<p>Hi Garland,</p>
<p>I still sorry, I mangled your advice even though I still think it is a great piece of advice.</p>
<p>Voronwe- I laugh to my self everytime I read your post as if I can hear your say if I read one more essay about### I am going to SCREAM!!!</p>
<p>Xiggi- Hi, hope that all is well with you . We miss ya</p>
<p>All of you guys have posted fantastic tips about the college essays and I hope more kids on here are reading these! </p>
<p>Voronwe, your post was right on, yet cracked me up! It is all so true. But I also had a smile on the mention of being on an icy mountain with the winds whipping and being scared to death. While I know what you mean about what to avoid, that one little snippet reminded me of a line in an essay my older D wrote, though in her case she was not scared to death but the scene was not all that different. It was not the crux of the essay whatsoever but the image reminds me of it. She must have written about 10 essays or so for college apps but this particular one was just an extra optional essay for Tufts that was not used for other schools and the prompt was to write a recipe instructing someone how to do something. She ended up writing this essay that I really loved that was to do with how to be a ski racer and all the ingredients needed for that. The title was Schuss it Like Street (a play on Bend it like Beckham) as Picabo Street was one of her ski racing idols. Anyway, one of several elements of being a ski racer that she had was to have "no fear". In that one paragraph, I do recall a line where she was at the start of a course in below zero windchills atop a mountain in a little lycra suit (!!) but not being scared to death. The image in your "no no" reminded me of that one sentence in her essay though the essay did not focus on that. I recall in that paragraph a little vignette from when she was in a ski race at age ten and barreling down the mountain and a deer ran out of the woods right across the race course on the open trail just two gates ahead of where she was coming down the course and how she never flinched but kept going and actually won the race and I do recall that moment and how everyone there was amazed as it was highly unusual for a deer to run across a downhill race course at as ski resort and thankfully it was two gates ahead of her but most would have slowed down or been distracted but this kid has always been fearless. I recall at that age, she used to wear this little beanie hat apres ski that said "no fear". So, I smiled when reading that one line of your things to avoid even though this happened to be a good essay and that was just a minor part of it as the entire essay really told a lot about her. But yes, she was freezing in hardly any clothing atop a mountain, lol. </p>
<p>Anyway, the hints written here are truly excellent. I am reading some kids' essays and cringing and most need a LOT of help on how to go about this type of assignment. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>Here's another essay advice link from UVA:</p>
<p>Susan, your D's essay sounds wonderful, and I am glad that you realized that I was just making exagerrated generalizations! :-)</p>
<p>Voronwe, Oh, I know you were making generalizations and I agree with every single one of them! It is just that the image on the icy mountain in only lycra reminded me of this one sentence in her essay that really did not focus on that so much. Though to be a ski racer, you better be able to deal with the weather and being cold and love the outdoors. It was an interesting process to have to write a recipe about such a thing. It was not like a typical activity essay at all. It actually was quite revealing. For each step of the "how to", she had little anecdotes like the deer across the race course one on the "no fear". </p>
<p>I hope lots of kids read your list because you did not just give pointers but gave examples of what you meant and it is humorous (to adults anyway).</p>
<p>Thanks for the hints, parents!</p>
<p>By the way, the Mustang one sounds really interesting, but maybe that's just me.</p>
<p>I know we're supposed to avoid "obstacle" type subjects, but on the Common App essay, I did write about the hour commute I take to and from school each day through the country. However, I talked about it more in terms of something that has enriched and made my life more interesting (we've seen some very entertaining sights over the years). Hopefully it came across with the right tone - at least I think it did.</p>
<p>Would overcomming poetry be a cliche essay?</p>
<p>Wow Xiggi! You're still on CC? What university are you attending?</p>
<p>I love all the essay advice and heartily agree. There is a pretty good book out-- not recalling excatly, but I think title is 'Essays that Worked.' It has 50+/- essays written by successful applicants to nation's top schools. </p>
<p>The book offers very similar "don'ts" (LOL, voronwe) but it even includes a few essays that broke these rules successfully. They are all classified by type: adversity essays, travel essays, family essays, realization essays, quirky essays, etc. Some are hilarious, some are heartbreaking, some are earnest, some are fanciful-- a wide range, and nice for kids to see because the diversity of "good" essays really communicates: Be Loose & Go Your Own Way! There are also a few comments (from adcom people?) about why each essay is successful. Most are considered successful because they let the reader IN to the writer's world...personality, worldview, passions, hopes, sense of humor. </p>
<p>Reading it loosened my D up and helped her see the range of possible topics is limitless and you don't have to try to 'sound impressive.' </p>
<p>I was one of those kids who wrote the essay the day I sent it, in longhand, on the application.... But I wrote from the heart without trying to impress anyone (mostly because I was so swamped & tired; I just read the prompt & told the truth) and it worked. So long as it is not riddled with errors, a less polished statement that is authentic and vivid will probably trump one that is impeccable but hackneyed or bloodless.</p>
<p>My biggest gripe about essays I have read-- too wordy!! Take out all the non-essential words!! Your ideas will really pop when they aren't buried in a bunch of filler.</p>
<p>this is very helpful. thanks!</p>
<p>Beramod, Please don't be offended but I will remember your post forever as my ultra favorite typo.</p>
<p>Lol, Beramod! Maybe one could write such an essay in verse?</p>
<p>Xiggi,
Terrific advice - let me offer my official "Hear, Hear" to your point number 3. English teachers may have a good sense of grammer but many are totally clueless when it comes to the admissions process. My son's teacher heaped high praise on formula essays like "compare yourself to a character in literature" while telling other original essay writers to try again. Thankfully he chose to ignore her advice and submitted the essay he thought was right. In the end he was accepted to the school he wanted most and the admissions officer sent a personal note praising the essay. Let your personal voice be heard - this is your one opportunity to show what makes you unique.</p>
<p>Don't intentionally try to impress anyone with your humor.
Especially, don't show it to your friends to see if they find it funny and if so, submit it as being a great example of humor. What your teenage friends think humurous might not appear so to a 30ish admissions rep who has read a pile of essays and has another pile yet to be read.</p>
<p>Even the best standup comics preview their routines at open mike sessions and local clubs, and make adjustments (or throw out the whole thng and start over) before presenting them on the big-time circuit - which is the equivalent of the college admissions office here.</p>
<p>So keep the "humor" to a minimum.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Xiggi mentioned this too: Get a copy of Harry Bauld's book, * On Writing the College Application Essay: The Key to Acceptance at the College of your Choice <a href="which%20is%20readily%20available%20online">/i</a>: It's not only brilliant and funny, but also--since Bauld worked in admissions at Brown and Columbia--shows you what admissions officers are really thinking as they slog through a pile of trite essays like the ones Voronwe describes.</p></li>
<li><p>As teefore2 rightly cautions, English teachers don't always know best; some of them think hokey, "inspirational" essays are really wonderful. And many guidance counselors hand out a ghastly sample essay about somone climbing a mountain and comparing the climb to his "quest for all knowledge."</p></li>
<li><p>Stay pretty close to the requested word limits. (If you're wondering why that's so important, read Bauld's hilarious chapter about the weary admissions officers with 40 folders to get through before they can quit for the day.)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>While I wish I could think of such painful and common examples as voronwe, I see a couple of common problems here</p>
<p>a) Starting the essay with sweeping generalizations intoned in lecturing dullness.</p>
<p>While I see that this get some ppl's juices going, be sure to leave it off in the next draft (ie. Death is..., When one comtemplates the infinite universe..., There are times in life that...) I say jump right into: When my Grandma died...I think of the universe as...In my life I had a time...</p>
<p>b) Are you coming out of the essay making the point you meant to? Can you develop a point, or two?</p>
<p>Many essays I've seen here portray the writer in unflattering light, and I don't think they get that.</p>
<p>Xiggi, Nice to hear from you. It was fun having your dad on here for awhile. How are you finding C?
Seems stragne to have you listed as 'new' member; you should have an honorary title</p>
<p>I'm with SBmom on the wordiness. If you've only got 500 words every word has to count, but when you CHOOSE each word, rather than just write, the result is a much stronger piece of writing. Most of us, in everyday writing have diarrhea of the pen/mouth, we aren't forced to tighten up what we have to say. I told DD to look at each sentence in isolation after the first draft - is there an "unnecessary" phrase that can be converted into a single word? There are so many words in English, some with rich and definite connotations, you can almost always turn those connecting phrases into strong verbs. A few of those changes and the whole piece "reads" differently.
I just wish she'd always taken my advice;).</p>
<p>Essay tips:</p>
<ol>
<li>Have a point.
You want your reader to know something about you by the end of your essay. A beautifully written description of your room or a hilarious satire of your high school will not work. You also want to be EXPLICIT about this message. Don't be afraid to have a thesis statement in a college essay. Your goal in writing is to be clear, and college admissions officers do not have time to infer or analyze your essay as if it were a piece of literature. Even essays from the masters of writing have thesis statements. These are not the same types of statements as you've written in critical analysis papers. One of the most powerful personal essays ever written, "Notes of a Native Son" by James Baldwin, gives us a great example. Here are the first two paragraphs of his essay: </li>
</ol>
<p>"On the 29th of July, in 1943, my father died. On the same day, a few hours later, his last child was born. Over a month before this, while all our energies were concentrated in waiting for these events, there had been, in Detroit, one of the bloodies race riots of the century. A few hours after my father's funeral, while he lay in state in the undertaker's chapel, a race riot broke out in Harlem. On the morning of the 3rd of August, we drove my father to the graveyard through a wilderness of smashed plate glass.
The day of my father's funeral had also been my nineteenth birthday. As we drove him to the graveyard, the spoils of injustice, anarchy, discontent, and hatred were all around us. It seemed to me that God himself had devised, to mark my father's end, the most sustained and brutally dissonant of codas. And it seemed to me, too, that the violence which rose all about us as my father left the world had been devised as a corrective for the pride of his eldest son. I had declined to believe in that apocalypse which had been central to my father's vision; very well, life seemed to be saying, here is something that will certainly pass for an apocalypse until the real thing comes along. I had inclined to be contemptuous of my father for the conditions of his life, for the conditions of our lives. When his life had ended I began to wonder about that life and also, in a new way, to be apprehensive about my own."</p>
<p>In this opening, Baldwin draws in the reader and sets the scene. In the second paragraph, Baldwin gives us the main point and a thesis statement: "When his life had ended I began to wonder about that life and also, in a new way, to be apprehensive about my own." In the rest of his essay he will show how he learns this.</p>
<p>Even books have thesis statements. The Great Gatsby, for example, considered one of the greatest books of all time, basically sums up the point on page 2 (and The Great Gatsby is basically one, long, complex college essay):</p>
<p>"No-Gatsby turned out all right at the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby; what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and shortwinded elations of men."</p>
<p>State your meaning. Make it explicit. It's that simple. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Stop thinking about college admissions essay books:</p></li>
<li><p>Show, Don't Tell!</p></li>
</ol>
<p>This is true. Provide anecdotes, incidents, a story, whatever, to prove your point. But remember to STATE your point somewhere. Often we have heard the whole "show, don't tell!" argument so many times that it preys on our writing and we feel we aren't being sophisticated if we state what we're trying to say. Nope. You're being clear. Don't HIDE YOUR MEANING IN YOUR WORDS. DON'T BE AMBIGUOUS. Make it sure that the reader will understand something about you.</p>
<ol>
<li>Write in the present tense</li>
</ol>
<p>This is a myth. You can write great essays--and so many authors have--in the past tense. It is easier to provide reflection if you write an essay in the past tense. Oftentimes, unless the essayist is truly skillful, present tense essays become nothing more than a description. You write a vivid tale of going up in front of your class and telling a speech. You detail the audience, remember the sights and sounds, and we can picture everything. But, because you are unable to provide reflection or bounce around in your mind, you end up writing something that has no point. </p>
<ol>
<li>Be clever and memorable</li>
</ol>
<p>A clever, strong essay can be memorable even if it has a normal essay structure. One of my favorite books is a called "College Essays that Made a Difference," which basically has a collection of all types of essays (good and bad) from students. So many try to be cute. They think that essays like "Dynamic Figure" and "I do my best thinking in the bathroom" are the way to go, so they go crazy, posing questions like:</p>
<p>"Describe your hair"
This essay just didn't tell us anything. It was a description and made weak analogies that were not lifted to meaning by experience. It left an impression of, "so what?"</p>
<p>"Which describes you better--A snicker or milky way bar?" or something like that.</p>
<p>Again! NOT COOL. It told me NOTHING about the person, other than he/she was trying to be clever.</p>
<p>Another essay said, "to get a sense of who I am, remember your childhood," or something along those lines. He wrote about eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and childhood excitement, but the essay told me nothing other than that the writer could give a fairly good description. </p>
<p>Other essays talked about being short. Ok. You're short. You can be clever describing what it's like to be short. Haha. It tells me nothing about YOU. When these people wrote these essays, if I had asked them, "well, what are you trying to say about yourself?" they would have said, "well, I'm interesting, curious, blah blah blah." Sure. These ideas are what you wanted to express, but they didn't come across. </p>
<ol>
<li>Narrow down your topic. </li>
</ol>
<p>If you decide that you want to write your essay on "death" or "travel" or even "being short," narrow it down. Try to focus on something small--an object, a memory, an experience or two, and lift them to meaning. Try to have one recognition, not fifty. If you write about your friends, you're going to end up wanting to describe every friend you have and the essay will be one long narration. Instead, focus on the time your friend called you a bad name in school. Or write about an object that your friend gave you and what it means. You have 500 words. Make them count. </p>
<ol>
<li>Style:</li>
</ol>
<p>a) Avoid contractions. You can have them, but just avoid them in general. They're sloppy in this type of writing.
b) Avoid idiotic SAT words. You don't have a control of these words yet, so you tend to misuse them. Please, do not use words like "ebullient," "jocular," "livid" and "lackadaisical." Cut down on the adjectives, and cut down on the Latin-based vocabulary. These words are often archaic and not the types of words that you want in a college essay because they stick out.
c) Avoid adverbs. Please. At most, one "ly" ("told me spiritedly," etc.) in an essay.
d) Make your similes and metaphors count. If you're doing too many, the reader gets confused and overwhelmed.
e) State sentences in positive form.</p>
<p>I have more of these, but I could go on forever.</p>
<ol>
<li>Wrap up your essay in a meaningful manner so that the reader remembers what your point is. Also, be sure to tie the end of your essay back to the beginning. </li>
</ol>
<p>If your first paragraph talks about loving computers, and your last paragraph talks about your carkeys, you're in trouble. You need to give unity to your piece, and one of the most effective tactics is to repeat words, images, or ideas from the beginning to the end. For example, you remember the first two paragraphs of Baldwin's essay, right?</p>
<p>Well, Baldwin's last paragraph nicely goes back to his father, how he became apprehensive about that life, and learned to look at his own.</p>
<p>"...But I knew it was folly, as my father would have said, this bitterness was fally. It was necessary to hold on to the things that mattered. The dead man mattered, the new life mattered; blackness and whiteness did not matter; to believe that they did was to acquiesce in one's own destruction. Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated and this was an immutable law. </p>
<p>It began to seem that one would have to hold in the mind forever to ideas which seemed to be in opposition. The first idea was acceptance, the acceptance, totally without rancor, of life as it is, and men as they are: in the light of this idea, it goes without saying that injustice is a commonplace. But this did not mean that one could be complacent, for the second idea was of equal power: that one must never, in one's own life, accept these injustices as commonplace but must fight them with all one's strength. This fight begins, however, in the heart and now it had been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair. This intimation made my heard heavy and, now that my father was irrecoverable, I wished that he had been beside me so that I could have searched his face for the answers which only the future would give me now."</p>
<p>This closing, after 38 paragrpahs from begnning to end, unifies the piece. It clarifies and explains the thesis, and brings it all back to what Baldwin learned from his father. Notice the brilliance of the writing style. He repeats words from sentence to sentence in order to create transitions and lift the piece to meaning. In the second sentence we have "commonplace," in the third we have "commonplace." In the second we have "injustice," in the third we have "injustice." We also have, "heart," "hatred," and other synonyms/common ideas repeating: "opposition," "rancor," "forever," "future." It is not obvious that these words are repeated until you closely examine them. They help create the overall theme of life's paradoxes that Baldwin comes to understand. </p>
<ol>
<li>REVISE</li>
</ol>
<p>You can't make an essay better without revisions!</p>
<p>Wow, EncomiumII, great post.</p>