<p>If the Thanksgiving gathering at your household includes an anxious high-school senior sweating over college application essays, this advice from the University of Washington’s head of admissions, Phil Ballinger, might be helpful:</p>
<p> It’s an urban myth that it’s difficult for Washington students to get admitted to the UW, Ballinger says.</p>
<p>Nearly 60 percent of in-state freshmen applicants were admitted last year. Compare that to the University of California, Los Angeles, which admitted 19 percent of in-state freshmen who applied.</p>
<p>So if you think you’re on the edge, go for it anyway.</p>
<p>Ballinger thinks too many Washington students are self-selecting themselves out of the UW applicant pool: “Students sometimes are amazingly inept at assessing themselves.”</p>
<p> Those essays should you be agonizing over your words? Yes.</p>
<p>They’re truly important, Ballinger said, because they give the admissions staff a glimpse of the context and fabric of your life.</p>
<p>But he adds: “There is no right answer to written statements. There’s only your answer. Don’t try to guess what Philip Ballinger is looking for.”</p>
<p>Your essay should speak to “who you are, and what you’re going to bring, and what’s important to you.”</p>
<p> There is no single “right” college out there for you, Ballinger says. There are many colleges where a student can do well. Choose your schools well, but know that “if you don’t get admitted, honestly, you’ll get over it.”</p>
<p> With the deadline for incoming freshmen to apply to the UW coming up on Dec. 1, it may be a little late for this advice, but Ballinger offers it anyway: “Procrastination is evil. Students are awful procrastinators, and it gets them in all sorts of awful trouble.”</p>
<p>So get busy.</p>
<p>[UW’s</a> admissions director offers advice for applicants | Local News | The Seattle Times](<a href=“http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019705667_ballingerside19m.html]UW’s”>http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019705667_ballingerside19m.html)</p>
<p>Here is more about this guy: [Admissions</a> director holds key to UW’s door | Local News | The Seattle Times](<a href=“http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019705705_ballinger19m.html]Admissions”>http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2019705705_ballinger19m.html)</p>