Fall is the time of year when high school seniors begin to complete applications for college admission. Writing the perfect essay has become extremely important.
The Challenge
For most college-bound high school seniors, this time of year is probably the most stressful of their entire academic life. Most seniors are extremely aware of the competitive hurdles that they have to surmount to gain acceptance to a college of their choice. For many students, the simple part of applying to college is completing the college application; the difficult part is writing the College Essay. For most high school seniors, writing this essay will be one of the toughest challenges they have faced because everyone has advice about what it takes to write a winning essay.
The Pros and Advice
To make this situation even more difficult for students are the multitudes of experts giving essay writing "tips" that sometimes offers students different and conflicting information. For years, students have been advised to only submit perfect applications and essays to colleges, which has resulted in some students writing semi-robotic and uninformative essays. Recently, some professional counselors have recommended that applicants find ways to inject at least a single error into their application and/or essay in order to appear to be more human to admission committees. With all of this "free" floating advice surrounding them, there's little wonder that most high school college applicants are confused and frustrated about their world, the environment and their current task at hand.
What College Admissions Want
Colleges are looking for an insight into the student that isn't revealed in test scores, transcripts or letters of recommendation. College admissions representatives are looking to find what makes an applicant unique. Admissions representatives are looking for the unquantifiable, the intangible essence that exists beneath the surface of a young person that makes them more than the expected stellar student, athlete or student leader. All college essay questions are geared to reveal what individual students think and feel is important about their world, their environment or simply what a student feels is their place in the world.
What's So Difficult
Most students who are college-bound know how to write a compelling school essay that earns top grades. The problem for most high school seniors is being able to articulate who they are, because most of them are still trying to understand the world and few know or understand what defines them as different from their friends or strangers. So, to ask a student to write an essay that clearly defines who they are or to describe what they have experienced in a very personal way, in 500 to 750 words or less, is the challenge.
Some Essay Writing Tips
- Give yourself at least to weeks to write your college essay.
- Only express genuine feelings
- Make sure that your essay is focused
- Remember: The college essay is only a persuasive essay about you and how you feel about a particular subject.
- Never have someone else write your college essay. No one knows you better than you.
- There are no "right" or "wrong" essays, unless you choose to express yourself inappropriately.
- Relax and be assured that you'll do just fine.
- Re-read, edit and re-read again. If possible, have someone proofread your essay before submission.
Caution
Avoid being cute or outright inappropriate: The Yale University application, for example, cautions students about the college essay: "no answer is wrong, but sloppy, general, insincere, or tasteless essay responses can hurt your cause."
In Conclusion
Good luck!
