What Does an Essay Do for You?

Writing Your College Essay

What does an essay do for you?

It gives a human face to your college application. It is your chance to communicate directly with the admissions officers and tell them something about you beyond what they can find in your resume, grades, and test scores. It’s the one part of your application that you have complete control of.

What are some characteristics of a good essay?

It includes a story or anecdote about your life—a story that only you can tell.
It includes specific details that bring the story to life and make it memorable.
It includes thoughtful reflection and self-analysis. This is key—how did the story you tell change or affect you? What did you learn?
It has a strong opening—a hook to get the reader’s attention—and a strong closing, which may relate back to the beginning.
It includes descriptive language evoking specific sights, smells, feelings, etc.
It answers the prompt and stays within the word limit.
It has perfect grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
It uses the first person.
It avoids clichés and trite conclusions.
It avoids using pretentious words obviously pulled from the thesaurus.
It avoids wordiness.
It is your own work (obviously), and also shows your own authentic voice.

How do you get started?

Read several examples of good college essays. Find some in the CCC, the Writing Center, or online.

Brainstorm an idea for a topic. It should be something that really matters to you. Look over your resume (or start one if you haven’t yet) to trigger an idea. Is there a story behind some of your accomplishments? Think about your classes and extra-curricular activities, your out-of-school activities, your family, friends, and places you’ve visited. Consider unusual experiences you’ve had as well as commonplace experiences that for some reason were exceptionally meaningful to you. Look through photos of family and friends and other memorabilia to see if something sparks a memory. Ask your parents or friends about significant experiences they’ve had with you. Think about pivotal moments when your outlook changed, when you grew, learned a lesson, or considered something from a new perspective. Think about how you have changed in the past three or four years and an incident that illustrates that change. Remember that almost any topic can be crafted into a compelling essay, as long as it’s something you care about.

Write. Accept the fact that you’ll go through many drafts during the process. Just throw the first one out there. Write quickly; don’t give a thought to language, spelling, word count, etc. Let your thoughts flow freely.

Revise. This can be the most time-consuming part. Now is when you want to consider word choice, the structure of your essay, the flow from paragraph to paragraph and from thought to thought. Make sure you’re saying what you want to say. Be willing to cut words, sentences, even whole paragraphs if necessary. Remove any fluff that doesn’t actually contribute. Reading your essay out loud is a great way to catch missing words or areas that aren’t working.

Proofread, and have others look at your essay, too, for misspellings, grammatical errors, and punctuation, etc. After you think you’re done, set it aside for several days, then take a fresh look.

Come to the CCC or Writing Center, or show your essay to a teacher, friend, or parent for their input. The CCC and Writing Center can help you both revise for content early in your process and help with proofreading near the end.

The Writing Center is located in the Media Center and open Monday through Thursday from 3:15 to 6 p.m. No appointment necessary.

The CCC offers one-on-one essay help during lunch periods. Sign up in advance for a 25-minute session with a private tutor to brush up and refine your story. E-mail for an appointment.

August 2014