Nine Essays for College... Tips?!?!

<p>Ahh... yes, nine, maybe ten essays for college. To take advantage of the summer to push some, or most of them out of the way would be wonderful. I have not, received any assistance writing these essays, unlike my peers who got help from their AP Lang & Comp teachers. The black sheep in this scenario, I do feel out of place. </p>

<p>Can someone give me tips when writing? What to emphasize and what to leave out? I would hate to sound cliche, especially since I wrote my CommonApp essay on my community service. For some reason, I feel that is very very common, however, I am very devoted to my service and it has built my character, so I plan to write my other essays on it. </p>

<p>My other concern is that I am not a good test-taker, I only scored a 1460 on the SAT after loads of prep, however I do have superb grades and a rigorous course-load. I belong to my school's gifted, academic scholar's academy. All classes are "scholars" and others are AP. I have plenty of ECs and service hours. Will a good essay really make a difference? Thanks.</p>

<p>*NOT applying to Ivies. NYU is my reach.</p>

<p>RECYCLE your essays! You should only have to write three good base essays: your Common App and two supplements (maybe one more). Look at your prompts and figure out topics that work for many of them.</p>

<p>For example, the Harvey Mudd supplement asks how your background has influenced the types of problems you want to solve and the UC prompt asks how the world you come from has influenced your aspirations. An essay can easily be written to address BOTH of these topics.</p>

<p>And yes, a good essay will keep you up there and a bad essay will have bad effects on your chances.</p>

<p>Thank you Careful!</p>

<p>Yes, I have noticed that my prompts are very similar. One school I am applying to even allows anything. I plan to use the same essay I wrote for CommonApp, but it wouldn’t be known, correct? </p>

<p>Thank you for the tip, will definitely make the process much easier. :)</p>

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<p>It’s fine as long as that school doesn’t use the Common App.</p>

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<p>I always to tell personal stories in my essays, with specific details. Don’t make general statements that could be applied to anything. “Show don’t tell” has become a cliche unto itself, but it’s a good principle to follow.
If a phrase comes into your head fully-formed, it’s probably a cliche and you probably shouldn’t use it.</p>

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<p>Then how do you do well on classroom tests? Have you tried the ACT?</p>

<p>In any other situation, what you would be doing is hedging risk. You’d get props for it.</p>

<p>In the case of college admissions, there is absolutely no conceivable reason why you would need more than 3-4 primary statements. 1-2 is fine for the majority of students.</p>

<p>Alter your endings to match various prompts. </p>

<p>Can you write nine knockout statements? It’s unlikely.</p>

<p>Can you write three variants of one knockout statement? Probably, if you play it smart.</p>

<p>What do you have against getting feedback from your teachers? If you are looking for tips, that’s got to be better place to ask than here, where you are getting feedback from students who don’t know any more than you in most cases.</p>

<p>[University</a> of Virginia Piece on College Essays | Fredrik deBoer](<a href=“http://fredrikdeboer.com/2012/07/25/university-of-virginia-piece-on-college-essays/]University”>http://fredrikdeboer.com/2012/07/25/university-of-virginia-piece-on-college-essays/)</p>

<p>Thank you for the link! Very helpful. Did realize that my essay somewhat lacks those qualities. I will use it as reference. </p>

<p>As for asking for help… you know, it’s the summer and I don’t want to wait around for my teachers in September. I want to have my prompts done by then. Thinking about it, I will probably ask my SAT tutor to go over my essays with me. She helps her students with the admissions process as well. As for classroom testing I do very well… I have a 94 weighted GPA and I belong to my school’s small, rigorous academic academy. Just not good on standardized testing. Yes, did take the ACT and I got a 22. It’s a bit better than how I did on the SAT. The 22 = 1530 on SAT. Not that bad for my standards but I’m aiming for a 1650/1700.</p>

<p>Thanks everyone for the feedback.</p>