The college essay is perhaps the most frustrating part of the college application. Since the essay provides the opportunity for you to give the colleges a “window into your soul” so to speak, the essay is essentially a key component of the application. If you’re struggling with essay or just need some expert advice, where can you go for help?
These five experts provide some of the best essay advice on how to write a college essay. For each, I have focused on a specific topic, but if you want (or need) more specific help, visit their websites. You will be amazed at their willingness to offer their expert advice free of charge. They all, however, offer specialized coaching and you and your student would be wise to take advantage of it if you find their advice helpful.
How do I begin the essay process?
This advice comes from my go-to essay source, The College Essay Guy. According to him, students should prepare before writing the essay. He starts the process by answering these questions:
- What should my essay be about?
- What are college admissions officers looking for?
- How do college admissions officers evaluate my essay?
- Which is more important: your story or your writing skill?
- When should I start writing my essay?
- How do I structure my essay?
- How much do essays matter?
- If my grades are bad, can I get into Harvard with a great essay?
- Can a bad college essay negatively affect my application?
How do you avoid writing an essay that bombs?
This tip is from Essay Hell, a good resource for essay information, along with examples and tips for specific colleges like USC and UT. According to Essay Hell, there are 5 traps you can fall into when writing your college essay:
- Your essay is dull.
- Your college application isn’t personal.
- Your essay is mainly about someone else.
- Your essay only repeats everything else in your admissions application.
- You come across as not having your act together.
What are possible brainstorming questions?
The Essay Expert, Brenda Bernstein, provides some possible essay brainstorming topics:
- 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?
Once you have a topic, how do you keep focus and stay on task?
According to the experts at All College Application Essays, “the drafting process is critical and can help make your stories and messages clearer. These essays are hard to write and get better with each new layer. To help, they provide 10 questions to guide you through the process:
- Does your essay start with a story that hooks us in from the first paragraph?
- If you start in the past, do you get to the present very quickly?
- Do you write only in the first person and not spend too much time describing anyone or anything else?
- If you are writing about your community or family, do you get to the present and your life and life works quickly?
- Do you only tell one story and not try and tell your entire life story?
- If you are writing about an obstacle or challenge overcome, do you get to how you have responded and made a difference in the life of your community by the second impactor third paragraph of the essay?
- Do you have a metaphor that goes through the entire piece…does this metaphor reveal who you are and what you offer to potential colleges?
- Does your story make you sound unique and not like anyone else applying?
- Do you tell new stories and qualities in each separate essay your write?
- Do you end with a bang?
What do admissions officers look for in an essay?
According to David at EssaysCoach.com, writing a good application essay is hard. Many students write essays that are too cliché or too shallow; others write essays that are impersonal and uninformative; some are even unfortunate enough to write essays that cause their own rejection. Here are five things an admissions officer looks for:
- Can the applicant write?
- What does the essay say about the applicant?
- Are there deep, personal reflections?
- What will the applicant bring to the community?
- Do the qualities represented in the essay resonate with the rest of the application?
For a clear description of each, read more . . .
Now that you’ve read tips from these five experts, check out 35+ more gathered by The College Essay Guy.
