College Advising

Strategies for Colleges Essays 

 

Essays are the main part of your application where college admissions officers get to know you as a person--so make sure you tell them about yourself! There's no perfect way to write a college essay, so make sure to just be honest and true to yourself. Here are a few guidelines to get started, but definitely contact me to review your essay or just talk it over! I always enjoy reading student essays so never hesitate to reach out.

 

Choosing a topic:

• The Common Application offers several different prompts to choose from, which can be helpful in brainstorming topics but don't need to be fully followed(although you should definitely fully follow prompts for school-specific essays or scholarship essays). In general, many people write about either a challenge that they have overcome, and how it shaped them, or they write about how they developed one of their passions.

• Choose a memorable topic that will stand out: College Admissions Officers have to read thousands of essays, so you want to choose something that can be remembered as yours. I like to think about it two different ways. First, the college admissions officer should be able to remember you as "the student who wrote about [your topic]." Second, if your best friend read 100 college essays including yours, they should know immediately which one was submitted by you.

• A memorable topic doesn't have to be a major life event--it can be something small, as long as you can use it to tell the reader something about yourself and/or your college journey.

• Don't be afraid to take a stand on something that you're passionate about!

• Try to avoid topics that many people will write about, like sports or mission trips. If you really want to write about one of those topics because it has a lot of meaning to you, that's fine, just make sure that you write about it in a way that is personal to you. Remember, your best friend should be able to read 100 different essays and know which one is yours.

• Definitely talk to someone with experience in college admissions about your essay topic before you start writing--your College Adviser(me) or your School Counselor are both great resources!

​

 Writing the essay:

• Don't spend too much essay describing the "story" of your essay--the Admissions Officers want to hear about you. A lot of Admissions Officers have told me that after reading essays they're like "I know this student's mom(or church, team, etc.) really well, but I didn't learn much about the student themself." It's good to spend a few sentences to a paragraph describing your "story," but make sure you spend most of the essay communicating how that story is relevant to you and your college journey.

• Similarly, Admissions Officers want to get to know how your mind works. How do you think about things? Be willing to be vulnerable.

• Be honest! Don't misrepresent your achievements or brag too much about yourself. Aside from the questionable morality, it won't even help your essay--Admissions Officers are looking to get to know you on a personal level in your essay, and embellishing your achievements won't help.

• Don't bite off more than you can chew--you only have a limited space, so Admissions Officers don't expect you to tell your whole life story. Better to write more deeply about one thing than to try to cover every topic.

• Pay attention to grammar, spelling, and overall accuracy. College Admissions Officers definitely notice if your essay has mistakes, so definitely have several people proofread your essay(friends, parents, English teacher, College Adviser, School Counselor)

• Use good writing in general! Colleges use your essay as a critical "writing sample" or a piece of writing used to assess your writing abilities. Use active voice, vivid imagery, show rather than tell, and other good writing practices that your College Adviser or English teacher can help you with.

• Be careful with humor. If you're a funny person in real life, it's ok to throw some humor in to give the reader a better sense of who you are. But humor is definitely not essential, and it can be dangerous because you don't know your audience.

• Do more that one draft, and have someone give you feedback. 

​

Good things to do if it's relevant to you and you have space:

• Demonstrate that you'll fit in on their campus and be a positive community member

• Connect your essay to your career goals for after college(don't worry if you're undecided)

• Display your academic interests. I'm not talking about your great test grade, I mean how your mind thinks in an academic way. What subjects spark your curiosity?

​

Tips for supplemental essays specific to a certain college:

• Show that you've done some research about that school, especially the academic programs or the student community. Why would you be a good fit at that particular school?

• No "useless" sentences--these essays usually have a short word count, so make sure all of your sentences communicate something important to what you're writing.

​

That's all I have here, but definitely reach out for more personalized advice!

 

​