College Essay Dos & Donts

College Essay Dos & Don’ts It will capture who your student is beyond grades, test scores and co-curricular activities. Alternatively, some of my friends who were successful in the college admissions process met with their English teachers frequently to review their college essays. This allowed them to constantly have someone to bounce ideas off of and to receive assurance if they were going in the right direction and advice if they weren’t. When I first began, I had my counselor and history teacher read my draft because I felt very unsure about the intention and content of my essay. If you want to write about a personal challenge, emphasize what you learned and how you grewâ€"if you dwell on the details, the essay will not achieve its purpose. The admissions essay is a very critical component of your application as it allows you to distinguish yourself from other students and to introduce yourself to the admissions committee. While celebrating diversity is great, the problem is that these essays risk falling into truisms. Students write about the diversity of their schools or their city, but not enough about who they are. Experts say supplemental essays tend to be short, but St. John’s College bucks that trend, requiring a minimum of 400 words. That’s because the school is interested in seeing students write at length on a chosen topic. There are, however, different ways to write college essays that can increase your chance for an admission offer and things you can do that may hurt your chances. Although juniors may feel like they have a lot of free time right now, the reality is that most high school students are still taking classes â€" they've just shifted into an online format. “You can think of the essay as the soul of the application. No college application is complete without the personal essay, which can be daunting for many students to write. Essays on negative life events can be very tricky. Unless enough time has passed since the experience, the essay can be too personal, too much of a rant, or just too hard to read. One rep said the general rule of thumb was no essays on the Four Dsâ€"Drugs, dating, death, and divorceâ€"but you get the idea. While no lives are riding on your college application essays, this is a great time to revisit some of the rules of writing well. Keep in mind that the admissions counselors at each of the colleges to which you apply will read hundreds of applications each week. 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. Many local students want to write about growing up in a diverse environment and how they have been enriched by that environment. In fact, the more people who read your essay, the better. Ask your readers whether the essay provides an accurate depiction of who you are and ask whether it is clear, concise, and easy to read. If you were given a prompt by a certain school, make sure that your essay actually addresses the prompt. Even if you don’t have anyone else who can read your essay, you can review it yourself â€" just take a day or two off after writing it before you read it back so you can view it with fresh eyes. To put it another way, in a world where everything else is equal between the applicants, a good essay can make a difference. And certainly not one of the most revered writers of all time. Bryant and other admissions officers want to read more compelling essays that “tell us how that experience affected” the student. Your child has narrowed down the list of colleges to apply to and now comes the all-important college essay. No subject is more anxiety-inducing than the essay. It is how to share and highlight your unique strengths and experiences in a way that your transcript and test scores cannot fully illuminate. This is great news giving juniors(”21) ready to begin their college applications â€" and if you attend my June College Application Writers’ Block Workshopâ€"you’ll have completed your core essay before summer! Doing so can reduce much of the unnecessary stress some families experience over the college admissions and college application process. Once you have written your college application essay, your job isn’t done â€" you need to keep working on it to improve it until you can improve it no further. It is a great idea to have someone else read your essay to provide feedback. However, neither of them have ever seen my final draft. 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. The college essay is your child’s story, and it should be written using their words, in their voice. Your son or daughter is a high school senior, and the essay should sound like one.