College Admissions Essay Writing Tips
Writing is not a science—so there is no sure fire step-by-step to writing a college admissions essay.
But here are some ideas to help you put pen to paper.
Make sure you answer the question. If you don’t actually answer the question that is asked of you, it won’t matter how well your essay is written. College admissions officers are looking for strong writing, but also your ability to stay focused and clear and your reasoning skills. So stay on point.
Be original. Even if you have a generic admissions essay topic like your goals and accomplishments, you can jazz it up by writing creatively. For example instead of saying: “I work at Walmart to earn some extra money, you can say: “My family does not have a lot of money. I worked at the local Wal-Mart most evenings and did my homework on the bus ride home or after work.”
The second sentence is much better. Now the admissions officer know that you were very busy and can feel the squeeze of needing to earn money and still get your school work done.
Be yourself. Admissions officers want to learn about you and your writing ability. Write about something meaningful and describe your feelings, not necessarily your actions. If you do this, your essay will be unique. Many people travel to foreign countries or win competitions, but your feelings during these events are unique to you. Unless a philosophy or societal problem has interested you intensely for years, stay away from grand themes that you have little personal experience with.
Show don’t tell. Use imagery, vivid and clear words to make your application essay jump off the page. Admissions officers have hundreds of essays to read, so you want to make yours stand out. The application essay lends itself to imagery since the entire essay requires your experiences as supporting details. Appeal to the five senses of the admissions officers.
Introduction. Your introduction is the most important part of the essay. That’s your hook, line and sinker. Admissions officers only spend about 1 to 2 minutes reading your essay—so you’ve got to grab their attention from the start. So don’t just summarize what you are going to say in the body of your essay, then what would be the point of reading your essay if the reader can glean everything from your first paragraph. Instead create mystery and intrigue to entice the admission officer to read more.
Body of text. Your body of the text must relate to your introduction and should illuststrate your point. Use lots of examples and imagery that support your main argument. Use transition words like ‘therefore’, ‘consequently’, ‘as a result’ etc. to help your sentences and paragraphs flow.
Conclusion. The conclusion is your last chance to persuade and impress the admissions officers so make it count. Tie up all lose ends. You essay should take your reader on a journey and the conclusion should show what you have learned and how they fit into a larger picture. So you might want to expand upond the broader implications of your discussion, or bring back an idea that you brought up in your introduction and bring it to a new level. Other ideas is to redefine a term used in your body paragraphs.
Take a break. Once you have finished your first draft, take a break from looking at it for a few days so that you come back to it with fresh eyes. You might have new ideas, or see things that can be improved upon.
Give others a draft. Ask one or two people that you trust to read your work. (You don’t want to ask to many people because too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth.)
Ask editors to read with these questions in mind:
- What is the essay about?
- Have I used active voice verbs wherever possible?
- Is my sentence structure varied or do I use all long or all short sentences?
- Do you detect any cliches?
- Do I use transition appropriately?
- Do I use imagery often and does this make the essay clearer and more vivid?
- What’s the best part of the essay?
- What about the essay is memorable?
- What’s the worst part of the essay?
- What parts of the essay need elaboration or are unclear?
- What parts of the essay do not support your main argument or are immaterial to your case?
- Is every single sentence crucial to the essay?
- What does the essay reveal about your personality?
- Could anyone else have written this essay?
- How would you fill in the following blank based on the essay: “I want to accept you to this college because our college needs more ________.”
Revise, revise, revise. You only are allowed so many words; use them wisely. Even the best writers need to edit their work. Don’t forget to check for spelling, grammar and punctuation. These types of mistakes can indicate to the admissions officer that you don’t proofread and you are not detail oriented. Allow for the evolution of your main topic. Do not assume your subject must remain fixed and that you can only tweak sentences.
Editing takes time. Consider reordering your supporting details, delete irrelevant sections, and make clear the broader implications of your experiences. Allow your more important arguments to come to the foreground. Take points that might only be suggested and make them explicit.
Good luck! For more brainstorming strategies for college admissions essays check out our two posts:
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 19th, 2008 at 1:40 pm and is filed under Applications, College admissions essays. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
June 20th, 2008 at 9:29 am
“Be original” is great advice–after all, you may be writing only one essay for a college, but your reader has waded through hundreds! That said, you should be careful about taking “be original” to mean “be funny,” since your reader may not share your sense of humor or might not appreciate your levity.
Eva Holtz
http://www.college-admissions-secrets.com
June 20th, 2008 at 11:49 am
[…] College Admissions Essay Writing Tips […]
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:12 am
Thanks !