Common Application Essay Writing Tips
1. Think small: The essay topic you choose should highlight your personality and values, something you are passionate about and shows who you are. Use specific examples, short and concise.
2. Write first, edit later: Writing a compelling essay requires multiple drafts and edits. Don’t edit yourself before you’ve allowed yourself the ability to warm up and get your story on paper. After you’ve drafted it, put it down and then go back again later. It is easier to work with too much information than not enough.
3. Kill the clichés: When you take a trip down memory lane, telling us about the time you were a mover and a shaker and really put your nose to the grindstone, really makes our blood boil. Admission officers find clichés to be unnecessary extra’s…they don’t really tell us about you. They want you to ‘think outside of the box’ without using phrases like “I think outside of the box”.
4. It’s in the details: What’s the difference between these two sentences? My favorite activities included fishing and cooking my daily catch. My friends and I woke up early every morning to catch bass on Lake Michigan, cooking our spoils with herbs picked from a local farm.
In the first sentence, we understand you enjoy certain activities. In the second sentence, we know you like fishing, your committed to your activity, you’re engaged in it every day, it is a social effort, there is a sense of time and place.
When you provide details ~ show us, paint a clear picture, evoke of our senses.
5. If nothing else, entertain: Admission officers read dozens of essays every day for weeks and weeks. Try to capture their attention, help them ‘want’ to know you and/or know how the story ends. No matter what your subject (serious, uplifting, sentimental) it ultimately should capture their attention and be compelling.
6. Brand yourself: A reader should be able to summarize your subject/essay in one simple sentence. Write with enough details to burn an image in the reader’s brain. If it comes down to you and another candidate, you want the admission officer to say, “I like the girl who performed her trapeze in the circus.” It is much harder to say, “I like the girl who practiced trapeze, was good with bikes, and who got an A on every test and worked really hard.” Focus your story! When you finish writing your draft, do a branding test, “can you label who you are in one sentence?”
UC Insight Questions – Essay Tips
1. Choose 4 of the 8 questions that best represent you! Think of these questions like an interview with an admission officer or like a 1 minute elevator pitch. If you got in an elevator, and had one minute to tell an admission officer about yourself what would you say.
2. Show different experiences, values, traits about yourself in your four different responses. This is an opportunity to showcase several different sides of your self.
3. Write Persuasively: use specific, concrete, sensory examples to support your point.
4. Use I statement: talk about yourself so they can get to know your personality, talent, and accomplishments. Respond with I and My.
5. Proofread and Edit: You are not evaluated on grammar but you need to proofread and make sure your edits are clear. Grammatical and spelling errors are distracting.
6. Solicit Feedback: Selectively and after you’ve done some of your own edits.
Common Application
Q1:
The catch all: You can write about almost anything (background, culture, early childhood, relationships, interests).
What makes “YOU – YOU” – If I were to ask your best friend why I should select you for my college or university, what would they say about you? How would your best friend describe you?