How To Write A Great College Admissions Essay

How To Write A Great College Admissions Essay The uniqueness of an essay stems not from some external experience, but your internal responses. A great college essay combines creativity, excellent writing, and honesty. It’s important that your essay be a solid reflection of you as a person and as a student, and that you follow the guidelines provided in terms of topic and word-count. This is your opportunity to showcase your personality. What makes you who you are â€" was it a struggle in the past? Your desire to attend the school to which you are applying? The team at Marks Education was very helpful to my college application process. It is also well written and grammatically correct. We haven’t all pulled babies from burning buildings or sailed around the world in a catamaran. Tell a story from your own life that shows something unique about you. The story that your friends perk up to listen to- that’s the stuff that makes for great app essays. After reading a great essay, I feel as if I have just had an enlivening conversation with the person even though it was entirely on paper. A great college essay is one in which the student’s voice and though process comes through clearly. It should be consistent with the rest of the application and showcase an aspect of the student not highlighted in the rest of the application. Telling a story “only you can tell” means that you tell the reader a story from your perspective. So you don’t need to have great exotic vacations or heartbreaking stories of community service in some far off land â€" you just need to reveal your point of view about a topic. When you can show the reader a slice of your genuine self â€" you are on your way to a great college essay. It is well-written with college bound vocabulary and style, but easy to read and somewhat unassuming. Like great works of fiction, these essays clearly paint a picture in the reader’s mind. The main character is developed with depth and detail. Great essays are memorable because they distinctively portray their subjects without relying on clichés or formulaic topics. They convey on paper a sense of who the writer is as a person. If you need inspiration, check out this student’s admissions essay. It got him into Harvard, MIT, Yale, Columbia and the University of Virginia. It’s beautifully crafted, fun and reveals more about the student than an application ever could, which is exactly the goal of the college admissions essay. The essay is the component of the college application that allows for some freedom. There is no need to write a formulaic essay with an introduction, three-point body and conclusion. You may want to try outlining your essay in multiple formats or the same format multiple times. You may do pre-writing for several different answers to a topic and then pick the best one to write the actual essay. You might want to plan to do one pre-writing essay, wait a few days, and then do another pre-writing exercise. As mentioned in step 2, writing a college essay takes time, but with enough pre-planning the actual essay writing will be easier. What questions do you have about writing college admissions essays? More than anything, officers want to get to know you through your essay. You will end up sounding like every other applicant. , any other graphic organizer, and/or pre-writing technique that works for you will help you to focus your ideas. If you’re already in college, do you have any advice for current high schoolers? Share your thoughts in the comments section below, or post about it in the College Info Geek Community. It’s impossible to write an article covering every possible essay prompt you could encounter in the college application process. Don’t be too formal â€" or too reliant on a Thesaurus. After all, this component of the essay is all about your personality. Don’t try to impress the admissions committee with your knowledge or verbiage; impress them with who you are. Don’t write about circumstances and embellish just to have a sad or serious essay. However, if you have had to struggle with an illness, loss of a loved one or other difficult experience, discuss how you have or are working to overcome it.