Tips

 

Tip 1. College essays are fourth in importance behind grades, test scores, and the rigor of completed coursework in many admissions
office decisions (NACAC, 2009). Don‘t waste this powerful opportunity to share your voice and express who you really are to colleges.
Great life stories make you jump off the page and into your match colleges.
Tip 2. Develop an overall strategic essay writing plan. College essays should work together to help you communicate key qualities and
stories not available anywhere else in your application.
Tip 3. Keep a chart of all essays required by each college, including short responses and optional essays. View each essay or short
response as a chance to tell a new story and to share your core qualities.
Tip 4. Look for patterns between colleges essay requirements so that you can find ways to use essays more than once. This holds true for
scholarship essays.
Tip 5. Plan to share positive messages and powerful outcomes. You can start with life or family challenges. You can describe obstacles
you have overcome. You can reflect on your growth and development, including accomplishments and service. College admissions
officers do not read minds, so tell them your powerful life stories.
Tip 6. Always write in the first person. Remember, these are autobiographical essays, even when you talk about other people. Remember
the colleges are looking to accept you, not your relatives. So use the one third and two thirds rule. If you choose to write about someone or
something else, you must show how it affected you for the majority of the essay. Your essays show colleges why you belong on college
campuses and share how you will enrich diverse communities.
 
Tip 7. Tell unique stories that only belong to you. Follow Dr. Joseph‘s Into, Through, and Beyond approach. Lead the reader INTO your
story with a powerful beginning—a story, an experience. Take them THROUGH your story with the context and keys parts of your story.
Make sure the reader understands your initiative, leadership, development, and continuity. End with the BEYOND message about how
this story has affected who you are now and who you want to be in college and potentially after college. The beyond can be implied in
many pieces that are so strong that moralizing at the end is not necessary.
It is not just the story that counts.
It‘s the choice of qualities a student wants the college to know about herselfTip 8. Use active writing: avoid passive sentences and
incorporate power verbs. Show when possible; tell when summarizing.
Tip 9. Have trusted inside and impartial outside readers read your essays. Make sure you have no spelling or grammatical errors.
Tip 10. Most importantly, make yourself come alive throughout this process. Write about yourself as passionately and powerfully as
possible. Be proud of your life and accomplishments. Sell yourself!!!
 
What are colleges looking for?

Duke’s Guttentag says that colleges are looking for stories that are genuine, interesting, specific and written in a 17-year-old voice.

“Students do not need to compile an entire season into an essay,” said Lorenzo Gamboa, associate director of undergraduate admission for Santa Clara University. “Just give us one place, one time, one moment, and that will do it for you.

“The key is to show genuine passion, commitment and that they have what it takes to survive at the school.”
 
Tamara Siler, senior associate director for admission at Rice University in Houston, agreed that the essay should show something unique about the student. But, she cautioned, unique does not necessarily mean earth-shattering.
 
“We want your personal, specific story so your unique voice comes through,” Siler said. “Everybody has had some uniqueness. Students think it has to be a discussion of their most traumatic experiences. If you have a relatively peaceful existence, that is fine. Focus on a moment you feel has defined you as a person, and as a student.”
 
Remember, a little reflection goes a long way.
 
Brown University‘s Assistant Director of Admissions Matt Price said Brown reads essays looking for “someone who gives us insight into who they are, not what they think we want to see.”

 

Checklist

Source: http://getmetocollege.org/

  1. Does your essay start with a story that hooks us in from the first paragraph?
  2. If you start in the past, do you get to the present very quickly? Colleges want to know about the recent you. Great essays can start more recently and weave in past events.
  3. Do you write only in the first person and not spend too much time describing anyone or anything else? Use my one-third-two-third rule. You may not spend more than 1/3 of the essay describing anything other than your own activities and goals.
  4. If you are writing about your community or family, do you get to the present and your life and life works quickly? Can this description only connect to you and your story of who are you and how you are making a difference?
  5. Do you only tell one story and not try to tell your entire life story?
  6. If you are writing about an obstacle or challenge overcome, do you get to how you have responded and made a difference in the life of your community by the second or third paragraph of the essay? Admissions officers want to know who are you and how you make an impact drawing upon your obstacles or challenges.
  7. Do you have a metaphor that goes through the entire piece…does this metaphor reveal who you are and what you offer to potential colleges? You can embed this metaphor throughout out your piece.
  8. Can I close my eyes and picture your story? Does it make you sound unique and not like anyone else applying? Can I see your leadership and initiative and the power of what you will offer a college campus?
  9. Do you tell new stories and qualities in each separate essay your write? Do you make sure to reveal powerful information and core messages that colleges will need to know to admit you and give you money to attend?
  10. Endings-Do you end with a bang? Do you make it clear by the end you have goals and aspirations that drive you. Your endings must be specific for some prompts like the University of California and University of Texas, but can be more oblique and implied in Common Application and many supplementary essays. Do you end leaving the reader with the desire to get to know you more, to see you on his or her campus, and to share your essay with someone else?
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