Even five years after the fact, I still get emails from students who are considering CPC. Lots of these folks are looking for tips on the application process. I realize that my CPC archive is pretty spotty on the whole application process and my advice about it, so here’s a little mini-FAQ based on my own personal experience.

THIS IS IMPORTANT:
Remember gang, other than being an alum, I’m in no way affiliated with CPC. This advice is offered only as my personal perspective and your mileage may vary.

How important is my GPA/school?
I don’t know much about the GPAs of my fellow students. Many of them were ivy league graduates … but I certainly wasn’t, so that’s not necessarily important. I made it into CPC in 2001 as a graduate of a state school (University of Washington) with a 3.3 GPA.

What about the application essay?
I think that more important than your GPA is making yourself stand out from the other applicants. My impression is that the majority of applicants are recently graduated English majors who’ve worked for school publications and have little other formal publishing experience. If that sounds like you, focus on what you can do to make yourself stand out from that crowd. If that’s not you, then make your unique background clear!

Whatever you do, DON’T write your essay about how you’ve always loved reading books and want to bring that joy to others bla bla bla. My impression is that a huge number of application essays say the same thing: “I’ve always been a big reader and loved books…I can’t wait to be a part of the process of bringing great literature to others!”

Like any other kind of writing, keep your audience in mind. The people reading your essays are publishing industry folks who will be reading hundreds of pages of people saying how much they love books, bla bla bla. That’s pretty much a given. You love books! Of course you love books! Now, what ELSE makes you a candidate for the course? If you can keep that in mind and look for ways in which your interests in publishing can be expressed differently, I think you’ll probably stand a better chance of acceptance.

If you’re interested in reading my application essay/personal statement, here you go.

Lotus Magazine Autodidact
Columbia Publishing Course Personal Statement
Ariel Meadow Stallings 2001

Seduced by the fast and fun lifestyle of San Francisco, I took a year off from the University of Washington in 1996. Unfortunately, fast and fun proved also to be exhausting and unfulfilling, and by December I was burned out and felt unchallenged by my law firm clerk position. While out dancing one night, I inadvertently sat on a copy of Lotus Magazine. Thumbing through the magazine, I was drawn in by articles relating to my social scene (the then-vibrant rave culture), and stunned by articles that countered the frivolity of the rave community with pieces addressing activism, health, and spirituality. Lotus somehow walked the strange line of a rave magazine crossed with a youth outreach project. I spent the rest of my evening in the dance club’s restroom (the only room with decent lighting), reading the magazine cover to cover.

Despite the cocktail parties, raves, and endless hipster opportunities — or perhaps because of them — my intellect was atrophying, and I was looking for ways to keep my mind active during the year away from academia. Inspired by Lotus Magazine, in what was a then-uncharacteristic flash of self-awareness, I decided I would pursue writing and publishing in order to spread the inspiration to others and keep my intellect engaged.

After a month of unanswered phone messages at the Lotus office in Los Angeles, I finally reached the editor and began writing event reviews. Working with Lotus was never easy: the publisher hadn’t graduated high school; the editor was prone to explosive tantrums, including one which eventually resulted in his resignation and my appointment as Executive Editor; and the spelling-challenged designer liked to add “capptions” after final edits. Perhaps taking advantage of this shaky infrastructure, I quickly graduated from event reviews to feature writer, my first cover feature printed in August of 1997.

When asked recently how I’d “climbed the ladder” and become editor of Lotus, I answered, “I built the ladder.” I returned to the University of Washington fall of 1997, bringing Lotus with me and helping it find its first readers outside of California. I appointed myself Northwest Editor, promoted the magazine aggressively, and fielded calls from local writers, photographers, and advertisers. I convinced a University of Washington communications professor to sponsor an internship for the 20 to 30 hours a week I worked on Lotus, while maintaining a full course load and working nights.

After the founding editor resigned in the summer of 1998, I stepped in and built the editorial department from scratch. The publisher didn’t know the difference between spell-check and editing, let alone the distinctions of development editing, copyediting, and proofreading, so my work was cut out for me. I hired an editorial staff of three, established a Lotus style guide, and brought in over thirty new writers to bring our volunteer writing staff up to sixty. During my time with Lotus, the magazine doubled in length. Although Lotus paid roughly 15% of what I made freelancing for Amazon.com, Oxygen Media, and Wired Planet, the response from the readers made my time more than worth it.

I received an email from a 16-year old methamphetamine addict who read Lotus’ article on yoga, kicked her habit, and was practicing Hatha yoga three days a week. There was a letter from the parent who had picked up his son’s copy of Lotus, and was “amazed” by the “intelligent content” produced by a culture for which he previously had little respect. There was the letter from a United Methodist reverend and former mayor of Santa Monica who complimented our coverage on mentoring, and asked if he could contribute articles. He is now a regular columnist, and a trusted friend.

While working with Lotus Magazine I was an active autodidact, teaching myself and absorbing all the information I could find. I grew with the magazine as it evolved from a newsprint “zine” with a California-only distribution, to a 100-page full-color glossy with a distribution of 32,000 nationwide. I’ve learned how to coax work out of writers I can’t pay (respect, encouragement, and flattery). I’ve learned how to cut a bloated 1800 word article down to 900 words without losing the intent of the piece or offending the author. Since the Lotus office was in Los Angeles, I was in Seattle, and the writers were scattered around the globe, I also learned how to telecommute. I’ve learned that I don’t just want my words to educate or inform — I want them to inspire. I’ve learned so much that now I’m teaching people…and yet I’m acutely aware of how much I have to learn.

Four years after first pulling Lotus from underneath me at a smoky club, I’ve outgrown the magazine that cultivated my publishing career: I resigned from my position in January and have focused on my freelance work and looking toward the Columbia Publishing Course. I learned a great deal from Lotus, but I did it all without the advantage of any formal training in the publishing field. This renegade self-directed education needs some fine-tuning, and the Columbia Publishing Course is the ideal opportunity for me to see which rules I’ve broken, and learn the ones I missed.