10 College Application Essay Dos And Donts

10 College Application Essay Dos And Don'ts Think about what you’ve accomplished and what you feel defines you. Think about parts of your background that have shaped your life. Ultimately, every application essay you write is going to be about you, as it should be the easiest thing to write about and it will give admission officers an idea of who you are. More than that, college admission essays and personal statements give you the chance to tell your story. But merely gathering these facts is not enough to enter the college. You’ll need to complete another essential part of the college application process, which implies writing a successful admission essay. This is the type of paper that allows a college admissions committee to evaluate your personal qualities and experience, and decide if you’ll be a great fit to attend their college. Therefore, the likelihood of your studying in this or that establishment will significantly depend on the content of the admission essay. Look them up, and then start looking anywhere and everywhere for ideas. It’s always good to pull ideas from your own experiences. If you use a thesaurus to find words rather than trust the words you know and use every day, you will not sound like yourself. What’s more, you might use a few big words incorrectly, which will never impress an admissions officer. Colleges are not looking for the next Ernest Hemingway or Toni Morrison. You will sound smart when you use your own words and your own voice to tell a genuine story that shows who you are. Don’t focus on a negative event or a struggle without spending more time on what you learned or gain from it? Don’t write about a person without spending 2/3 of the essay focusing on how that person shaped youâ€"specifically. Each essay should focus on different qualities and events, and should help you become 3-D for the admissions officers. 2) Make sure you know what you want the college to know about you before you decide what story to tell. Read the prompt before, during and after you write your draft, then ask someone else to tell you whether or not you responded to it. This mistake shows that you don’t care enough to proofread your application. Admissions committees might forgive a typo, but they don’t like to hear that you wish you were going to school somewhere else. There aren’t too many things you can do to ensure rejection, but plagiarism, also known as cheating, is one of them. Have confidence in your own choicesâ€"what music is special to you, the authors you most value, the activities you participate in. Your enthusiasm for wood carving, slam poetry, Coen Brothers movies, or whatever, is what will jump off the page. You can’t make up that passion, and you shouldn’t try. Find an idea wherever you canâ€"application essays tend to be a source of hesitation more than inspiration. Most colleges, as well as the Common Application, will have the topics for their essays available online. Word order means more than word choiceâ€"you need to check, double-check, sit for a while and check again to make sure your admissions essay is as polished as possible. Basic grammar is really, really, important; it won’t get you into a school on its own, but without it, you could cost yourself a spot. Making sure you have the right punctuation in the right place and using active voice over passive is vital. That said, make sure your good grammar doesn’t keep the essay from sounding like you. Don’t push to use fancier language or longer sentences than you normally would. Use the simplest word you need to get a point acrossâ€"every time. Sell yourself as you really are, so that reading your writing and having a conversation with you both feel like meeting the same person. The genuine article onlyâ€"everything is significant when it comes to telling your own story. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been or what you’ve seen, and this is not a time where a reader is judging your list of achievements. The most important factor of your college admissions essay is that you’re writing about what’s truly important to you. Get too much help.There is a fine line between asking someone you trust to review your essay and getting too much help. When your mom, dad, teacher or tutor starts giving you words to use or edits too much, your voice disappears.