College Essays

College Essays Visit our Writing Lab for more writing tips, pertaining both to your college essay, and to the array of other writing challenges you’ll face in college or graduate school. This advice applies to most creative writing situations. I finished right before my first deadline on October 15, and hardly touched my Common App essay afterwards. While I met my deadlines, I remember desperately wishing during late-September and early-October that I had finished at least the first draft of my Common App essay before school started. I wish I had kept in mind that college applications were not my only priority during senior year and planned more proactively accordingly so I that wouldn’t get stressed out. Some schools will tell you that two separate readers evaluate every essay in its entirety. Throughout the process, I also had several close friends read my drafts. It told a story of the struggle between two cultures that many immigrant students experience, and furthermore, it didn’t reveal anything about me that felt unique or essential to my personality. I didn’t want to be labelled as just another Asian immigrant by college admissions. I started brainstorming as early as June before my senior year, but I didn’t actually start writing my first draft until mid-August. Statistical websites like College Factual are tremendously helpful here as well, as are blogs from current and former students, Vlogs, Instagram feeds â€" anything and everything is fair game. Cite a wide range of sources in your essay to show the depth of your research. Inzer also encourages students not to stress too much over the essay and put unnecessary weight on it as part of their college application. While a strong essay may elevate a candidate in a crowded field, she says it doesn’t make or break an application. “The essay really needs to be the student’s work. I encourage students to ask people close to them to read the essay and ask ‘would you know this essay is about me? But make sure it’s still your voice,” Richardson says. While St. Johns College may ask for more in-depth answers, other schools value brevity, challenging students to write concisely. One such example, shared by Tufts, takes the reader from the student’s love of origami to a passion for science in less than 250 words. Some colleges require a supplemental essay in addition to the personal essay. Typically, admissions pros note, these essays are shorter and focus on answering a specific question posed by the college. “You can think of the essay as the soul of the application. The bottom line is that they may be getting 25,000 applications, and they simply don’t have time to sift through essays and recommendations. There are so many terrific free resources online â€" just google “brainstorming college essay” and you’ll be pleased with what comes up. Also, look at the Common Application essay promptsâ€" one of them will speak to you, but you need to really read them. Kids are quick to eliminate a prompt, but I always ask them to go back and rethink. Ask smaller questions around the prompt to get at exactly what you want to write about. Reading the school’s website is not a bad start, as it will give you a basic overview of what’s on offer. Keep an eye peeled for course listings, recent news events, maps and descriptions of important campus buildings, student run organizations, and other key terms. Then take those terms and plug them right into Google, Youtube and Linkedin! After reading links on the things that interest you, you’ll understand it almost as well as someone at the school! Given volume, staff sizes, and compressed timelines between application deadlines and decision release, that seems at worst a blatant lie, and at best an incredibly inefficient process. However, if you’re applying to an Ivy League school or a smaller liberal arts college, then they’re really looking at the whole package and the essay can be very important. At some of these schools, there are very few students who don’t have near-perfect test scores and GPAs, so how do you stand out? The other subject to handle delicately is loss or tragedy. Colleges want to admit students who are ready to be successful members of their community. In our College Essay Clichés to Avoid post, we advised students against writing about moving to America from a foreign country. DEEP WEB RESEARCH. This should be the heart of your essay, as well as the meat and potatoes. They’re looking at your essay, recommendations and activities to understand the whole picture of you. It all depends on where you’re applying, your grades and your test scores. If you’re applying to a large state institution, and your numbers are strong relative to their average student body, then you’ll get in on the strength of your four years of hard work.