Okay so this book was very upfront and honest. It helped me figure out how to go about getting into a grad school and helped with my essays when nothing else could help. Great book, if you are trying for a grad school you'll really want this ( )

It is good to have an idea of what a successful essay looks like before submitting one yourself. It is difficult to find real-life essays online, and this book is packed with examples of successful essays. The book won't take away the difficult process of introspection required for writing a good admissions essay, but I see this book helping to confirm that the end result is similar to what has been accepted in the past.

I received this book as an Early reviewers book selection winner.

I have two boys in the midst of starting the college preparation process and this book is going to be very helpful. Many great essays from real students who got in some of the top schools. This book with be a useful resource and tool for my sons to create their own essays. ( )

This "guide" to graduate admissions essays is 90% made up of sample essays. Granted, these are essays that received successful admittance to the given schools, and examples are often the most important part of learning how to write these essays, but I was disappointed with the dearth of actual writing tips or steps in a book called a "guide." Each essay does include sidebars with tips from the individual writers, but these tend to be short, obvious, and often too abstract to be helpful. Most of the essays are for admittance into medical, law, and business schools also, which I tend to consider separately from graduate schools. There is a separate section for "general graduate studies," but I would think this book would be more useful to an aspiring law or business student than an aspiring humanities student. The essays also tended to be very personal in nature, which my master's program gave me to understand was NOT what was desired, at least for Arts & Sciences PhD admissions. Overall, this might be helpful to that law or business student, but for those who really need a step-by-step writing guide or are seeking insight into what to write for a humanities graduate program, look elsewhere. ( )

Graduate admissions essays are such an important part of the admission process. This book, which contains a series of real-life essays for applications to various selective graduate programs, provides a very useful reference for anybody dealing with this issue. It will not provide any solution but could help to establish a certain framework for writing their own essays. ( )