Tips For Writing Your College Application Essay

Tips For Writing Your College Application Essay If your transcript reflects a poor sophomore year â€" with improvement during your junior and senior years â€" talk about why you struggled that particular year.Be yourself. Your essay should consist of three parts - an introduction , body and a conclusion . Create an outline, decide where to include examples and write your first draft. Don't worry about making it perfect; just let your ideas flow. You can fix mistakes and improve your writing in later drafts. Well established over time, they determine your general competitiveness in the selective admission process. If I had to assign the MVP of the college application essay, it would be the very first sentence. Admission committees will have just read through your application; the last thing they want to do is read another form of your information, achievements and extracurricular involvement. The essay is a supplement and it should act as such. Our peers recognized them as being unique, but instead of ostracizing them or pitying them, the students in Berkeley celebrated them. Once you have completed your application essay, be sure to find a couple of people you trust to look over your work before you submit it. It’s an odd, vibrant place with odd, vibrant people. Originality is celebrated there â€" not in the half-hearted “good for you” way, but in the full-throated “GOOD FOR YOU! One of the first of my fellow students to befriend me wore corset tops and tutus and carried a parasol with which she punctuated her every utterance. Her best friend was a boy with purple hair who once wore a shirt with built in LED lights for Christmas. They were the most popular people in school, in direct contrast to all that was socially acceptable in New Haven. Download Success Stories, a collection of four successful annotated student essays, from the Story2 web site. Adding sensory details to a story is the most effective way to take a story that could be about anyone and turn it into a moment that is unique to your life. When you are setting the scene for your essay, make sure to add information about what you saw, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched. Obviously, not all of these details will apply to every experience, but in general, it is better to add memorable details about one experience than it is to write in a generic manner about three experiences. There is a very good chance an essay developed in this manner will meet at least one of the listed essay prompts. Selective colleges are most interested in students whose sense of purpose is illustrated in their recognition of compatible learning opportunities on their campuses. When they ask the “why do you want to come here” question, they are not interested in knowing whether you can recite their institutional superlatives. Rather, they want to see if you have made the conscious connection between your sense of purpose and the opportunities that exist within their educational environment. Selective institutions often employ supplemental essay prompts to sort the whimsically submitted applications from those that are more intentional. They can clearly demonstrate the synergy that exists between themselves and the institutions in question. All are historical elements of your college applications. You should also try reading the essay aloud to yourself. Also, I know that procrastination and writing fatigue are real obstacles in this process. You guys aren’t essay robots able to churn out quality drafts on a strict schedule. This timeline wasn’t meant to be followed exactly. But that doesn’t mean that setting goals and putting pressure on yourself early on isn’t going to help you get the ball rolling. The manner in which you like to engage in learning. We don’t all process the same information the same wayâ€"and colleges don’t all deliver it in the same manner! This is especially true if you are an experiential, hands-on learner who values testing ideas. Be prepared to provide evidence of this learning style in your supplemental essays. Use it to add to your application by showcasing another side of yourself. In the event that there is something on your application that you do need to explain, your essay is the perfect place. I don’t recommend a friend who is afraid to correct your mistakes, or a parent, if you can help it. A teacher or family friend would be a great choice. Since you already know how it’s supposed to read, and you’re accustomed to reading it, it’s often easier for another person to catch your mistakes.