Writing Your College Essay

I was not going to write about essay writing until the fall, but was prompted to introduce it now after I read this article.  The article is a good overview and gives some helpful hints.  It also highlights 4 essays written by students around the country.  When you get ready to start writing your college essay, keep the following in mind:

• College essays should not be all encompassing or about your whole life.  The essay should be a narrow focus into a part of your life.  It should give the reader a better understanding of who you are, how you think, what you love and your passions...but not all of them.  

• The topic of your essay should be about something the reader cannot necessarily see or gather from your application.  It should be a slice of your life that is not the focus of your resume.  Keep in mind that your application is not 3-dimensional.  If your resume says you are captain of your sports team, your honors/awards list sports team leader, your short answer is written about you being on the team, your essay should NOT be about your sports team....the reader got it the first time.  

• Most of all, the essay should be written by YOU!  College admission counselors absolutely know when you wrote your essay and when it has been polished beyond recognition, or worse, written by someone else.  As a student, it should have a little roughness to it (no typos and no major grammatical mistakes), but it should be your thoughts, your feelings and in your language.  If you walk around using big thesaurus words everyday as part of your speech, then use them in your essay.  If not, leave them out.  Don't forget, if the college requires standardized test scores, they are getting your writing portion and score so it is easy for them to compare your application essay with your SAT/ACT writing section.  The college essay should be cleaner, but the voice and language should be the same.  

• Make sure that YOU are the focus of your essay.  It is okay to talk about what your grandfather taught you, but the focus needs to be about what you learned and how you apply it; not an entire essay about grandpa.  (We love grandpa too, but he is not the one applying!)

Enjoy this article and the 4 examples. More to come on essay's later.
Click here to read the article.