College Essays

College Essays ” don’t start the essay with “The most influential person in my life is…” It’s dull and the admissions office created the prompt, so it’s telling them the info they already know. Still, Jager-Hyman says that some parents who get their hands on their kids’ essays go too far and change the tone or tenor. Some essays she read were “too stiff, too adult and too formal,” â€" not the student’s work. There’s no such thing as the perfect college essay. Just be yourself and write the best way you know how. Combining your larger reasons with the specific details paints a clear picture of why this is the right college for you. Inside Higher Ed, a popular website monitoring issues in higher education, estimated that 20 percent of members will eliminate the essay requirement. Spellcheck won’t catch every spelling or grammatical error! Take the time to read over all your essays carefully and keep an eye out for things like “out” when you meant to say “our” and other common typos. Jager-Hyman notes that every writer has an editor, and editors can help select topics, tell students where the essay is lacking and help them organize their thoughts. In this competitive climate, many students think their essay must reflect an earth-shattering achievement, like curing cancer or ending world starvation, but that’s not its purpose. It’s also not a place to reiterate one’s résumé or explain away a bad semester (there’s a section in the application for that). College counselors weighing in on the college review website Unigo indicated that, depending on the school, up to four people could read a single essay. For the application season, the Common Application announced that their 600-plus member schools, which include many private and public universities, need not require essays . The purpose of the prompt is to help you reflect on something that matters to you. Your application will be full of information that illuminates dimensions of you and your abilities, but only the essay gives you a vehicle to speak, in your own voice, about something personally significant. Choose something you care about and it will flow more naturally. Use the details to ground the bigger-picture aspects of your story. For instance, if you’re applying to Cornell’s School of Hotel Management, you might describe how you’ve been collecting hotel brochures since you were a child in the hope of one day opening your own. That, combined with your desire to be on a large, rural campus with deep ties to the surrounding town â€" and work every job possible in a student run hotel â€" made you know Cornell was the school for you. This essay is about your relationship with the school, not solely the school itself. In fact, it’s really more about you than the college â€" how and why you will thrive there. To that end, use the space to explore why you’re a mutual fit. It can be especially helpful to use a story or anecdote (just not, “I’ve had a Yale sweatshirt since I was 10”). Many students fall into the trap of offering superficial or generic reasons for wanting to attend. Read the top 147 college essays that worked at Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, and more. Alex Tiso, 18, wrote his college application essay on burrito bowls and got into his dream school. New York teen Alex Tiso wrote his college essay on burrito bowls and got into his dream school. Jose may have been a big man on campus in high school, but here at UCLA he's just another college essay. Choose the prompt that comes closest to something you’d like to write about. Have a parent or counselor read over the essay, too, to catch any errors you might have missed. Spelling and grammar errors can take away from an otherwise stellar essay â€" so be mindful. When tailoring responses to individual college prompts, it’s important to use specific details you’ve learned through visiting and research. Not only does this show colleges that you’ve have done your homework, but it also demonstrates your interest in the college â€" and colleges want to admit students who are likely to enroll. Show your knowledge of the college by mentioning specific courses, professors, places of interest, and more. Show how you fit into the campus culture and how you will impact the community through specific examples. Admissions officers are pros when it comes to separating the genuine from the insincere. It’s possible to write a compelling essay about delivering pizza and a completely mundane essay about volunteering in the Brazilian rain forest. Trust that your life story and your unique view of the world are enough. You can write an excellent essay, but if you don’t focus on answering the question that the college is asking, you will likely not be admitted to the school. If the prompt of the essay was “Who is the most influential person in your life and why?