Tips for Writing Your College Essay

 From College Data

Getting started on your college essay can be one of the hardest parts of applying to college. Our advice? Take it one step at a time.

Most counselors and students who have applied to college recommend getting started on your college essays early -- the summer prior to senior year, if possible. If you find yourself putting it off, or if you’re experiencing essay anxiety, take a deep breath and try this 6-step plan.

Step 1. Review the essay prompt(s)

Take 15 or 20 minutes to simply look at the essay prompts. The Common Application and Coalition Application release their prompts during the spring prior to senior year.

• Common App essay prompts
• Coalition App essay prompts

If you’re applying to colleges that require an essay but don’t accept the Common App or Coalition App, check the website of the colleges to which you are applying to see if their application and essay is available. Most colleges post their applications in August.

Don’t worry about choosing a topic yet. At this point, just think about what you want colleges to know about you, beyond your grades and test scores. As the Colorado College Admissions Department advises: “Take the time to think carefully about what you want us to know about you.”  

Step 2. Start brainstorming

On another day, look at the prompts again. Do any of them invoke personal experiences that demonstrate a unique aspect of your personality? Your academic passions? Your ability to learn and grow from your experiences? Or another quality you want colleges to remember? Write down everything that comes to mind.

Step 3. Test drive a few topics 

Some of the students profiled in CollegeData’s Road to College Student Stories have told us that when they connected with an essay topic they were truly passionate about, their essay practically wrote itself. How do you find that topic?

Spend at least a few afternoons or evenings writing about the experiences you brainstormed in Step 2. Write freely and don’t edit yourself at first -- just get your words and ideas on paper.

When you’re finished free writing, ask yourself:

• Which topics were easy -- or even fun -- to write about?
• Where did you have the most to say?
• Which piece of writing seems to reveal the “real you” and your genuine voice?

Remember that your essay does not have to be about a harrowing hardship, tragic loss, or a jaw-dropping adventure. As the Wellesley Admissions Department advises: "An essay about some small, even insignificant-seeming thing can be more powerful than an essay about how you’ve saved the world or overcome tragedy.”

Step 4. Write a (terrible) first draft or two

Once you have selected your topic, you can start structuring your first draft. But don’t expect your first, or even third or fourth draft, to be perfect. Give yourself time to write multiple versions, and plan to walk away from your essay for at least a couple of days so you can come back to it with a fresh perspective.  

Keep in mind that you may be able to use parts of the early drafts of your essay -- writing that didn't make it into the final version  -- for supplemental essays or other parts of your application.

Warning: Be careful about being overly influenced by online essay examples.

While reading essays submitted by other students can be helpful, reading too many might put the voices of other students in your head. Your essay should be uniquely yours. As the Princeton Admissions Department advises: “This is your opportunity to display your best writing as well as your ability to convey ideas in your own voice.”

Step 5. Get feedback from a teacher, counselor, or other people you trust  

Some questions to ask the readers of your essay:

• Does the essay ring true to them?
• Does the language sound like you?
• Did they find any parts of it unclear or difficult to understand?

Step 6. Write as many drafts as you need to 

Revise and get feedback until you feel confident that your essay says what you want it to say. Then have a teacher, counselor or another person you trust proofread your essay to ensure there are no grammatical or punctuation errors and that it is clear and easy to read.

College Essay Guides and How to Level-Up Your Activities & Awards List

🚀 College Essay Guides For Days | The College Application Hub 

 If you're a current senior stuck on a supplemental essay or not quite sure if your personal statement topic is the right one, there's a chance we've got a guide or essay example to get those creative juices flowing. Check out our College Application Hub for guides on: • 9 Ways to Start Your Personal Statement • The Great College Essay Test (AKA 4 Qualities of a Great College Essay) • How to Write the "Why Us" Essay • The "Why X Major" Essay • 50+ School-Specific Supplemental Essay Guides • So much more. I literally have an entire website on writing great college essays. Courses, too. 

👌How to Level-Up Your Activities & Awards List

🏆 | Video Here 

Looking to take your "meh" activities list from 'Okay' to 'Oh, WOW'? Give me 13-minutes of your time, and you'll be upleveling your verbs and quantifying your impact in no time. Hey, while you're watching, smash that like button. ;)

6 Steps to Start Your College Essay

By: CollegeData

Getting started on your college essay can be one of the hardest parts of applying to college. Our advice? Take it one step at a time.

Most counselors and students who have applied to college recommend getting started on your college essays early -- the summer prior to senior year, if possible. If you find yourself putting it off, or if you’re experiencing essay anxiety, take a deep breath and try this 6-step plan.

Step 1. Review the essay prompt(s)

Take 15 or 20 minutes to simply look at the essay prompts. The Common Application and Coalition Application release their prompts during the spring prior to senior year.

• Common App essay prompts
• Coalition App essay prompts

If you’re applying to colleges that require an essay but don’t accept the Common App or Coalition App, check the website of the colleges to which you are applying to see if their application and essay is available. Most colleges post their applications in August.

Don’t worry about choosing a topic yet. At this point, just think about what you want colleges to know about you, beyond your grades and test scores. As the Colorado College Admissions Department advises: “Take the time to think carefully about what you want us to know about you.”  

Step 2. Start brainstorming

On another day, look at the prompts again. Do any of them invoke personal experiences that demonstrate a unique aspect of your personality? Your academic passions? Your ability to learn and grow from your experiences? Or another quality you want colleges to remember? Write down everything that comes to mind.

Step 3. Test drive a few topics 

Some of the students profiled in CollegeData’s Road to College Student Stories have told us that when they connected with an essay topic they were truly passionate about, their essay practically wrote itself. How do you find that topic?

Spend at least a few afternoons or evenings writing about the experiences you brainstormed in Step 2. Write freely and don’t edit yourself at first -- just get your words and ideas on paper.

When you’re finished free writing, ask yourself:

• Which topics were easy -- or even fun -- to write about?
• Where did you have the most to say?
• Which piece of writing seems to reveal the “real you” and your genuine voice?

Remember that your essay does not have to be about a harrowing hardship, tragic loss, or a jaw-dropping adventure. As the Wellesley Admissions Department advises: "An essay about some small, even insignificant-seeming thing can be more powerful than an essay about how you’ve saved the world or overcome tragedy.”

Step 4. Write a (terrible) first draft or two

Once you have selected your topic, you can start structuring your first draft. But don’t expect your first, or even third or fourth draft, to be perfect. Give yourself time to write multiple versions, and plan to walk away from your essay for at least a couple of days so you can come back to it with a fresh perspective.  

Keep in mind that you may be able to use parts of the early drafts of your essay -- writing that didn't make it into the final version  -- for supplemental essays or other parts of your application.

Warning: Be careful about being overly influenced by online essay examples.

While reading essays submitted by other students can be helpful, reading too many might put the voices of other students in your head. Your essay should be uniquely yours. As the Princeton Admissions Department advises: “This is your opportunity to display your best writing as well as your ability to convey ideas in your own voice.”

Step 5. Get feedback from a teacher, counselor, or other people you trust  

Some questions to ask the readers of your essay:

• Does the essay ring true to them?
• Does the language sound like you?
• Did they find any parts of it unclear or difficult to understand?

Step 6. Write as many drafts as you need to 

Revise and get feedback until you feel confident that your essay says what you want it to say. Then have a teacher, counselor or another person you trust proofread your essay to ensure there are no grammatical or punctuation errors and that it is clear and easy to read.

With your essay finished, you can then work on the other parts of your applications. Good luck!

 

Do's and Don'ts for College Essays

By Matt Musico

Writing your college essay can be a huge hurdle to jump over in completing your college applications. It can also create a ton of stress because you want to put your best foot forward to the admissions officers who will read it. Before you sit down to start writing, keep the following tips in mind.

Do: Be Honest

Don’t: Try to Impress

Every single year, multiple students ask me what kind of topic would impress a college admissions office. And, every single year, my answer is the same: what will impress them is whatever story you’re most excited to tell.

Entering the college essay-writing process by choosing a topic you think will look impressive is not necessarily going to make it stand out in a pile of applications while they’re getting evaluated. What college admissions offices truly want to see is a slice of your personality. It’s one of the very few places in an application where you get to show who you are and what experiences have shaped your current mindset/trajectory in life.

It may be easier for students to share honest stories about themselves when they learn how admissions officers use a college essay during the evaluation process. The essay is an opportunity for admission officers to get a sense of how your personality would fit socially on their specific campus. Knowing what they do about the institution they work for; they use essays to gauge how well you’d assimilate and contribute to student life.

The easiest way for admissions officers to get an accurate picture of you is to show your true self – not what you think they want to read about.

Do: Own Your Story

Don’t: Speak in Clichés

You may have heard about common college essay clichés. Whether it’s how sports taught you about the importance of teamwork or how traveling to another country broadened your horizons, admissions counselors have seen them all, multiple times over.

During peak application season, application readers can view as many as 50 applications per day. If you want to ensure that your essay falls into the large pile of essay topics they’ve seen before, include a cliché or two while you’re trying too hard to impress.

The best way to make an essay unique is to tell your story in a way nobody else can. You can do this by including thoughtful details and personal insights, which include your own thoughts, feelings, and reactions to the specific examples you plan on writing about. This way, it’d be difficult for anyone else to tell the story the way you just did – even if they experienced the same exact thing.

A great way to find out whether you have enough detail in a story or not is to read it over and be honest. There’s nothing wrong with saying for example, that being an athlete taught you about the value of teamwork. But anybody can say such a thing. Add why and how you realized this to make your essay more personal. If you ask yourself, “Can anyone else tell this story the way I just told it?” and the answer is yes, then you need more detail.

If you’re unable to do that, you may have to find a different story to tell.

Do: Share New Information

Don’t: Turn It Into a Cover Letter

As I said before, there aren’t many places in a college application to showcase your personality. Outside of the essay, the only other opportunities are the descriptions of your extracurricular activities, and if a school asks for it, additional essay questions or writing supplements. With so few places to show off who you are, it’s important to take advantage by sharing new information with each chance you get.

This is not to say you shouldn’t write about activities you’ve mentioned elsewhere in your application. If being a baseball player or being in the theater club is truly important to you, it’s okay to write about those experiences in your essay. But remember that you’ve already mentioned it elsewhere in your application, so discussing it again means you’ll need to dig into new details about your experiences to show a reader why they’re so special to you (this is where owning your story comes in handy).

Keeping that in mind, your essay isn’t the place to list and discuss all your greatest accomplishments during the last three-plus years of high school. Other parts of your application should highlight the great things about you and what you can bring to a college campus. Your essay shouldn’t sound like a cover letter, trying to convince admissions officers why they should accept you.

There are three pillars of fit that admission counselors are mindful of when evaluating applications: academic, extracurricular, and social. By the time they get to your essay, they have a sense of the first two, but not the last one.

Do: Sound Like Yourself

Don’t: Use a Thesaurus to Sound Like Someone Else

A lot of the stress behind college essays for my students comes from the fact that it’s an unfamiliar assignment. Over the years, they’ve been told that their English papers need to have one introduction paragraph and one conclusion paragraph, to write formally (which can include avoiding contractions), and to stay away from using first-person language. None of that is required for a college admission essay. Instead, admissions officers encourage students to be themselves and use a conversational tone. What does that mean, though?

Your essay shouldn’t look like a text message conversation you’re having with a group of friends. To nail down this “conversational tone,” think of a high school teacher you like and respect. How would you speak to them? Use that tone in your essay (which typically ends up being friendly, yet respectful). You’re not trying to get a good grade on this essay. It’s supposed to be about you, which will help admissions officers get a sense of who you are. The only way for this to happen is to simply be you, and if your essay sounds like it was written by a teenager about to head off to college, that’s perfect because that’s exactly where you are in life right now. Don’t use a thesaurus to inject a bunch of fancy words because it will come off as unnatural if you typically don’t use them.

I’ve always viewed college applications in two different parts: the paper side and the human side. The paper side is where students should aim to look “impressive” since this includes your transcript, test scores (if submitted), and extracurricular activities. The human side is everything else, which includes letters of recommendation and your essay.

Admissions officers get a sense of your qualifications by looking at the paper side of your application. They get a sense of the person behind those qualifications by looking at the human side of your application. Use the essay to your advantage to show colleges the type of person they’d be getting on campus if they accept you.

 

Matt Musico, a current college counselor at Collegewise is a freelance writer for CollegeData. He has worked in higher education for the better part of a decade. Half of that time was spent working in an undergraduate admissions office, while the other half has involved working with high school families as a private college counselor.

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to CollegeData, 1st Financial Bank USA or any other person or entity. All liability with respect to actions taken or not taken based on the contents of this article are hereby expressly disclaimed.

Director of Admission Shares the Truth About College Essays

By Rick Clark, Georgia Tech Admissions

Last week I talked to a high school senior as a favor to a friend. The student is not applying to Georgia Tech, so I was giving him general application advice.

We talked about prioritizing extra-curricular activities, such as putting the things you care about most and have the most involvement with, first. While an application may have eight, 10 or 30 lines for involvement, busy admission officers who speed read this section may only get to third on the list. Make them want to keep learning about you by telling them clearly and thoroughly what’s most important to you.

Then we talked about his supplemental responses. Since I don’t work for the schools he’s applying to, I told him to research their websites, social media, and literature and pay attention to themes, key messages, and mission statements. At Tech we focus on our motto of Progress and Service and improving the human condition.

Students applying to us will see questions along those lines, or should be astute enough to find opportunities to provide connections to those concepts. Every school has these, you just have to dig deeper at some places.

Inside Tip: if you can’t identify what’s important to a school, then they haven’t done a good job articulating it, or they can’t differentiate themselves, or they’re just not resonating with you. Any of these is a red flag.

Tips about the college application essay

Finally, we talked about his essay. I’ll be honest, the topic was trite (something about learning through basketball about overcoming odds). Admittedly, at that point, I was also packing for a trip so I was a bit distracted (and I was not being paid for this time or advice). But here’s the bottom line: the topic doesn’t really matter anyway.

I’ve been reading essays for over 15 years. I’ve read for several institutions, two testing agencies, and various scholarship competitions. Conservatively, I’d say I’ve looked at more than 10,000 essays by now. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more, and I know plenty of people on my staff and around the country who put that number to shame.

But as somewhat of an expert, here’s what I firmly believe: there is no completely unique topic. Sports analogy about life, failure, and triumph? Heard it. Mission trip to a third world country, including multiple transportation modes, animal crossings, and flat tires? Check. Family drama where you displayed tremendous patience, empathy, and wisdom beyond your years? Sure.

The list goes on: difficult coach/teacher turned advocate… stuck out a horrible summer job that provided valuable lessons and renewed focus and direction … beloved grandparent who moved in, built close friendship, died, but taught a lot of valuable lessons in life and death (this one often doubles as an excuse for late app submission as well)… second verse, same as the first.

As Ecclesiastes says, “When it comes to college admission, there is nothing new under the sun” RCV (Rick Clark Version). Does that mean the essay does not matter? That you should resign yourself to mediocrity? Not at all!

My point is that your energy should not be spent on selecting the topic. Once you figure out which question you want to answer, meaning you really have something to say or you’re somewhat excited to respond, start writing.

Find Your Voice

Knowing the topic won’t differentiate you, it has to be something else, right? This is where your voice has to be evident. And like the list of extra-curricular activities, it needs to be clear in the first sentence or two. I know many readers who read the first and last paragraphs and only go back if those are compelling. Otherwise, it’s a dime a dozen and the ratings are accordingly average.

Some schools will tell you that two separate readers evaluate every essay in its entirety. Given volume, staff sizes, and compressed timelines between application deadlines and decision release, that seems at worst a blatant lie, and at best an incredibly inefficient process.

Step 1: Read it aloud. There is something magical about reading out loud. As adults we don’t do this enough. In reading aloud to kids, colleagues, or friends we hear things differently, and find room for improvement when the writing is flat. So start by voice recording your essay.

Step 2: Do it again and Listen. REALLY listen. Is there emotion in it? Does your humor come out? Can the reader feel your sadness?  Does it sound like you? If you can’t tell, play it for someone you know and trust. What do they say?

Step 3: Do the Math. (What?! I was told there would be no math on the essay section.) If 5,000 other applicants chose the same essay prompt, and 100 of those choose the same topic, will your essay be noticed? Does it provide specifics and descriptions of you or others, as well as setting and moment?

Step 4: Keep it simple. Three steps is enough. Once you’ve gone through those, hit submit and move on. Sitting on your essay until deadline day is only going to drive you nuts. So pray over it, do a dance, catch a falling leaf, or whatever else you think will help, and then be done.

Your essay topic may not be entirely different or unique, but your senior year can be. Go enjoy it!