<p>okay, so... I helped people at my High School write / edit college essays, and I think it all worked out fairly well... so I figured I'd post a step-by-step how-to for writing college essays. Maybe other people have posted things like this, and I'm sure this method isn't perfect; however, if you are in need of a place to start, here is a resource.</p>
<p>COLLEGE ESSAY HOW TO</p>
<p>Gather Prompts
After you know where you are going to apply, make a word document with all of the essay prompts you have. Several colleges may ask the same question, and you may ultimately be able to write the same essay to fit several prompts (but don’t group unlike prompts just yet!). Make a mental list of all the essay prompts you have. (Label them in your head as “Essay 1” “Essay 2” etc…)</p>
<p>The Resume
Okay, right now, make yourself a resume. This is not really the resume you want to send out, this is the resume where you write absolutely everything you spend or spent a decent amount of time on. Remember to include interests (e.g. “I love drawing” or “I go watch movies with my family every Friday”) – you may even want to organize your resume by topic. Write down all your awards, clubs, SATs, rank, anything you can think of. Now look at your resume: a lot of these things will not go on your final resume, but all have college essay potential. Mentally separate out parts of your resume belong more in essay form (interests are usually this sort) and set those aside. Analyze what you feel the strengths and weaknesses of you application are. Some weaknesses you want to explain, some you want to push under the rug, so try to figure out which kind of weakness each is (please ask your parents and not CC people, they will make a mountain out of a molehill - “OMG I’m only top 5% of my HS!”). Similarly, some strengths speak for themselves and don’t need essay room, while some are more impressive if you explain what they are.</p>
<p>*The College Persona *
This is where you figure out what your “angle” is. What do colleges NEED to know about you? There are a lot of little tricks to this, which CCers like to analyze to no end. Keep in mind that you want to make yourself stand out, so if you have the credentials to do so, try to stand countercurrent to what other applicants are probably like (but if you do this, you have to also convince them that you are a good fit!) – for instance, if you are applying to MIT/Stanford/Caltech/ other Tech school, you might try to sell yourself as a humanities person, and if you are applying to Brown/Amherst/other LAC you might want to come off as a math geek. Figure out the sort of person the college needs, and fill that need. However, being different is not necessary and will only work if it is mostly-true. The main goal is to impress them. Just pretend that you are introducing yourself to someone you want to impress, and only have a short amount of time in which to do so. What do you want them to know about, and what would you prefer they didn’t know? The most important thing to remember is that they only know you from your application. If it’s not on there, it’s like it didn’t happen. They won’t know you’re a nice and funny guy unless you come off that way in your essay. Etc…</p>
<p>*Picking Things to Write About / Types of Essays *
Okay, so: now you know what angle you are going for in your essay, and you have a list of ideas to write about (interests from your resume, strengths to play up, weaknesses to explain, unique quirks to make you stand out) so get back out that list of essay topics. There are generally several types of college essay prompts: 1) no prompt – “help us to get to know you better”, the common app, most things… 2) creative prompts – “imagine you are a bacterium” “write a note to an imaginary roommate” 3) favorite EC / “why do you want to study X?” 4) overcoming a challenge 5) “why do you want to go to X school”
For essay type 1, just write a good essay, and fit it into the prompt later. You should generally have a few things that you think essays NEED to know, and this is where to put them. If you don’t have a topic that needs to be talked about, then after you’ve figured out your other essay topics, look at what you have left and pull a few of your favorites.
For essay type 2, you’re basically going to need to start from scratch (however, you will generally incorporate interests and favorite lines that you have to cut from other essays). Just remember YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT YOURSELF in this essay. They want you to talk about yourself in shadow. For questions about roommates, remember what they’re really asking is “what will you bring to this school; how will you learn from other people and what will you teach them?” This is also a perfect place to showcase writing talent and creativity.
Essay type 3 – this is where your resume certainly comes in handy. Consider what you spend the most time on, what looks impressive, what is different, and what needs the most explaining. Remember to include two important categories: what about this EC you love (and keep in mind what that says about you as a person) and how this interest has affected you (has it changed the way you think or view the world? Has is affected what you see as your future?).
Essay 4- colleges want to know that you won’t get to college and fail one class and throw yourself off a bridge. They don’t want superheroes. You are allowed to be human. The most important part of this essay is that you did fail at something, and that you picked yourself up again. The essay MUST have a happy ending – you went through something and came out the other side. You have to survive this and be stronger for it. If you have a true weakness in your application, it can go here. If not, everyone has had some time in their life where they failed at something – what’s yours? (Remember: it’s very important that you came out of this experience stronger and able to handle disappointment and failure in a mature manner)
When they ask why you want to go to a school, it means they want specifics. Prove that you are a good match, and prove that you are interested. Go to their website, go several clicks in, and find some specific things about the school that you would want to take part in. (Maybe they have a study about program just for biology majors? Maybe they have this fantastic literature professor who wrote a specific paper that you read) This essay is about what they can offer you that you really want (therefore proving that you are a good match).
Okay, now you’ve gone over all your prompts and figured out what topics you can write about. Make a new word document for each essay (just put the essay number and the prompt in it). This is also where you can combine several prompts, because they fit within the same sort of things to talk about. Go get a piece of paper and write down all the topics you came up with to write about.
Skim over some of the essay topics. You may want a rough outline for some of them. For example, you might want a topic (on your written list) about the reasons that you originally had this problem that you overcame, another about what made you realize you needed to change this problem, what you did to overcome it, and one about how the experience changed you. For a topic type 5, you might want to break it up into talking about what you want to study (basically another EC essay) and what specifics about their school would help you achieve your goals in that subject area. Etc…</p>
<p>*The “Chunky Paragraphs” *
Okay, you have your list of topics, right? Write a chunky paragraph about each (about ? of a page). Write about everything you can think about the topic. Think of anecdotes and write about them. Think about why this topic is important about you. Keep in mind whatever “angle” you have for this topic and its ultimate essay.<br>
Take a deep breath, you just wrote a lot.
Okay, now comes the painful part. You just spent a whole bunch of time writing and now you’re going to throw most of it away. This is something that I did for other people’s writing, and so you may want to find an outside source that you trust (it’s hard to judge your own writing – it often sounds better or makes more sense in your head) Anyway, read over the chunks and pull out only the sentences that you really like. Take notes on any good concepts that should be rewritten. Okay, now read over what you have. What needs to be explored with more depth? You may now see some subtopics that would strengthen your essay (e.g. you’ve remembered that you read psychology books outside of class: talk about what you learned) You will also find sentences in here that you want in a different essay (e.g. you’ve remembered that you read psychology books outside of class: you want to put that in your roommate essay instead) You might be able to see an essay forming, or you might just have some really good stuff to mention.</p>
<p>** “Chunky Paragraphs” version 2.0**
You wrote so much, and now it’s been decimated to 10 measly sentences! Cut and Paste these sentences into your “Essay 1” document. Okay, take the concepts you wanted to expand on, and repeat the previous step until you have what is basically a good outline for your essay. Anecdotes are especially strong, so if you thought of a good one, expand on it.</p>
<p>The Rough Draft
Thanks to the chunky paragraphs, you have a good outline for your essay, and some brilliant sentences. Now you are actually going to write a rough draft (Finally!). Reread the prompt. You want your rough draft to be about twice as long as the final will be, so if your essay should be 500 words, write 1,000 (or more). Incorporate your brilliant sentences. If you did the “chunk paragraphs” steps right, this should be really easy.</p>
<p>*Editing / The Dreaded 500 *
You have a rough draft. Great! Go get someone else to read it and edit it <em>with a sword</em>. Anything that is unclear to them will be unclear to adcoms. This will also give you a break to go drink some tea or something and forget about your essay for a little while. Take your friend’s edits, rewrite anything that needs rewriting. Clarify things, etc.. Okay, now come back to your essay and pretend that you didn’t write it and have never seen it. Edit it. Repeat this process until you are both happy with and sick of your essay.
Now comes the time to tighten up the wording. Your essay will probably be about 600-700 words by now. Take every sentence one by one and make it concise (don’t sacrifice clarity). Brevity is the soul of wit.</p>
<p>*Revising to Fit Several Prompts *
Okay, congrats! You have a fantastic essay to send to First Choice U. However, Second Choice LAC also wants an essay (and their prompt is very similar). If the essay fits the prompt go ahead and send it as is – generally essays aren’t school specific. For the “why school X” essay, you generally have to throw out half the essay and reuse the other half. Your goals are the same, but you’ll need new examples for why that school is a perfect match for you. Of course, school Y may have other amazing opportunities that school X didn’t offer, but you can usually reuse a lot of your essay. Anecdotes are also highly recyclable, so are EC essays – be on the lookout for places where your life will be that much easier because you’ve already explained how important tennis is to you. Be careful not to send a given school two versions of the same essay, however! </p>
<p>Post Script: I apologize for my complete love of parentheses.</p>
<p>dude...great post and everything...but the only advice you need when writing college essays is, "Write yourself"</p>
<p><em>adds to favorites</em></p>