international affairs intersect? (400-650 words) 

The LSM program aims to provide students with a fundamental understanding of the life sciences and their management with an eye to identifying, advancing, and implementing innovations. What issues would you want to address using the understanding gained from such a program? Note that this essay should be distinct from your single degree essay. (400-650 words) 

• Explain how you will use the M&T program to explore your interest in business, engineering, and the intersection of the two. (400-650 words) 
• Describe a problem that you solved that showed leadership and creativity. (250 words) 

Discuss your interest in nursing and health care management. How might Penn's coordinated dual-degree program in nursing and business help you meet your goals? (400-650 words) 

How do you envision your participation in the Vagelos Integrated Program in Energy Research (VIPER) furthering your interests in energy science and technology? Please include any past experiences (ex. academic, research, or extracurricular) that have led to your interest in the program. Additionally, please indicate why you are interested in pursuing dual degrees in science and engineering and which VIPER majors are most interesting to you at this time. (400-650 words) 

Sharing Additional Information

To be your own best advocate, you may give our Admissions Committee more context about you by sharing additional information in your college application. While this is not required, it can help give admissions officers a fuller picture of who you are if you are concerned about any missing information or context. Consider the following guiding questions as you decide to share any additional information:

• Is there additional context you want to provide about how your time is spent outside of the classroom?
• Do you have a long commute to school, or responsibilities within your home or community that may prevent you from engaging in certain activities?
• Has there been a big change in your life that has impacted your grades or participation in activities?
• Is there missing context about your school that you want to provide? 

The Common App Opens Today—Here’s How To Answer Every Prompt

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Writing the Personal Statement for the Common Application

Today, the Common Application opens for the 2024–25 application cycle. As the platform opens, officially signaling the start of the college admissions season, many students are starting the daunting process of crafting their personal statements. The personal statement is a crucial opportunity to showcase individuality, character, and intellectual depth. In only 650 words, students should seek to encapsulate their authentic voice and perspective through a compelling and creative narrative. The process requires thorough brainstorming, strategy, and editing in order to produce an essay that is distinct from those of thousands of other applicants vying for seats at top colleges.

As students choose a prompt and begin brainstorming essays, here are the key points to consider in order to create a stellar essay for each prompt:

1. The Meaningful Background Prompt

Prompt: Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

This prompt invites you to share an aspect of your identity or experience that is central to who you are. Start by thoughtfully considering aspects of your identity that are unique to you; then, try to think of a specific anecdote or experience that provides a portrait of those qualities. While detail and specificity are critical for all engaging essays, they are particularly important in this one, as you should show (rather than tell ) admissions committees the things that are quintessential to who you are.

Your essay should also have a takeaway—aside from just telling admissions officers what the background, identity, interest, or talent is, you should also focus on what you’ve learned from this piece of your identity, how it has developed over time, and how you will apply it in college and beyond.

NYT ‘Strands’ Hints, Spangram And Answers For Thursday, August 1st

What we know about simone biles’ earnings and endorsements as she competes for all-around gold in paris, russia releasing reporter evan gershkovich and ex-marine paul whelan in major prisoner swap, reports say, 2. the overcoming obstacles prompt.

Prompt: The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

This prompt is an opportunity to demonstrate resilience and the capacity to learn from adversity—qualities that elite universities value highly. Begin by choosing a specific incident where you faced a significant challenge or failure—this could be an academic setback, a personal loss, or a time when you were out of your comfort zone. Students often fall into one of two common mistakes when tackling this question. First, many students rely on cliches and overused tropes. Keep in mind that admissions officers will likely read hundreds of essays recounting stories of students missing the game-winning goal or flunking a test in sophomore English. Try to select a story that only you can tell, and if you choose a topic you worry might be popular among other students, consider how you might recount it in a unique and unexpected way. On the other hand, some students fall into the opposite problem, sharing about a particularly personal, traumatic, or triggering experience that impacted them. Though it should convey personal insights, the personal statement is still a professional document, and you should not make your reader uncomfortable or unsettled by the information you share.

Finally, note that admissions officers are not primarily interested in the challenge itself, but in how you responded to the challenge. Focus on the steps you took to overcome the obstacle, what you learned about yourself in the process, and how this experience has shaped your future actions and mindset. Highlight any new skills, perspectives, or motivations that emerged from this experience, demonstrating your ability to grow and adapt in the face of adversity.

3. The Changed Perspective Prompt

Prompt: Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

Top colleges seek to admit students who are willing to engage in critical thinking and who possess the intellectual courage to question norms or ideas. For this essay, consider beginning with an anecdote—starting the essay in media res can be an engaging way to catch the reader’s attention and quickly establish the stakes of your narrative. As you share your story, remember that the essay’s focus is to demonstrate your open-mindedness, your commitment to seeking the truth, and your willingness to engage deeply with complex issues. It also shows your ability to respect differing viewpoints while developing your own reasoned stance. As such, you should take the admissions committee through your process of growth and change step-by-step, clearly articulating how the experience impacted you and how your changed perspective will enhance their campus community should you enroll.

4. The Gratitude Prompt

Prompt: Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

Like the two prior prompts, this prompt requires students to share a particular anecdote, and students should consider beginning with their narrative before zooming out to explore the broader theme of gratitude. Start by recounting a specific instance where someone did something for you that made you feel unexpectedly grateful. This could be a small act of kindness, a significant gesture, or a moment of support that made a lasting impression on you. Then, explore how this experience of gratitude has affected your actions or attitude. As you do so, be sure to avoid platitudes or vapid buzzwords—rather than expressing that the experience made you feel “good” or “appreciated” or the equivalent, share how it has affected your perspective or actions going forward. The best responses are those that illustrate actionable change rather than fuzzy feelings.

5. The Personal Growth Prompt

Prompt: Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

A student’s college years are all about growth and transformation, and this prompt invites students to demonstrate their capacity for self-reflection and teachability. Thus, while this prompt might invite you to describe a major event or accomplishment, what you really want to show is a transformative period and the resulting reflection. Don’t feel as though the accomplishment, event, or realization needs to be especially earth-shattering or ground-breaking—sometimes the small things can make an impression in a big way. Finally, if you do choose to write about an accomplishment, be sure that you are not bragging. The prompt is an opportunity to show self-awareness, rather than to tout your achievements.

6. The Captivating Concept Prompt

Prompt: Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

Intellectual curiosity and authentic passion are distinguishing characteristics in the landscape of top college admissions. For this prompt, zoom in on a particular topic that genuinely fascinates you, whether it’s a specific academic subject, a philosophical idea, or a creative pursuit. Many students manufacture a response to this prompt based on what they assume will impress admissions officers—but if you aren’t truly interested in Kantian ethics, an admissions officer will be able to tell. However silly, mundane, quirky, or bizarre your “captivating concept” may be, if it’s true to you—write about it!

While your response should describe how a specific aspect of this topic captivates your interest and why it resonates with you on a deeper level, it should also demonstrate how you have taken the initiative to explore this topic in unique ways. Have you sought out books on the topic? Taken an online course to elevate your knowledge? Started a club to connect with others who share your interest? Developed a passion project that mobilized your interest in service of your community?

7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

If none of the above prompts allow you to effectively express yourself, remember that the Common App includes an open prompt, wherein you can write on a topic of your choice! This is an excellent opportunity to share a story that doesn’t fit neatly into the other prompts but is crucial to understanding who you are. If you choose to pursue this prompt, make sure your essay is well-structured and cohesive, with a clear theme or message that ties everything together.

The Common App essay is more than just a component of your application; it’s a chance to speak directly to admissions officers and present your authentic self. Taking the time to brainstorm and edit will allow you to submit an essay that showcases your unique voice and original perspective to admissions officers at top colleges.

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What to expect when Applying

  david graves        july 29th, 2024 in blog.

Senior year of high school is about to start, and UGA is on the list of schools you are considering. But what now? How do you make sure you are giving us the information we want, and how will UGA review your file? Over the last 15 years, I have shared a great deal of advice about the UGA Admissions process. For this admissions post, I will try to pull together some of the highlights that can hopefully be a resource for your admissions journey. Treat this as a form of my admissions greatest hits.

• a review of your academic work over the past 3 years, focusing mainly on core grades but also the required SAT/ACT scores.
• an analysis of how you have challenged yourself in your core HS classes (including senior year), with an added focus on your academic area of interest.
• a look at your activities and involvement during your HS years in clubs, sports, activities, etc., with a focus on depth over breadth.
• an understanding of your writing and creativity through your essays, but also through different creative outlets (music, robotics, debate, dance, etc.).
• an examination of your work ethic and maturity in and out of the classroom through all areas of the application, including recommendations.
• a review of your respect for others through your volunteer work, your interaction with others, and your areas of involvement.
• FYI – We are not restricting you to the exact years of 8th-9th grades, but rather the general timeframe of the middle to high school transition, which can extend somewhat further than one year on each end. Feel free to use your discretion in your choice of the timeline focused on the shift to your high school years.
• It seems like every high school has their own way of calculating a GPA, and there are hundreds of different grading scales out there. As such, UGA calculates our own UGA GPA that we reference in all the data points we share.
• We are only looking at core courses/grades (so English, Math, Science, Social Science and World Language work).
• We only add weight for AP, IB or AICE grades, as these are internationally standardized.
• We do look at all courses, including honors, dual enrollment, etc. in our review of a student’s course rigor, and we do look at senior courses in this review.

• We do not use Demonstrated Interest. If you apply, I assume you’re interested in UGA. That’s it for demonstrated interest by us.
• EA vs RD as a factor in the decision. We treat Early Action and Regular Decision applicants the same, just with different timeframes. If you are comfortable applying EA, apply EA. If you want more time, later test scores, etc., apply RD.
• UGA does not use race, ethnicity, gender or legacy status in our review (we haven’t for 30 or so years).
• We do not limit admission offers based on a specific high school, county, or geographic area (we do use GA residency in our review though).
• We do not make decisions based on your intended major. We do not have limits on the number of “X” majors we can admit, especially since enrolling students can change their major prior to orientation.
• For Early Action (EA) applicants, In-State students will hear in late November, and Out-of-State students will hear in early December (more exact details will be released closer to these dates).
• For Regular Decision and EA deferred applicants, the Final Decision date will be in early to mid-March.
• Admission decisions are released on a student’s admission status page, and they are released on Friday afternoons at 4 pm ET.
• Merit scholarship offers will be released starting in December or early January and going through early April.

Tags: admissions , file reading , freshman admission , GPA

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Ready to Write Your App Essays? Advice from an Admissions Counselor on the Notre Dame Supplement

Published: August 01, 2024

Author: Maria Finan

Now that the applications have officially opened for the 2024-2025 application cycle, you may be eager to dive into working on your essays. Hopefully, you’ve been able to spend some time thinking about your personal statement, which will be shared with all of the colleges you apply to this year. Like many universities, Notre Dame also has its own supplemental writing section , which gives applicants an opportunity to share more about themselves and what they’re looking for in their college experience.

You will respond to one (1) required short essay question and three (3) short-answer responses from the five options listed below.

You will have up to 150 words to respond to the short essay question, and 50-100 words to respond to the short answer questions.

There is no magic combination of questions that you should respond to—pick the prompts that will best enable you to share more about yourself, your values, and what makes you unique! We value each student’s distinct lived experiences and can’t wait to learn more about you from your supplemental responses.

If you’re struggling with what to write about, here are some suggestions to get you started!

The Short Essay - Required

Prompt: Everyone has different priorities when considering their higher education options and building their college or university list. Tell us about your “non-negotiable” factor(s) when searching for your future college home.

This question is as much about you as it is about what you’re looking for from your college experience.

Think about what you’re looking for in your future university.

• Do you want to attend a faith-based Catholic university like Notre Dame?
• Are you drawn to a school that has a strong community and residential life experience?
• Does your future home need to be a place where serving others and working for the betterment of society are important values?
• Are you someone who wants to conduct undergraduate research?
• Do you want a spirited environment full of tradition and an engaged student body?
• Are you seeking a collaborative academic environment?
• What programs or activities or opportunities are you specifically hoping to participate in when you get to college?
• What values do you hold that you hope your future institution will also exemplify?

There’s no right answer to this prompt, but if you take some time to think about it, there are likely a few things that are driving you to apply to Notre Dame. Take this opportunity to reflect on them and share how you hope to engage with such “non-negotiable” factors during your time as an undergraduate student.

The Short Answer Questions - Choose 3

How does faith influence the decisions you make?

If faith is a guiding force in your life, this might be one of the questions you’re most excited to respond to this year. As a Catholic university, Notre Dame is guided by our Catholic faith, social teachings, mission, and the Congregation of Holy Cross.

Each student’s faith journey is unique and we invite you to share how faith influences the decisions you make. Whether you’re Catholic, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Protestant, another religion, or have your own distinctive version of faith and spirituality, we are excited to hear about how you are guided by your faith.

You may also want to reflect on how your faith has shaped your own sense of mission and values for your life, the role those have played in the decisions you have made, and the path you are hoping to take in the future.

What is distinctive about your personal experiences and development (e.g., family support, culture, disability, personal background, community)? Why are these experiences important to you and how will you enrich the Notre Dame community?

There is only one you in the world and we want to hear about who you are and what has shaped you.

There are infinite life experiences that have helped make you who you are, so think about which people, places, communities, and life events have influenced your personal development. This is an opportunity to share your lived experiences with us and to reflect on how you hope to share who you are with the Notre Dame community. Don’t forget to tell us why this/these experiences have been so important in your life.

Notre Dame’s undergraduate experience is characterized by a collective sense of care for every person. How do you foster service to others in your community?

For students applying to Notre Dame through QuestBridge, this is the second question you will respond to on the Notre Dame supplement.

This question is asking you to reflect on how you care for your community. This may be through service work, advocacy efforts, research with a social justice dimension, allyship actions, policy or curricular change, or even by dedicating your time to your community.

Consider community in a broad sense—it could be your family, your neighborhood, your town or city, your peers, your school, a religious organization, a local service organization, or something else entirely. If you are dedicating your heart and time to others, you are likely fostering service in your community.

What compliment are you most proud of receiving and why does it mean so much to you?

This is an opportunity to share something that someone else has recognized you for (it doesn’t need to be an accomplishment; it can be for an action you took or a trait that you possess).

Oftentimes, the compliments that are most meaningful and memorable are those that we receive for being ourselves. You may want to share who complimented you or what prompted the compliment. This is a moment to let others speak to something important about you and to tell us why that matters so much to you.

What would you fight for?

With the Fighting Irish as our mascot, the Notre Dame community is all about “fighting” for what matters. The University has shared over 100 stories about members of the Notre Dame family who are fighting to bring solutions to a world in need.

This is your opportunity to tell us what (or who) you would fight for at Notre Dame, in your career, in your community, through your research, or in whatever other space in which you hope to make an impact.

Give yourself time to think and write. The best responses usually aren’t the ones written the night before the deadline. Take some time to think about which questions you want to respond to and what you want to share about yourself and then give yourself time to write (and edit)!

It’s always easier to write too much than too little. We’re asking you to be brief in your responses, but it’s often easier to write a little too much and edit your responses down to focus on what’s most important. Make the most of the space you have to respond to these prompts.

Don’t be afraid to pick a different question. You have to respond to the short essay prompt, but if you’re stuck on writing a response to one of the short answer questions, try writing something for one of the other questions. Sometimes, the questions you think you want to respond to may not be the questions you have the best responses to (it’s okay to try different prompts and pick the ones that best reflect who you are and what you value).

Be your authentic self. We want to get to know the real you. The best questions for you to respond to are the ones that reveal your true self. We don’t have favorite questions, but you might just write one of our favorite responses!

Get started on the Notre Dame Writing Supplement.

Maria Finan is a senior assistant director of admissions and counselor for the Bay Area, California, Northern California, Hawaii, Alaska, Hong Kong, and South China. Learn more.

News | Update: Oriel’s Liam Corrigan wins gold in rowing at Paris 2024 Olympic Games

Update: Oriel’s Liam Corrigan wins gold in rowing at Paris 2024 Olympic Games

Three Oriel athletes are medal contenders at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Update: Thursday 1 August, 11.32am. Edited: Thursday 1 August, 13.24pm.

Congratulations to Oriel’s Financial Economics alumnus Liam Corrigan (2021), who has just won gold for the USA in the men’s coxless four final at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

Update: Thursday 1 August, 8.26am .

Three athletes from Oriel College are currently competing at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

They are alumnus Liam Corrigan, current student Charlie Elwes and incoming graduate Tom Mackintosh.

Corrigan, rowing for the USA’s men’s coxless four, will compete in the final on Thursday, 1 August, at 11:10 BST.

Mackintosh will participate in the men’s single sculls final on Saturday, 3 August, at 9:30 BST. Previously, he won gold as part of New Zealand’s men’s eight in Tokyo.

Elwes, aiming for his second Olympic medal, will row in Team GB’s men’s eight final on Saturday, 3 August, at 10:10 BST.

Stay tuned for further updates.

John Donne’s personal copy of law book rediscovered in Senior Library

British composer elected visiting fellow in music at oriel college, oriel fellows’ spin-out oxford semantic technologies acquired by samsung electronics.