Today’s guest blog post is from Brenda Bernstein, founder and senior editor of TheEssayExpert.com. Her team of trained writers, editors and coaches offer expert essay help and advice for college-bound teens. Parents–pass this post along to your teens as they struggle with that all-important college application essay.

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IT’S NEVER TOO EARLY TO START THINKING ABOUT YOUR COLLEGE ESSAYS

If you are heading toward Senior year of high school, it’s time to start thinking about your college essays.  If you’re about to be a Junior and you’re reading this, it’s not too early.  The point is, start thinking of topics *now*!  You can even do it while you’re lying on the beach.

Why now?  Because the best college essays go through many lives.  You will write, re-write, and re-write again, over a period of weeks or even months.  Inspiration can hit at any time.

You want to have lots of time for your essays to percolate, to have those magic light bulb moments, or maybe even to wake up in the middle of the night from a dream and write a brilliantly creative essay (this really does happen!).

If you start thinking about your essays in November, you won’t have time for the process to work on you.  Instead of waking up with inspiration, you will wake up panicked or worried that you’re on the wrong track.  You don’t want that.

POSSIBLE ESSAY BRAINSTORMING QUESTIONS

Here are some things to think about – it’s not a complete list by any means.  Be creative!

• What’s my favorite school subject and why?
• What’s my favorite extracurricular activity and why?
• What character in a book inspires me and why?
• What’s a story of how I went from a simplistic understanding of how the world works to a more complex, nuanced understanding?
• What’s an object that’s important to me and why?
• What’s a place/location that’s important to me and why?
• Who are the most important people in my life and what have I learned from them?

Notice that many of these questions ask “and why?”  It is important to think deeply about the meaning of things in your life.  Determine what about your experience is unique to you.  That’s what will make your story about your grandmother, trip to Israel or soccer practice different from the one sitting under it in the pile.

JUST DO IT.

Don’t sit around just thinking about these questions – start writing!  Designate a journal for your college essay ideas.  You will be surprised how quickly it fills up with great content.  Keep filling it up, and when you go back to what you wrote several months before, you might be happily surprised by some of your thoughts.

If you’re struggling finding the right topic, don’t despair.  There are professionals at The Essay Expert who will help you recognize what is special about your experiences and support you to present those experiences in words.  By working with an expert, you will end up with truly great college essays — and have the best chance of getting into the college of your dreams.