The Application Essay

THE APPLICATION ESSAY

How to present the “Real You”

Good college application essays are important for a number of reasons. They portray the writer as a real person, someone who is unique and worth knowing. They fill the gaps in the statistics and explain what four years of facts won’t show. They help college admissions officers determine how well students are suited to college life in general and to individual colleges specifically. When your essay conveys a dynamic, honest, self-motivated image, you definitely improve your chances for acceptance.

How to Approach Your Topic

Colleges may request one essay (like Brown) or a combination of essays and short-answer themes (like Dartmouth) to learn more about what kind of person you are and how well you can communicate your thoughts. Whatever the number, you will find that essays, for the most part, fall into four categories:

1. Tell us about yourself

2. Tell us about an academic or extra curricular interest

3. Tell us why you want to come to our college

4. Show us the imaginative side of your personality

The most common topic, particularly if only one essay is required, is the first, “Tell us about yourself.” Since this kind of essay has no specific focus, applicants sometimes have trouble deciding which part of their lives to write about. Beware of the chronological list of events that produces dull reading. Remember, also, to accent the positive rather than the negative side of an experience. If you write about the effect of a death, divorce, or illness on your life, tell about but don’t dwell on your bad luck and disappointments. Instead, emphasize what you have learned from the experience, and how coping with adversity has strengthened you as an individual.

Getting Started

Before you can begin writing an essay, you need to college real data about yourself – who you are, what you’ve accomplished, and where you are headed. This kind of self-assessment is also valuable as preparation for college interviews. To help put your thoughts into words, try the suggestions listed below. Remember that this preliminary work is to help you formulate ideas. You need not be concerned with spelling, punctuation, and the flow of ideas at this point.

· List all your activities for the past four years. Include school activities, awards, honors, offices held, community service, jobs and travel

· Record major travel experiences. Note your strongest impressions and how they affected you. If you loved the Grand Canyon, for example, write down three specific reasons why, aside from the grandeur and beauty that everyone loves.

· Describe an accomplishment that you had to struggle to achieve. Include what it was, how you tackled it, and how it changed you.

· Think of one or two sayings that you’ve heard again and again around your house since childhood. How have they shaped your life?

· What personality traits do you value most in yourself? Choose a few and jot down examples of how each has helped you.

· Think of things that other people often say about you. Write about whether or not you agree with their assessments and how they make you feel.

· Brainstorm “top ten” lists in a few selected categories: favorite books, plays, movies, sports, eras in history, famous people, etc. Review your list to see which items stand out and describe what they’ve added to your life.

· Describe “regular people” who have motivated you in different ways throughout your life. It could be someone you only met once, a third-grade teacher, or a family member or friend

The Writing Process

How you approach your first draft depends on whether you are usually an explorer or a pre-planner when you write. Explorers discover ideas as they go, searching for meanings firsts and worrying about logic, order, and form in later drafts. Pre-planners, on the other hand, want to know what they will say before they begin; they organize their thoughts in a detailed outline and expect the first draft to be good. As a result, planners have a tougher time getting started, while explorers may have trouble getting past the unstructured phase and actually finishing a draft. You might find it beneficial to combine these two strategies: relax about firsts drafts, like the explorer, but give some thought to your essay before writing, like the pre-planner.

Once you’ve completed a draft, you need to decide which sections are working out and which are not, and to make changes accordingly. If you just recopy your draft neatly, fixing spelling and punctuation but not reworking ideas, chances are that you will have a shapeless presentation of events rather than a focused essay with a theme.

To decide what to emphasize, read over the draft and ask yourself, “What is the main thing I want to say?” Summarize it in a sentence, and then add, combine, and rearrange ideas with this in mind. If you identify several major themes or events, take a good look at how to like these different ideas together. Instead of giving equal weight to every point, prioritize your ideas, making sure that there is some connection throughout.

Sometimes you finish a draft and know immediately what needs changing and how to do it. But often these insights require more time and distance from your work. There are several ways to achieve this objectivity:

(1) Let your draft sit for a few days (or at least a few hours) without looking it over

(2) Read it aloud. Your ear will pick up problems (dull sections, awkward phrasing, etc.).

(3) Ask people whose opinion you respect to review the draft. If they are experienced writers, teachers, or editors, so much the better; but any thoughtful person, a friend, a parent, a sibling, can provide helpful feedback.

Final Steps

Once you and others have reviewed the initial draft(s), you can use this collective information to polish the final drat. How carefully you polish your essay determines how effective it will be. Here are some steps to consider when smoothing out the rough edges:

· Read your work aloud again and listen for stumbling.

· Consider any of these four ways to make changes

o Add more detail

o Cut away repetitive phrases

o Combine sentences for a smoother flow of ideas

o Write it another way

· Look up any word that looks strange. Your intuition will spot 95% of the errors even if you do not know what the correct spelling should be.

· If a word, sentence, or paragraph bothers you, write two new versions. One of them will please you.

· Ask someone to proofread your essay for you. All too often, what could be a first-rate essay creates a negative impression because of too many rough spots. So allow the time and effort to show that you do care, but eliminating the cross outs, misspellings, poor transitions, and awkward phrasing that detract from even the liveliest of essays.

One final tip – unless the college or university requests a handwritten effort, you should consider typing your essay. Handwritten essays may seem more personal but a well-typed paper is easier to read.

Writing An Admission Essay

Starting Your Essay

1. Make certain you understand the question or the topic. Your essay should answer the question or speak directly to the given topic

2. List all ideas. Be creative. Brainstorm without censoring.

3. Sort through ideas and prioritize. You cannot tell them everything. Be selective.

4. Choose information and ideas that are not reflected in other parts of your application. This is your change to supplement your application with information you want them to know.

5. Be persuasive in showing the reader you are deserving of admission. Remember your audience.

Writing the Draft – Apply what you have learned in English classes

1. Develop paragraphs, one idea at a time, with topic sentences, using examples or giving convincing reasons.

2. Make transitions between paragraphs.

3. Select action verbs and avoid the passive voice.

4. Use concrete examples. Often examples of behavior demonstrate an idea better than an adjective.

5. Develop exact, concrete language. Avoid vague references, wordy usage or clichés.

Editing Your Draft

1. Does your introduction capture the reader’s attention?

2. Are you consistent in your verb tense?

3. Are you clear and coherent?

4. Are you concise enough to adhere to the limits in length?

5. Have you checked for grammatical and spelling errors?

6. Does the essay present you as you wish to be seen?

7. Did another person review your essay for possible mistakes?

8. Would you remember your essay if you read one hundred others?

9. Does your closing paragraph present you as you wish to be remembered?

Completing Your Essay?

1. Some applications list a preference for typed or handwritten work. Regardless of the preference, the application should be neat and legible.

2. Keep a copy for your records.

10 BAD ESSAY TOPICS

Here are 10 essay topics you should avoid. Some of them are simply bad topics that are inappropriate for college applications. Others are extremely popular topics that make admissions officers’ eyes glaze over. Why aren’t we listing the 1-0 essay topics? Because if we did, they’d be overdone, and then they’d be the worst! So, for one reason or another, don’t write about:

1. Your relationship with your girlfriend or boyfriend

2. Your religious beliefs

3. Your political views

4. Sex

5. How much you love yourself

6. The importance of a college education

7. Your SAT scores

8. Big ideas such as how to make the world’s nations live together in peace

9. “The Best Game of My Life” or another athletic incident written in glib style

10. Your trip abroad, unless truly noteworthy

Tips For Writing An Essay

For Your College Application

· Do not include information from other parts of your application

· Maintain proper tone

· Write about something you really care about

· Avoid general issues

· Keep in mind the purpose of your essay

· Submit extra materials if they expand on your essay (e.g. an extension to your answer to question #2, photos of a project that relation to question #2, etc.)

· Have your essay critiqued by someone who writes well

· Keep your essay within the confines of the requested length

· Explain extenuating circumstances, such as a bad semester/course, illness, family situations, trauma, etc.

Adapted from How to Write College Application Essays, by Mimi Schwartz