Hi,
So I’ve been writing my college application essays, and I’ve noticed something. My essays, though full of my personality, don’t seem to reveal anything. Cool, you like anime. Cool, you like language. I’ve read the Fiske essay book, and it talked about the best essays being about nothing and more rambling talk. I didn’t completely understand it, and I’m not sure why the essays it selected were selected.
Can someone please enlighten me about how to write a good essay?
A common approach is to use your essay(s) to add content and context to everything else in your application. Think about what Admissions knows about you excluding the essay: GPA, test scores, extracurriculars, etc. Now think about what else you want them to know about you that isn’t included in the above. Maybe you want to be an astronaut. Maybe a Senator. Maybe you’re a caregiver for a family member several hours per week or are very interested in chess. You’ll likely have several potential topics…explore some of them and get some feedback from others. At the end of the day, you want to use the essay to help paint a more complete picture of who you are, what your passions and aspirations are, and why you feel like you’d fit with the school you are applying to.
Final tip: Be your authentic self in your essay, don’t write what you think someone in Admissions wants to hear.
Good luck!
Read this. I think it’s very helpful. http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/uploads/1/0/9/5/109505679/hack_the_college_essay_2017.pdf
@MaryS, I don’’t think you are allowed to advertise professional help for essays in this forum. Academic honesty is important.
A second recommendation for ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ It’s free, downloadable, interesting to read, and makes the process seem relatively easy. My daughter followed the advice, wrote her Common App essay in a few drafts, and so far has gotten in to ten out of ten schools. And she’s not a particularly accomplished writer. The “hack” advice just helped her to show who she really is by focusing on one experience and letting that reveal some key qualities.
She was kind of blocked until she read Hack the College Essay and then she figured, hey I can do that.
OP,aside from all the “hacks”—
Your essay is designed to give the schools to see you as more than a bunch of numbers on a page. It’s the one part of the process that allows you to simply be you. It should be an essay that your mom or your best friend could pick out of a stack and know that it was written by you.
Here’s the approach that worked with my kids:
- Take a look at the Common App prompts. Make a Word document, with each prompt on a separate page.
Day 1: Set a timer for 4 minutes per prompt. Use that 4 minutes to brainstorm anything that might remotely fit the prompt. Nothing is too mundane or outrageous to be considered on Day 1.
Day 2: Go over your list. Come up with a sentence or two detailing how this topic could “give them a reason to say yes” and what you would say. Eliminate as necessary.
Day 3: Go back over your list. Give bullets to describe what you would say. Eliminate as necessary.
Day 4: Go back over your list. Those bullets become an outline. Eliminate as necessary.
Day 5: start rough drafts of the few topics that remain. Eliminate any that aren’t feeling solid.
And so on.
Try making a list of qualities about yourself that you would like to highlight, and then write about experiences that you’ve had that support them. Don’t write about experiences themselves, just to write about the experience. Use those moments in your life as a didactic story for the admissions officers to read. Every time you write something, think about WHY it is relevant and important to YOU.
I see that this thread was started last September, so the OP most likely submitted all of their essays…