What is the typical format for a college application essay? Are there paragraphs? First person or third person? etc…
There’s lots of formats, depending on the story you want to tell. I know a classmate at Berkeley who wrote her essay as a letter to her sister. Just don’t do something like a poem that makes it hard for your reader to understand you.
Google “Essays That Worked” for a list of example essays by various colleges.
Any piece of writing more than, say, 200 words should be divided into paragraphs.