In English class, you learn what it means to write a good hook. The hook is the part of your writing that reels the reader in and keeps them interested in reading further. With the college essay, the hook is just a means to a beginning. While writing, your focus is on making every part of your essay just as intriguing as the next. Your audience is an admissions officer that is trying to figure out whether or not you’re the student they want at their school. Therefore, you can’t just focus on an amazing hook and then leave the rest of the essay feeling dull and boring.
Successful Techniques for College Admission Essays: Avoid the Clichés
Clichés can be very tempting. Like it or not, we all use them in life. But, when it comes to applying to college you definitely don’t want to be throwing around clichés in your college essay. The essay is supposed to give details about how you think and write. It’s not a list of what cliché you feel best fits your story.
Simplify your College Admission Essay
There’s an episode of Friends where Monica and Chandler need a letter of recommendation for an adoption service. Joey volunteers to write the letter but becomes flustered. He tells Ross, “I want it to sound smart, but I don’t know any big words or anything!” Ross shows him the thesaurus and Joey proceeds to pick the “smartest sounding” word for every single word in his letter.
Don’t Lie in your College Admission Essay
“My heart had stopped beating. The heart rate monitor stood still at a hollow flat line. As the doctors shuffled around the room searching for shock paddles, my mom cried at the window. With a round of successful defibrillation, I was revived. I view this medical triumph as my second chance at life, my opportunity to be the best version of me. Without facing death, I wouldn’t have the perspective I do on life. I am truly a miracle.”
The Hidden Value of Writing a Bad First Draft of Your College Admission Essay
Every great piece of writing has to start somewhere. You can be sure that The Great Gatsby wasn’t one of the greatest books of all time when it was solely a first draft. Even the most well respected authors go through various drafts before finishing their pieces. The art of writing is based on revision. Hemingway had to write and rewrite before he was happy with his work. It took him 39 rewrites to get the last page of A Farewell to Arms to sound the way he wanted it to. If they can do it, so can you.
How to Get into Wesleyan
As applicants, you know that a standardized test requires studying and preparation. Years of work lead up to a 3 hour and 50 minute exam that will supposedly tell a person everything they need to know about you. For some, the tests are where they shine; their strengths lie in succeeding under pressure and scoring high. However, many of us feel less comfortable with the idea of letting a test determine who we are.
Six Pieces of Advice for your Common App Essay
Don’t forget to keep the narrative structure
The college essay should be a story, not a book report. You want to create characters and a plot arc that readers can follow along with. Much in the same way you would tell your friends a story about something that happened, you don’t want to go straight to the take home points. Instead, build up the story so the reader is emotionally invested and wants to know more. The story should come to a head and pay off for the reader.
Phrases you Should Never use in a College Admission Essay, Part 2
In the second installment of “Phrases to Avoid,” we have compiled 39 more phrases sourced from real college essays that you should never use under any circumstances. They include unnecessary hyperbole, awkward word choice, and tired cliches among their many problems. In many cases phrases like these are a red flag to an admissions officer, and using any one of them can help land your essay in the rejection pile.
How to Write a College Essay About Failure
The common app offers five prompts for the personal statement, aka the dreaded “.” Despite the fear the essay evokes, each option gives you the chance to be creative. While we encourage students to explore their quirkiest side, it can often be challenging to strike that balance between being creative and answering the question. The first obstacle is choosing which of the five prompts to answer. Today we’re going to explain some strategies for how to answer the second prompt on the common app.
15 Words you Should Never use in a College Admissions Essay
After reading hundreds of college essays, we have compiled a list of words you should never use in your college admissions essay. Some of these words embody the emptiness of vague or overly complex word choice, others are redundant, some are grounds for an almost automatic rejection. You only have 650 words max in most of your essays. Every single one should count.
What are Colleges Looking for
Dear Aspiring College Applicant,
I know you’re telling yourself you’re not going to get into college. Everyone around you is so much more qualified than you are. You could have higher grades, better test scores, more impressive extracurriculars. If you had just put one more hour into studying, you would have gotten an A instead of an A- in that class. That class is the reason why you’re not going to get into Brown. You’ve convinced yourself you’re going to get rejected from literally everywhere you apply, leading to shame, embarrassment, and regret.
When Writing your College Admissions Essay, Know your Audience
Up until now, the audience for your writing has probably been limited. You’ve had essays and papers due for your humanities classes, where you know the teacher well, and maybe you’ve dabbled in creative writing for yourself or a school assignment. With the exception of a few students, most first time college applicants have never written a cover letter or any other sort of writing that is intended to be read by an unknown audience. This is one of the many struggles with the common app personal statement—the college essay. It is difficult to strike the right tone because most likely, you’ve never written anything quite like it. The first thing we always tell our students is to consider their audience.
What Should my College Essay be About?
Of the hundreds of essays we’ve read, we’ve found that the most successful essays fall into five categories.
The first is the genuine thought-provoking essay. This is the hardest type of essay to write because it is absolutely impossible to fake, which makes it is a favorite amongst admissions officers. Students who write a genuine thought essay are unusually insightful for their age and tend to make precocious observations. What makes this type of essay so unique is the author’s ability to bring the reader into their world, to articulate in 650 words how they see the world and how their perception has shaped who they are. In , the author tells the reader how he sees and experiences the world by painting a picture rich in metaphors and depth. It showcases prodigious writing skills, an amazing level of intellectual depth, and a tone wise beyond its years. While these essays are not for all students, when done well they can often be the most rewarding.
Successful Essay Breakdown
Five Mistakes People Make During The College Admissions Process
The college admissions process is a daunting undertaking. For you students it will require an insane amount of your time, effort, and focus. But you’re probably sick of hearing this. You’ve had this drummed into your heads by college counselors, teachers, and your parents. As consulting professionals (aka people who help get into college for a living) what we want to do is help you identify the five most common mistakes students like you make during the college admissions process. If you learn from these mistakes the whole process will undoubtedly go much smoother and you’ll have a much better chance of ending up at the school of your dreams.
43 Phrases You Should Never Use In A College Admission Essay
When most students are writing their college admission essay, they aren’t thinking about the Essay Readers at colleges whose entire job is to sort students’ essays into NO, MAYBE, and YES piles. As hard as you’ve worked on your essay, you may get exactly two minutes of a Reader’s time if he or she feels your writing is boring or unoriginal. Unfortunately, a huge percentage of essays fall into this category. On the other hand, the few essays that show clear, original thinking get promptly placed into the YES pile. The admission essay is one truly personal section of the college application; if your essay stands out, your chances of getting into your top choice school goes up dramatically. Therefore, take careful note of these 43 phrases. Using them might spell NO for your admission chances.