Your essay can set you apart from hundreds of applicants with similar grades.
Your transcripts are signed, your recommendation letters are mailed, and your forms are filled out. One last hurdle stands between you and applying to your dream school: the admission essay. High school seniors have always dreaded the admission essay, but it's a tool you can use to your advantage. A well-crafted, insightful essay reveals the real student behind all those numbers and letters on a transcript.
Choosing an Angle
Admissions officer have read it all: the impassioned arguments for ending world hunger, the lofty ruminations on life (or death), how a student wants to become a doctor because she loves helping people. Resist the temptation to write what you think an admissions officer wants to read or to fall back on "safe" topics. Sincere, creative essays will stand out.
Taking a risk with your admission essay can pay off -- provided it's a calculated risk. For example, an outstanding writer can turn the essay into a narrative story. If writing isn't your strong point, stick with a conventional approach. Humor can set your essay apart from the others, but it really has to be funny. Have a few impartial test subjects read it to make sure your humor comes across the right way.
Finding Focus
Many admission essays list an applicant's accomplishments, honors, sports and clubs. These essays come across as generic. Switch out the names and places, change lacrosse to tennis or ballet to community service, and you have an essay that could have been written by any ambitious high school senior.
Instead, choose one aspect of your personality, one goal, one important personal experience. Once you've chosen a narrow focus for your essay, write it as a statement. Consider it your thesis statement -- just as you would have if you were writing a history or English paper. Write your admission essay aiming to back up that thesis statement.
Providing Evidence
It's not enough simply to write, "The summer I volunteered at the local youth theater camp made me realize I want to be a teacher," and then move on to your next paragraph. The admissions officer reading your essay will want to know the details.
When you make a claim in a class paper -- for example, an explanation of the factors that led to World War I -- you have to back up that claim with evidence. It's no different with a college admission essay. When you write, "Being captain of my soccer team has taught me the meaning of leadership," describe what leadership means to you and provide an example of a time you put those leadership skills into action.
Style and Structure
Students often feel they have to impress admissions officers with scholarly language and elaborate phrasing. The result: wordy, overworked, boring essays. When you write in a stuffy tone, you distance the reader -- the admissions officer -- from your real personality. So put down that thesaurus and write in the voice that comes naturally to you (barring slang and grammatical errors, obviously). Avoid the passive voice, which also tends to distance the reader from your story.
A well-organized essay demonstrates both your writing ability and your ability to think critically and analytically, all skills important for success in college. Start with a snappy introduction, flesh out the body, and then end with a fully formed conclusion. Giving your essay a well-defined beginning, middle and end also helps prevent you from rambling.
Admissions Faux Pas
Admissions officers can tell when an applicant sends in a generic template essay, the same essay he has sent to the six other schools on his list. Unless every school you've applied to had the exact same writing prompt (unlikely), there's no reason to recycle one essay.
College application essay prompts often ask you to elaborate on why you feel this particular school is the best fit for you. Avoid excessive flattery and don't rip phrases out of the college's catalog. Do your research and answer the question honestly.
The admission essay is not the place to make excuses for a lapse in grades or other academic issues. If you do need to explain something such as a semester of poor grades, do so in a separate statement.
Tags: admission essay, your essay, admissions officer, admission essay, apart from, back that, distance reader