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WRITING THE COLLEGE ESSAY CVUSD COLLEGE NIGHT September 25, 2013
Lynne Kelsey, Westlake High School English Department
A few things to remember:
· If you are applying to a CSU school, an essay is not required. (However, your senior English teacher will probably make it an important class assignment.)
· If you are applying to a UC school, you should have your personal essay completed before you begin the online application so that you can paste the next into the appropriate area. You should write at least three drafts and have it proofread by someone who is skilled in spelling and grammar!
· There are dozens of books written about writing the college essay. If you’re the kind of person who can methodically work through writing exercises, look for one of the workbook-style books such as How to Write a Winning College Application Essay or Conquering the College Admissions Essay in 10 Steps: Crafting a Winning Personal Statement. Other books focus on analyzing successful essays; for example, College Essays that Made a Difference or Fiske Real College Essays that Work. These books may provide inspiration, but the reader might be tempted to simply imitate an existing essay rather than producing an original piece—a dangerous idea.
· There’s one thing you simply cannot escape: writing an effective college essay is hard work! It is not something that can be accomplished in a single sitting. Get your ideas down on paper, then let them “cook” in your brain for a few days before you return to the piece. Remember that revision is more than just fixing the spelling or putting in a comma—it literally means, “to see again.” Try to look at your writing with fresh eyes each time; put yourself in the place of someone who has never met you and imagine what they might be thinking as they read your essay.
UC Personal Statement Prompts: students have a maximum of 1,000 total words to answer both prompts. It is suggested that the shorter response be no fewer than 250 words.
Prompt #1 (freshman applicants)
Describe the world you come from — for example, your family, community or school — and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.
Prompt #2 (all applicants)
Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?
Common Application Personal Essay
The Common Application is used by over 500 colleges and universities, including Pepperdine, Chapman, Caltech, CLU, Westmont, and Loyola Marymount in California. The application states, “This personal essay helps us become acquainted with you as a person and student, apart from courses, grades, test scores, and other objective data. It will also demonstrate your ability to organize your thoughts and express yourself.” Students may choose one of the following topics; the minimum length is 250 words and the maximum is 650, though students would be wise to limit essays to around 500-550 words.
1. Some students have a background or story that is so central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
2. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn?
3. Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?
4. Describe a place or environment where you are perfectly content. What do you do or experience there, and why is it meaningful to you?
5. Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.
Entries from the blog of Scott Seseske, Assistant Dean of Admission, Providence College
Scott Seseske received a B.A. in English from Providence College (Class of 2004) and was a member of the Liberal Arts Honors Program.
Writing the College Essay August 13, 2008
Ahhh the college application essay... nothing brings about writer's block quite like this, right? This week, we're going to spend some time talking about the essay, and hopefully make it a little less intimidating...
While the essay is many students' least favorite part of the application, it is actually the favorite part for many admission counselors (not less intimidating yet? Hang on...). Why is that? Well, the essay is the one piece of the application that you have complete control over at the moment you're writing it, and you have the opportunity to let your personality shine through. As an admission counselor, I really want to get to know YOU - to move beyond the "numbers" part of your application and get a sense of what's important to you, and what you are passionate about.
So, let's begin with the college essay topic - what should you write about? First of all, PC is a member of the Common Application group, and you have six different essay questions to choose from (and the last one is "topic of your choice" - so you can write about whatever you so choose). Unfortunately, I am not going to give you a specific answer here... and that's because there isn't one. There is no specific subject or topic we're looking for as admission counselors... we have no preference as to which common app. question you answer or if you choose your own topic... simply put, there is no "magic formula" to writing the perfect college admission essay. The best essays that we read each year are personal - in other words, when we have finished reading the 500-word, two page double-spaced essay, we know something more about the student and maybe even have a sense of that student's personality.
In choosing a topic, think about the people, places, and things that are important to YOU. You should not try to pick a topic that you think a college admission counselor would like to read about (I don't know what that topic would be - and I AM an admission counselor!). Instead, choose something you feel comfortable writing about and you feel will show us who you are as a person. As I mentioned above, the essay helps admission counselors to move beyond the "numbers" of your application (such as your GPA, class rank, and SAT/ACT scores) and gives us the opportunity to get to know the "real you" (clichéd, I know... but also true!).
· Write the essay about YOU! No matter which essay question you choose from the Common Application, it is important that your essay shows the admission staff who you are, and that when we put your essay down, we have a better sense of what is important to you, what you are passionate about, and hopefully even a sense of your personality. Each year, we receive essays from students about a certain topic that are well-written, but that don't tell us anything about the student. Here's an example: a student uses essay prompt #3, and writes his essay about his grandfather, and all of the wonderful things his grandfather did during his life. But when we reach the end of the essay, the student hasn't brought the essay back around to how his grandfather influenced him. This essay has shown us a great picture of Grandpa Charlie, but Grandpa's not applying to Providence College. Here's the actual essay question: "Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence." No matter which essay topic you decide upon, don't forget the part of the question about your topic's impact or influence on you - that's what admission counselors want to read about!
· Spelling and grammar count! In our office, we refer to the application essay as "the first college assignment." That's important to keep in mind when you are writing it - make sure that you are spelling words correctly, capitalizing letters at the beginning of sentences, and using proper punctuation. As a liberal arts college, your writing ability is an important consideration in the application review process for us. Even if you're not an English major, you will be writing essays as part of our core curriculum and specifically the Development of Western Civilization program, and it's important that we see strong writing in your college essay.
· Remember, your college essay is a formal piece of writing! In other words, you are not writing an e-mail, an instant message, or posting on your friend's Facebook wall. The application essay should be written like you would write an essay for your high school English class - to put it simply, it should have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.
· Don't mention other colleges or universities! This one's self-explanatory, and seemingly an easy mistake not to make - but it happens all the time. A student wants to personalize each essay to the seven different schools he or she is applying to... and forgets to change the school in each of the essays. Oops.
· Have your essay proofread! Your computer spell-checker isn't going to catch everything. Have a teacher, a counselor, your parents, or your friends read your essay over to catch any little mistakes you may have in there. And read it over yourself, too! Don't send the essay without reading it from beginning to end yourself!
· Start the essay early! If you haven't already started at least a rough draft of your essay, please take some time to do that before you head back to school this fall. It's a lot easier to write without the added pressure of an approaching application deadline.
Juniors: Things to avoid in your application next year April 12, 2007
After reviewing 9,800 applications for admission to the Class of 2011, the admission staff has seen it all: the good, the bad, and the ugly. In this posting, I will focus on the bad and the ugly—some of the common mistakes (and at times, just plain laziness) that we observed in this year’s applications. Though I’ll be writing in a very lighthearted way, and many of these mistakes may make you laugh, they are not so humorous if they appear in your application. So, juniors, pay attention… and make sure none of the following appear in your application for admission next year!
Some of our favorite misspellings/incorrect word choices:
1. Guidance Councilor—Actually, we have found that there are many incorrect ways to spell counselor… but this is the most popular version. It appears so often that we start to wonder if high schools are spelling it this way above their guidance offices! Correct Spelling: Guidance Counselor
2. Honor Role—It’s tough to go more than two applications without finding this one. Correct Spelling: Honor Roll
3. Threw life—The first two we see quite often, but thankfully, this mistake is not nearly as common. Still, in my own geographic territory alone, I saw this on at least three occasions… which is at least three times too many… Correct Spelling: Through life
4. Edjucation—Yes, I really did have a student spell it this way. Really. Correct Spelling: Education.
5. Buisness—Business seems to be a relatively easy word to spell, but from the number of times we see the “i" and “s" reversed, I guess that it’s not! Correct Spelling: Business
6. Pschology—or sometimes “pyschology" or even “pschyology." Correct Spelling: Psychology
7. Captian—In fact, we see many three-sport “captians" who spell it this way each time they write it. Correct Spelling: Captain
A couple of other mistakes we see too often:
Ø A student spelling their own street incorrectly. Yep. Happens more than you’d expect. The student spells it one way on the application, and a different way on the additional forms they send in. And then we find it spelled a THIRD way on the transcript. Great. (Better than spelling your own name wrong, though… which has also been known to occur…)
Ø The infamous “search and replace" specific interest college essay… Where the student finishes the essay with the following line: “That is why I can’t wait to attend (school that is NOT Providence College) in the fall." Search and replace is great… but only if you remember to do the replacing! Unfortunately, this is also becoming more and more common in teacher recommendations, where the teacher firmly believes the student will be a perfect fit at (enter name of school that is NOT Providence College here). Oops.
And finally, some other things we chuckle at… Or that juniors should avoid on their applications next year:
Ø Inappropriate e-mail addresses, such as: . Or (and these are tame pretend examples compared with some we see!) It is so easy to open a free e-mail account through hotmail or yahoo, so why not create a college-specific address that you’ll be sure to check often with your first name and last name (i.e. ). It makes you look a great deal more mature. But, I will admit, we do get a lot of laughs at the e-mail addresses we see each year.
Ø When a student tries to impress us with their knowledge of PC by saying something like, “I truly want to attend PC because of your fine Franciscan tradition" or “As I currently attend a Jesuit high school, I know the value of such an education and want to continue my Jesuit education at PC next year." Valiant attempts, but PC is run by the Dominican Order.
Ø Please, please, please, if you use the pronoun “I" in your application (which you will!), make sure to capitalize it. Remember, this is your college essay you’re writing, not an e-mail... or a blog...
Ø And finally, please don’t use Instant Messenger shorthand anywhere in your application! (Thx! TTYL!)