u/Honest_Guarantee7997 — reddlx

I’ve worked in college admissions consulting for 9 years—before that, my creative writing landed me full rides to USC and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. If you’re a high school writer (or a potential transfer student), here is everything you need to know to leverage your passion into top-tier acceptances.

(0) The Baseline. This should go without saying, but if you’re serious about writing and want to do it in college, you should be reading and writing ALL THE TIME. I cannot stress this enough: you will have to crank out SO MANY god-awful drafts before you get a single good one. Reading voraciously can speed up this process, but your goal is to get all of those embarrassing beginner drafts out of your system as quickly as possible. (I love this Kurt Vonnegut letter for motivation.) Keep a physical notebook in your pocket—there are lots of cool neuroscience studies showing how handwriting > typing for info retention—and eavesdrop all the time, on the bus, in the grocery store, in the locker room, wherever. Lauren Groff wrote, “I have held every human I’ve ever met upside down by the ankles and shaken every last detail that I can steal out of their pockets.” Writers are just magpies collecting shiny things. Embrace your inner magpie!

(1) Hone Your Craft. Whether you write poetry, fiction, creative non-fiction, or some combination, you should be writing, revising, and submitting like crazy. Know that you will get rejected…over and over and over again. At first it sucks, but eventually it won’t even phase you—when I was working on my first collection, Atrophy, it felt like I was getting 20 “no”s for every 1 “yes.” But even the most successful poets and authors get rejected at 90%+ rates; F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ray Bradbury both famously used their rejection letters as literal wallpaper. But to colleges, the very act of sending your work out at your age will demonstrate initiative and publishing industry know-how. You should become super familiar with Submittable (the go-to submissions platform), Duotrope (the essential lit mag / contest database and submissions tracker), and Lit Hub (the online writers’ “town square”)—doing so, you’ll already be ahead of 95% of your peers. Then, when you feel ready, submit short stories and/or batches of 3-5 poems to 5-10 literary magazines apiece, and once you land a few acceptances (again, likely after a million rejections), build yourself a simple website where you keep track of them. While you’re doing this, check out contests like the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, the YoungArts National Arts Competition, and the Bennington College Young Writers Awards (and similar ones for young writers), but again, you don’t need to win any of these; they’re just nice feathers in your cap (and chances to meet other writers for part (2) below). You can also apply to prestigious summer programs like the Iowa Young Writers’ Studio, the Kenyon Review Young Writers program, and the Sewanee Young Writers’ Conference (ofc this list is non-exhaustive, there are a ton of them). Generally, the more selective the program, the more it’ll boost your college chances.

(2) Build Community. Writing is often thought of as a lonely pursuit: just you, your thoughts, and the page. Unfortunately, that kind of lone-wolf attitude is the farthest thing from what elite colleges want. In addition to the above, to leverage your writing skills into elite college / grad school acceptances, you have to shift from a solo practitioner to a community-builder, practicing what writers call “literary citizenship” (i.e. looking out for your fellow writers). Here are my 3 favorite pathways to getting there that I’ve seen consistently land T20 acceptances over the last 9 years:

(2a) The Literary Magazine / Indie Press. Become editor-in-chief of your own journal or press. All you need for this is attention to detail, a tiny bit of web design (you’ll need a simple website), and confidence in your own taste (see point (0)). Solicit work from other young writers at your school, on Reddit, or elsewhere (see above). You can publish weekly, monthly, every semester, or tbh whenever you feel like it in print form (self-publishing on Amazon KDP is the easiest, and they’ll even assign you an ISBN and barcode on the back cover) or 100% digitally. Find student artists to contribute photos / art pieces for the cover art and/or magazine pieces—many of the coolest lit mags publish art alongside writing, which adds diversity. If you want, you can also identify a greater thematic cause (e.g. climate change, homelessness, animal rights) and gear your lit mag specifically towards championing it.

If, instead, you go the indie press route, you can publish what’s called “chapbooks” (think: mixtapes for writers) of poetry, prose, and/or visual art. Either way, celebrate every issue or chapbook release with a reading event at a local bookstore, cafe, park, someone’s house, or your school; invite friends to participate in an open mic for the first half and you’ll secure strong attendance for the second half, in which your authors will read from the newly released issue / chapbook. Doing all this shows colleges that, should they admit you, you’ll likely continue platforming other young writers on their campus. PS This can (but absolutely doesn’t have to) be an “official” school activity. But if your school already has a lit mag and therefore admin won’t let you, start your own anyway! That’ll make for a strong personal statement narrative later on.

(2b) The Writing Workshop. Become founder of your own generative and/or critical workshop. If you’re more into writing and teaching than publishing, this is for you. The quintessential “Iowa Model” from my MFA alma mater mandates that 8-12 writers meet weekly and share detailed feedback on 2 poets’ or 1 fiction writer’s work during a 1.5-hour workshop session in which (this is important) the writer is not allowed to speak. No defending your work, explaining “what I meant was…,” or justifying anything. When it’s your turn to be workshopped, you just sit in silence and take notes while everyone else discusses your work (this can be brutal, so the workshop leader needs to be confident enough to police critiques’ tone / cut off unhelpful meanness), and then everyone will give you a 1-page written breakdown of their thoughts. This level of criticism can be intimidating, and only works if you know a lot of other dedicated writers, so if you’re leading more beginners, instead I’d recommend launching a generative workshop: one where you all meet weekly and sit down for 1-2 hours (in person or virtually) to explore a shared writing prompt together and then, if folks feel brave, at the end people can share some of what they’ve gotten down. This demonstrates to colleges that you’re not just a writer, but an educator, someone who will continue to uplift your fellow writers in college and beyond.

(2c) The Artists’ Collective. For the freaks out there, become a creative director: get all your weirdo artsy friends together and come up with a name to call yourselves. Then, make cool collaborative art. It’s that simple! When I was in college, I joined an artists’ collective that included dancers, musicians, singers, painters, ceramicists, DJs, VJs, poets (like me), actors, and performance artists. We were a weird bunch. Every semester, after agreeing on a unified theme—something like “Earth,” or “Death,” or “Color”—we would all work on individual pieces exploring that theme, inviting other members to collaborate if they had something cool to offer, all building towards a final exhibition or performance for which we’d sell tickets. The result was always this big, amazing showcase that earned thousands of dollars (some of which we’d donate to causes we cared about) and gave all of us profound memories and experience performing. This project works best if you know a bunch of creative people, but not all writers—the beauty of an artists’ collective is it can include literally anyone who’s creating anything. You can even bring in coders or web designers. This project proves to colleges that you’re a community organizer who will foster similar creative spaces for students on their campuses, thus boosting their culture and prestige.

(2d) (The Secret Option). This won’t be as impressive as the other three literary citizenship projects, but is a closely kept secret in the creative writing world, and it can be done alongside the others: you can v often get free copies of books before they get published. If you’re an intensely devoted reader, start reading book reviews as much as possible, too; Lit Hub runs Book Marks, which is basically Rotten Tomatoes for literary fiction (and some poetry). Then, once you’re ready, you can start writing your own. “Why should I do this?” you may ask. To get your hands on Advance Reader Copies weeks or months before new books are released!! If you reach out to any writer’s agent or press team, introduce yourself as a young writer and reviewer, and pitch a review (which you’ll later submit to literary magazines), 9 times out of 10 they’ll straight up send you a free ARC. In the literary world, these are GOLD—how many ARCs you have on your bookshelf is a sign of how cool you are. And, as you read, review, and publish more, you’ll find that your own writing sharpens, too. All of this will look impressive as hell to college admissions officers.

(3) Your Narrative. By the time you’re filling out your college apps, ideally you’ll have published at least a couple of your own pieces, maybe attended a summer workshop or won an award or two, launched one of the above “literary citizenship” project that platforms / supports your fellow writers and artists, and, in the process, knocked out all your embarrassing early drafts and familiarized yourself with the wider writing world so that in college you can really hit the ground running. And, if you do all this and somehow still end up getting rejected…well, at least you’ll have gained the writing skills necessary to publish your bestselling debut detailing your experience 🙂