how to choose college essay topic

Tips For Writing A Great College Admission Essay Every year, an admissions officer reads hundreds, even thousands of application essays. After reading a plethora of essays about dreams, visions, academics and athletics, the content inevitably begins to sound redundant and painfully ordinary. If you want to stand out against the thousands of applicants with similar test scores and GPAs, writing a college essay that is memorable and proficient is the best way to do so. Usually an application will offer a very broad topic with which you can do almost anything, or they will allow you to write about whatever topic you would like. In this case, choosing your topic plays a pivotal part in the success of your essay. Wrong the Wrongs So You Can Write the Right Before you start writing your essay, here are a few topics you should avoid: Don’t be repetitive. If you have already included information in another area of the application, you do not need to relay this information again. Your admissions officer already knows you were president of the Beta Club, fed giraffes in a volunteer retreat and graduated tenth in your class. Your essay should not reiterate these accomplishments. If it does, your essay will sound redundant, uninteresting and leave little room for new information. Don’t be negative. Even if you have overcome some problems in your life such as drugs, alcohol, crime, abuse, or depression, your college essay may not be the best place to reveal your life’s roadblocks. If not handled well, it can result in an uncomfortable, emotional essay that may leave the admission officer questioning whether or not you are ready for college. Don’t be one-sided. Think about topics that are taboo at the dinner table: politics and religion. Though you can write a great article about subjects in these areas, many times they can come off as closed-minded and offensive to anyone who may.
Even though you will most often be given a prompt of some sort for your admissions essay, you will still need to come up with a topic that is individual and unique to you. This can be difficult, considering you’re a young person and may not have all that much life experience yet. Even so, there are plenty of things you can write about, you just need to look long and hard to find them. Here are a few tips for evaluating potential topics you come up with. Step 1: Brainstorm You can’t evaluate topics without having any! Before you start thinking too hard, just come up with a nice list of topics that could potentially be used to answer the given prompt. This will give you something to work off of as we move on to step two. Now that you have a list of potential topics, it’s time to start narrowing that list down. Steps 2-9 will help you do just that. Step 2: Eliminate What Can’t Be Expanded Some topics may look good as the focus of your essay, but once you try to expand it at all, you soon realize it will only make for an essay that is very thin and low on content. Look through the list you’ve compiled. Do you see any topics that you can’t, for the life of you, expand upon? If so, scratch them off the list right away. If there are a few you’re not too sure about, set them aside and see if any other elimination factors come into play with them. Step 3: Eliminate The Cliché Are any of the topics on your list things that have been talked about over and over again? If you went ahead and wrote an essay on that topic, do you feel as though you’d just be repeating what everyone else has already said? If this is the case, it’s time to move on to other topics. The whole point of an admissions essay is to stand out, not blend in. you want to write an essay the reviewers will remember, not one that they feel as though they’ve read before. Step 4: Eliminate The Pity Party When you.
Students prepare for applying to selective colleges by taking rigorous courses, participating in extracurricular activities, studying for standardized tests, and more. All of this preparation, however, can distract attention from one of the most notorious sections of the college application: the essays. The essay is both the most and the least visible part of the competitive admissions process. Everyone knows that the essay is critical, but few actually get to see what “successful” essays look like. Some online resources, like The College Board, post examples of college application essays, but they often lack the necessary context for a reader to truly assess how accurately that essay conveys a student’s personality and interests. When choosing a topic for an essay, students need to consider what the essay prompt is asking, the universities to which they’re applying, their goals, and, ultimately, what the essay says about them as a student and as a person. Why the Essay Matters Before you can choose a compelling essay topic, you first need to understand why there’s an essay in the first place. When evaluating college applications, most colleges use a “reading rubric” to evaluate the different components of each application. Aside from the “hard factors,” like grades, GPA, and test scores, colleges also look at the “soft factors,” such as extracurriculars, recommendation letters, demonstrated interests, and essays. The point of evaluating all these factors is to enable colleges to holistically build a well-rounded class of specialists. The essay (or essays) is a great way to learn more about an applicant, her motivations, life experiences, and how she can contribute to the campus community. According to NACAC, 83 percent of colleges assign some level of importance to the application essay, and it’s usually the most important “soft factor” that colleges consider. The.
Most competitive colleges require at least one application essay as part of the admissions process. College admissions people read these essays to learn about you — your personality, ideas, intellect, insight, creativity, curiosity, vision, spirit, interests, accomplishments, resilience, background, character, values and dreams, as well as your ability to express yourself clearly and follow direction. A thoughtfully conceived and well-written essay can not only reveal a lot about you, it can impress the admissions officers and help you become a more desirable candidate. As a college consultant, I have read hundreds of application essays and work with students to select an advantageous topic and angle of approach. Most college essay prompts fall into one of three categories: (1) “Tell Us About You” (2) “Why Us” and (3) “Creative/Philosophical”. Often, as is typical of the Common Application, students can choose which prompt and/or topic to write about. Before embarking in any particular direction, I encourage students to take a holistic approach starting with an inventory of themselves — their personal qualities, background and accomplishments, as well as their personal growth during high school and significant choices they have made. The “pride list” is an all-important first step. It should include personal qualities, strengths, talents and outstanding attributes. Describing oneself can be challenging and many students ask others for assistance. Family members, friends, teachers and counselors may be helpful in identifying your strengths and qualities. The next step centers on achievements and activities. A high school (college admission) resume will expedite this effort. If you don’t have a resume, make a list of your activities and achievements. When reviewing the resume/list, focus on the significance of your experiences and accomplishments. For example: What did.
Selecting a Topic for Your College Application Essay Having completed brainstorming essay ideas in step one, you should now have a rough idea of the elements you wish to include in your college application essay, including your goals, important life experiences, research experience, diversifying features, spectacular nonacademic accomplishments, etc. You should also now have an idea of what impression you want to make on the admissions officers. You must now confront the underlying problem of the admissions essay. You must now consider topics that will allow you to synthesize your important personal characteristics and experiences into a coherent whole while simultaneously addressing your desire to attend a specific institution. While most admissions essays allow great latitude in topic selection, you must also be sure to answer the questions that were asked of you. Leaving a lasting impression on someone who reads 50-100 essays a day will not be easy, but we have compiled some guidelines to help you get started. With any luck, one or two topics, with small changes, will allow you to answer application questions for 5-7 different colleges, although admissions officers do appreciate essays that provide convincing evidence of how an applicant will fit into a particular academic environment. You should at least have read the college’s webpage, admissions catalog, and have an understanding of the institution’s strengths. Consider the following questions before proceeding: Have you selected a topic that describes something of personal importance in your life, with which you can use vivid personal experiences as supporting details? Is your topic a gimmick? That is, do you plan to write your essay in iambic pentameter or make it funny. You should be very, very careful if you are planning to do this. We recommend strongly that you do not do this. Almost always, this is done.