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No subject is more fraught with anxiety for the high school senior than the essay on the college application. Whether it is as bizarre as the University of Chicago's How do you feel about Wednesday? ; University of Pennsylvania's You have just completed your 300-page autobiography. Please submit page 217. ; or Tufts University's Are We Alone? —or whether it is a more mundane question about a formative experience you've had in your life, or about some controversial social or political issue, students tremble at the very thought of writing the essay and being judged on it.We wondered what tips could be offered to ease the pain. For advice, we turned to visiting blogger Jonathan Reider, director of college counseling at San Francisco University High School, who before that was the senior associate director of admissions (and humanities instructor) at Stanford University. He should know; he's been on both sides of the high school/college door. Here are his 10 best tips.[Video: How to write a great college application essay.]1. Be concise. Even though the Common Application main essay has only a suggested minimum of 250 words, and no upper limit, every admissions officer has a big stack to read every day; he or she expects to spend only a couple of minutes on the essay. If you go over 700 words, you are straining their patience, which no one should want to do.2. Be honest. Don't embellish your achievements, titles, and offices. It's just fine to be the copy editor of the newspaper or the treasurer of the Green Club, instead of the president. Not everyone has to be the star at everything. You will feel better if you don't strain to inflate yourself.3. Be an individual. In writing the essay, ask yourself, How can I distinguish myself from those thousands of others applying to College X whom I don't know—and even the ones I do know? It's not in your activities or interests.
Tips For Writing A Great College Admission Essay In the admissions process, US colleges and universities generally use three criteria for determining which students to accept and which to reject: Previous coursework – your college preparatory work and grade point average (GPA) Standardized test scores – SAT and ACT are the two most respected. Admission/Entrance essays Of the three criteria, the college entrance essay provides you with the greatest opportunity to distinguish yourself from your competition and show off the person behind the statistics. This article will help in writing a college essay and help you boost your chances of being accepted by an American university or college Section 1: Planning Your Essay Tip 1: Understand the Admissions Board Psychology When you have compiled all the pieces of your application and sent it to the college/university of your dreams, all of your hard work gets placed in a pile with hundreds of other applications. Then a small group of admissions officers will review each application, looking over the scores and coursework and reading the college application essays. The key to convincing the admissions officers is in understanding what they are looking for. They want students who will: Succeed once they are admitted; Contribute to the educational experience of other students; and, Bring honor and prestige to the university once they graduate. In your college admissions essay, you want to portray yourself as a student who will meet those needs. Of course, the specifics of what qualifies as “succeed” or “bring honor” will depend a bit on the particular university, but all admissions officers share these three goals. Before you write your college admissions essay, take a few minutes and jot down some answers to the following questions: How can I reassure the admissions board that I will succeed in their school? How will I show.
You already know how to write an academic essay. You start with an introduction, throw in a thesis statement, find about three paragraphs' worth of evidence, and wrap it all up with a tidy conclusion. Now, forget all that, because writing the college application essay is different. Your college application essay needs to capture your personality and breathe life into your application, explaining who you are even if the reviewer knows nothing else about you. But the best part is that you choose what to share and how to share it. Take a minute and think about who might be reading your essay and how it will convey your background. What makes you unique? If you had the opportunity to stand in front of an admission committee to share a significant story or important information about yourself, what would you say? The college essay is your chance to share your personality, goals, influences, challenges, triumphs, life experiences, or lessons learned. These are the stories behind the list of activities and leadership roles on your application.    One of the most common struggles students encounter is resisting the urge to squeeze everything they’ve seen, done, and heard into one essay. The purpose is not to write a comprehensive summary of your life in an allotted number of words. Instead, pick one moment in time and focus on telling the story behind it. Admission officers realize that writing doesn’t come easily to everyone, but with some time and planning, anyone can write an essay that stands out. One way to make your essay stand out is to work step-by-step, piece-by-piece. The end result should be a carefully designed, insightful essay that makes you proud. Take advantage of being able to share something with an audience who knows nothing about you and is excited to learn what you have to offer. Brag. Write the story that no one else can tell. 1. The Prompt Ease.
Across the country, parents and high school seniors are in the middle of the daunting college application process, especially the much-feared, often misunderstood personal essay portion. How important is the essay section? Enough to potentially make the difference between getting into the school of your choice, or landing on the reject pile. A lousy essay can sink a student with terrific grades and test scores; likewise, a compelling, well-crafted essay just might push a more moderate achiever over the top and into class next fall. Chances are you're completing the Common Application used by more than 500 schools for undergraduate admissions. But whether you are filling out a Common Application, or a university's own entry form, the questions, and the principals of writing powerful answers, largely remain the same. Typically, applicants are asked to write a personal essay, followed by a shorter supplemental essay (often asking why they want to attend that school) and a short-answer essay, usually about one of their personal experiences outside the classroom (work, sports, cultural pursuits, volunteering, etc.). All three are critical: Do not equate word count with importance. Essay questions are referred to as prompts, and you should take that meaning literally. They are meant to make you think, reflect, self-analyze and work out in your mind how you feel about a certain topic, and how you want to express those feelings in writing. This year's Common App eliminated the Topic of Your Choice option, but extended the maximum word count from 500 to 650. There are five prompts to choose from on the Common App, other schools will vary: Your personal background story How you learned from a failure How you challenged a belief or idea An ideal place you experienced An experience that marked your transition to adulthood Many students have already drafted their essays, but many.
A guest post by Ed Weathers Your 500 Word College Application Essay should be about the real YOU. These days, most colleges require that your application essay be no more than 500 words. In that essay, colleges expect you to reveal your writing ability and, just as important, the real You, with a capital Y. Who are You? What makes You tick? What are Your hopes, expectations, fears, joys, tastes, desires, foibles, sins, and virtues? That’s a lot to expect of a 500 word college application essay. Of course, you can’t say everything about yourself in 500 words. Forget that list two sentences ago; you can’t fit all that in 500 words. You must narrow the focus of your essay. So what do you write? Some experts suggest that you start your 500 word college application essay with a brief personal story and then draw a “moral” from it that expresses your values. There’s nothing wrong with that advice, but if I were a college admissions officer, I’d be sick by now of essays that begin with a touching little tale about a wise grandfather, a handicapped sibling, or a South American orphan the applicant met on a summer good-works trip. I’d prefer hearing about why you still drink only chocolate milk at the age of 17, or how Bonnie Sue McKay broke your heart at the age of twelve (and how you got over it by learning to quilt), or why table tennis is your favorite sport, or how you, with your tin ear, wept the first time you heard Schumann’s Piano Concerto. If I’m your college admissions officer, forget “touching.” Give me honest and accurate, instead. Give me “tough” before “touching.” Give me clear observations—in your own words, please, not stock phrases. Give me concrete images: a chocolate milk stain on a white hospital gown, a quilting needle stuck in your index finger, a cracked ping-pong ball behind the basement furnace, a scratchy old recording coming out of a friend’s iPod.
Many colleges and universities require a college admission essay as part of their admission application, and scholarship applications often include one or more essays in addition to such objective information as grades and test scores. The typical question asks you to share personal information—allowing the selection committee to get to know you—such as your plans or goals, an important event in your life, your philosophy and/or beliefs, or your financial situation. Writing this college admission essay is an opportunity for you to stand out among the applicants and to prove you’re the most deserving candidate. Be sure to keep certain things in mind as you write this essay: Consider exactly what the question asks. Then list some relevant main ideas; use this list as an informal outline for your essay. Don’t write a “generic” essay that could pass for one that any other applicant could have written. Everything in the essay should reveal something about YOU and your unique situation. Any reader of your essay should feel as if he or she knows you personally. Remember that committee members are seeking the applicant who fits the mission of their institution and is worthy of their award. Tailor your college admission essay topic with their perspective in mind, and work to convince them that you’re the right candidate. If you have trouble thinking of ideas, be resourceful. Ask people who know you well what they would say about you. If someone has written a letter of recommendation for you, re-read it. Which accomplishments listed on your résumé might interest the committee? Don’t simply repeat information that is already on your application form or in your résumé. Your essay should include specific incidents and concrete examples. Don’t use long words and obscure vocabulary simply to impress the committee; doing so will come across as artificial and showy. Follow guidelines.