Dos And Donts Of A Great College Essay

Dos And Don’ts Of A Great College Essay Never copy an essay from the internet or have someone else write it for you. The risks are greater than any benefit you might get by plagiarizing an essay. Do not assume that if someone else writes the essay for you that it will produce a high quality essay. Nearly all colleges and universities require students to write an essay to supplement their application to attend the institution. Applicants are usually given an essay prompt and a word limit within which to express themselves. The essays usually cover topics relating to the student’s experiences and opinions. The goal of the essay is to provide admission professionals an opportunity to see you, beyond your GPA and test scores, as an individual person with your own unique experiences. One hurdle that you must surmount when planning to go to college is the application process. They will go on and on about the time they did this illegal thing and broke the law, but it’s OK, because they learned from their mistake. The application process is competitive, and there are plenty of good applicants out there who have never broken the law. You are not required to incriminate yourself in your application essay, nor should you. You don’t want all that hard work to go to waste. Similarly, a lot of students feel like they have to write about a major life event or their most impressive achievement. “In 10th grade, I became a hooker.” Yes, this is the actual first line of an application essay we received a few years ago and something I never imagined I would see while reading an admissions essay. Immediately I was stunned trying to think of the events that must have lead up to this moment and how this student was going to swing this into a positive light. What I didn’t know at the time was that a “hooker” was actually the name of a position on a rugby team. The student went on about how he developed the strength and technique needed to be successful in the position and how that experience shaped him into the man he had become. Whether or not it was intentional, this student started his essay in a way that certainly caught the attention of the admissions committee, and that’s what your first sentences absolutely need to do. The majority of stress and work in the admissions process stems from the essay writing. These essays are a critical component of a student’s application, as it’s one of the only opportunities to inject personality into an application. Students should spend a lot of time crafting their essays and as as result, need to manage their time to be successful. Far too many students don’t have anything worthwhile to say in their conclusions to application essays about why they want to attend a particular college or university. If you are completely out of ideas, it’s always a good idea to express appreciation at the end of your college-specific essays. Writing the college essay takes time and effort, and you should feel accomplished. When you submit your essay, remember to include your name, contact information, and ID number if your college provided one, especially if you send it to a general admission email account. Nothing is worse than trying to match an application essay with no name (or, worse, an email address such as ) to a file. Even for Common App schools, you may need to write a supplemental essay or provide short answers to questions. Each of member of our professional writing team is a U.S.-based native English speaking professional. Make sure to keep copies of what you sent to which schools and whenâ€"and follow up on them! Be certain the college or university you're applying to received your essay. But the purpose of a personal statement isn't to serve as a resume or a brag sheetâ€"there are plenty of other places in the application for you to list that information. Many of the best essays are about something small because your approach to a common experience generally reveals a lot about your perspective on the world. The first step in how to write a college essay is figuring out what you actually need to do. Although many schools are now on the Common App, some very popular colleges, including University of Texas and University of California, still have their own applications and writing requirements. It can be laborious, time intensive, confusing, and overwhelming. The college essay can feel like the worst part of the application process. Whether writing comes easy or is a struggle for you, writing an essay can be a significant challenge and it can feel like your whole application is riding on that one essay. This module can help you to sort through what you need to do to write the best essay you can write. In my experience, students love to write about how they have learned from their mistakes.