Hello CC’ers! It’s been a while since I posted on here, so I thought I might share some pearls of wisdom with all those applying for the fall of 2016!
Now to begin, there are literally millions of advice - on this site and others - on how to write a great Common App essay. Instead of reiterating what has already been said (by people much older and wiser than I am, I’m sure), I will share with you my experience with writing a Common App Essay.
First, many of the advice on this website, while undoubtedly good, leans on the vague side. Stuff like “write from the heart” and “make sure your personality shows through your essay” is all well and good, but pointers on how to do so would be even better, no?
Nobody expects you to condense your life/achievements into 650 words, because it simply can not be done. What you can do is pick ONE thing ( a story/talent etc.) to speak about, and expound on it briefly.
Start by choosing a prompt that you’re comfortable with in the Common App. When you do, STICK WITH IT. Unless you feel that the prompt you picked does not suit your writing purposes, don’t change it. Dithering will only delay the writing process. Do not pick a prompt with adventure in your head; choose something safe that you feel you can write upon without too much difficulty. Not to stifle creativity and all, but save your creativity for the actual essay.
Similarly, you undoubtedly have hundreds of stories from your life that fit into each prompt. Pick ONE. Again, stick with what you picked. Don’t try and tell ten different stories in one essay, no matter how well they fit the prompt.
(*For the purpose of this post, we’ll choose an entirely fictitious topic).
Let’s decide on a story. Let’s say you decided to write about how you broke your arm one playing sports, and how that experience changed you. Now this topic is as mundane as it gets, but we’ll leave the more exciting examples out for now.
Before you begin writing ANYTHING, make a list of all the things you want to mention in your essay. Write them in bullet points For e.g.
Advantages of Breaking Arm // Disadvantages of Breaking Arm
-Time to try things other than sports/Discovered other interests // -Missed some School
-Worked ahead on my reading/school work // -Couldn’t Play sports
-More sympathy for handicapped people // -People treated me with overt sympathy
-Experiencing pain toughened me //-It hurt and you had to rely on people’s help
Miscellaneous
-How it happened
-How it effected me
And so on. Next, form sentences around the bullet points you first made. You do not have start with the introduction (we’ll come to that later) and write your first draft. In this example, I would begin with a very brief explanation as to how I got the injury. Keyword here is brief, as the story of how you broke you arm isn’t the main purpose of your essay. I would the delve into writing the heart of the essay i.e the difficulties I experienced, how I overcame them, what I learned etc.
More importantly, remember the purpose of the essay. In English class, a retelling of the story in a verbose manner is often sufficient. On the common app, the essay must tie with with how it affected your personally and - most vitally- what you learned from it. If, for instance, you broke you arm and it healed really quickly, then drop the story immediately. Experienced readers can tell when a story doesn’t mean very much to the applicant. Colleges want to see how a certain situation strengthened you, changed you, what positive affect it had on you, and what you did to overcome that certain (if any) difficulty. So for instance, in this example, you can say that breaking your arm, while painful, made you realize your own inner strength. Mentioning the fact that you didn’t allow this incident bring you down and that you went struggling on ahead everyday despite your handicap will help show that if you face a similar accident in college you won’t be stumped and helpless.
You must also keep in mind that colleges are first and foremost academic institutions. I have seen some successful essays that make no mention of academia, but if you can bring it into the essay in way that is not pretentious, then so much the better. Saying “Breaking my arm didn’t affect my grades because I’m smart and don’t to study” (lol) is a lot less effective than saying “I had to work harder to make up for the missed school days but in the process understood (subject name) better”. One screams “SHOW OFF”, the other doesn’t.
The introductions and the conclusions are the hardest parts to write. For the introduction you can start by giving the brief story of how the accident happened (as mentioned above) and then continue on to the rest of your draft.
DO NOT repeat anything on your conclusion the way you restate the main idea in English class. Admission officers are not idiots. They read the essay and remember what it is about. you can end it by giving a brief account on how this experience will help you move forward.
For editing purposes, write your draft in short, complete paragraphs. That way, when you remove something, it will be a lot easier and you won’t have to change the text around it. You can change the lay out later. Make sure every sentence has a full meaning to it on it’s own. Afterwards you can add transitional words to help your essay flow better.
I hope this helped any of you who are struggling with writing an essay. For more tips on editing, there’s a stickied thread on the top of the forum
Good Luck EveryBody!