How To Structure A College Essay

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Don’t tell us how much you want to attend XYZ University when you are submitting the essay to The College of ABC.

Remember, in the grand scheme of the college admissions process, the application essay is a unique opportunity — and an opportunity to be unique.

Whether you’re prepared or not, there comes a time when every student is faced with writing their first college essay.

Even if you’re a natural writer, writing a college essay is still a daunting task.

Think about it: Most of the items you submit to the colleges or universities you’re applying to showcase talents that you have developed over a long period of time. At the same time, you shouldn’t downplay the importance of the essay either. This is your chance to paint a picture of who you are. Professionals on admissions committees have the daunting task of reading thousands of application essays per year, and it can get a bit tedious after a while.

Your high school transcript contains at least three years of grades, showing evidence of hard work in a variety of subjects. Keep in mind essays are a major separating factor in sorting the mediocre students from those who have gone (and most likely will continue to go) above and beyond. I can’t even tell you how many wonderful application essays I’ve read about students’ mothers, fathers, brothers, grandmothers, neighbors, and even the ice cream truck driver being the most influential person in their lives. After reading them, I want to call the students up and encourage their grandmothers to apply! Don’t get me wrong, I love the essay prompts for many colleges, but some essay questions don’t exactly push for creativity or thinking outside of the box.Your clubs, organizations, sports, community service, and other accomplishments reflect years of participation and dedication to fields outside the classroom. Let’s get started It’s time to pick your essay topic. But, after reading these enthralling stories about other people, I still know absolutely nothing about the student who wrote the essay. For example, “Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you ...” is the essay topic where I hear an awful lot about Grandma, and the “topic of your choice” prompt can go from interesting to ridiculous pretty quickly.Even your good old SAT or ACT scores reflect the accumulation of vocabulary, mathematics, and reading comprehension talents acquired throughout your life. That being said, remember to choose an essay topic that helps keep the focus on you but is still flexible enough for you to incorporate your personality, your history, your individuality, and your impact on those around you.You are not required to incriminate yourself in your application essay, nor should you.This might be your only chance to show the admissions committee that you are more than just a GPA, test scores, and a bunch of extracurricular activities, so it may be best not to ruin their first impression of you with your past criminal history.On copious occurrences, pupils will endeavor to parade their current acquaintance with the English vernacular in an attempt to affect an air of knowledge. Remember, the admissions committee wants to focus on you, and sometimes it is hard to do so when all they are thinking is, “What is this person talking about?!Let’s face it, that sounded a little silly, and this is exactly what we go through each time students attempt to replace every other word in their essays with longer words and more complex terms from a thesaurus. When a student attempts to stuff the essay with large words — words we both know are not a part of his or her everyday vocabulary — it often actually detracts from the piece. ” In my experience, students love to write about how they have learned from their mistakes.You can certainly submit a résumé with your application, but your essay is not the place to do it.We want you to expand upon a few characteristics that make you great, not just give us a list with the thousand and one things that contribute to your greatness.This way, we are able to fully grasp why these particular characteristics, out of the many you could have selected, are so important to you and who you are as an individual.Besides, that other essay would go on forever, and, as I mentioned, we read thousands of these things each year.