<p>Start writing the essay by imagining you were telling a cool story about yourself to another person. It could be about some experience you’ve went through, about your interaction with some person or group. It could be a metephor for something (though its harder to make essays like this work). </p>
<p>Remember that for college the point of the essay is to first show the school that you can write somewhat coherently, and second that you have some interest. It doesn’t have to be an academic interest, but it will definitely help your case to show schools that you care about things as it shows them that you can motivate yourself with something other than grades.</p>
<p>In regards to showing and not telling, this post lays out some examples pretty well (it is targeted towards graduate schools but many of the same ideas remain): [The</a> Importance of Stories in Graduate Admissions Essays](<a href=“http://blog.■■■■■■■■■■/?p=34]The”>http://blog.■■■■■■■■■■/?p=34). </p>
<p>And though looking at samples can be good, ultimately the best thing you can do is to sit down and start writing and arrive ultimately arrive at something you care about. The actual topic doesn’t actually matter too much, talk about some experience you had which you know really well. </p>
<p>I only really saw 3 essays other than mine, they were of people who went to harvard and yale. One was a state qualifying swimmer and wrote about a good natured swimming rival, another wrote about getting sick and getting hospitalized junior year, and a last one wrote about the proccess of writing a book manuscript in high school and seeing the ultimate reward of having someone read it and be immersed. I wrote about how I tried to build a paintball gun in 8th grade. </p>
<p>While all of these stories were about completely different things, the thing worth noting is that you can summerize the idea of each in a sentence. You want the person reading your essay to be able to do the same. </p>
<p>It doesn’t even really matter that you answer one of the common app prompts, those are just there to help you get started. </p>
<p>Also, the essay should be 300-1000 words probably, but if it is 1000, that probably means that you can step away from it for a week and then cut it down by a few hundered. That said you should only really look at length when you are revising. When writing just focus on figuring out what story you want to tell and doing an awesome job of telling it.</p>
<p>An0maly had some pretty good suggestions as well. </p>
<p>When you are done with your essays you should have someone that knows the process look over your essays to make sure you did them right, particularly because you are the first in your family to go to college. If you have a teacher or someone you trust to give good advice, go to them. Otherwise, it may be wise to invest some money and get someone that knows how to look over essays to do it. There are plenty of great services out there (disclosure, I am affiliated with ■■■■■■■■■■, which offers this sort of essay editing service) and if you look at it from an economics standpoint, paying a couple hundered dollars to ensure going to the school you want to is a drop in the bucket compared to tuition.</p>
<p>Colleges generally expect you to write a general “personal statement” (aka story about yourself) and then add other supplemental essays as well. Some schools like UChicago ask very unique supplementary questions, but most of them can be classified as “tell us why you want to go to school X” essays. If you have a compelling reason for wanting to attend a particular school, then you should definitely give it, but otherwise, this essay essentially gives you a chance to tell the school that you care about the same things that the school cares about. The essay that I used when applying to schools can be found here: [How</a> to Convince a College that Youre Interested.](<a href=“http://blog.■■■■■■■■■■/?p=24]How”>http://blog.■■■■■■■■■■/?p=24).</p>