January 26th, 2012
Your excellent grades and SAT scores aren’t the only things you’ll need to get into the top school of your choice. You’ll also need application essays that reflect what an inquisitive and intelligent person you are. If you don’t spend much time on your essays, you can’t expect a college admissions board to spend much time considering your application, no matter how impressive your credentials are. Since application essays are kind of a big deal, writing them can be pretty nerve-wracking. We’d like to help decrease your stress levels by providing you with a little guidance when it comes to your essays. Here are three tips to help you write memorable, meaningful application essays that are sure to impress the bigwigs at your dream school:
1. Give yourself a couple of days to think about an essay topic.
This will give you enough time to formulate exactly what you want to write about in your head. You may want to record ideas you have for essays in a notebook. Oftentimes, the best writing ideas won’t come to you when you’re sitting in front of the blank page on your computer screen. The best ideas may come to you when you’re eating breakfast or brushing your teeth before bed. If you spend a couple of days contemplating a topic and coming up with ideas, you’ll be prepared to write the best essay possible.
2. Avoid writing what you think people want to hear.
Your college application essays shouldn’t be anything like the papers you write for history class. There’s no right or wrong answer to an application essay question. It’s important to be yourself and express your independent ideas in your essays. Your essays are an opportunity for you to let college admissions boards know who you are. So, show off your personality and unique beliefs. Just remember to keep your essays appropriate and on topic.
3. Have someone you trust proofread your finished essays.
You could ask a friend, older sibling, or parent to take a look at your essays. You want the grammar and spelling in your essays to be perfect, and another person can help you catch any and all writing mistakes and errors.
College application essays are important, but you should do everything you can to stay calm while writing them. Take deep breaths if you need to, and don’t be afraid to express yourself!
About the Author: Carolyn Knight is a professional writer and guest blogger who writes about the higher education industry, registered nursing schools, and time management skills for students.
Tags: college applications, essay writing tips, how to write a college essay
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December 5th, 2011
We can think of a few things not to do this application season. This... actually, this is one of those things.
When your pile of applications gets overwhelming, you may feel the urge to just "churn one out." If you're writing so many pieces, what's the harm in focusing on a few and doing a few others more quickly? Right? Well, rushing can lead to simple mistakes, especially in the choice of topic. You do not want this thing to feel tossed-off.
In fact, sometimes knowing what not to do can be as useful as knowing what you ought to do. There are many essay topics that spring to mind quickly. These ideas can be enticing - in many cases they seem to almost write themselves - until you realize that they don't paint a particularly flattering portrait of you, or that the reason they sprung to mind so easily is that you've read essays just like them several times before.
Always look out for cliche! Avoid it like the plague, as well as essay topics that center themselves around your faults or around things that you are not, rather than things that you are.
Any advice about what not to do, of course, always comes with a grain of salt. There are always exceptions, so use this only as a guide. Just make sure that if you cover one of the following topics, you do so in a unique way that highlights your strengths:
- Crime you've committed
- Character flaws
- Excuses for your shortcomings
- The "Big Game"
This last one might surprise you - the big success at a sporting event is a common topic, and it talks about a positive, emotional event. So why not use it?
It often leads you down very well-worn paths without necessarily telling us much about what you will be able to bring to an academic or social environment. More often than not, these essays focus on one-off events that don't translate to your everyday life. But worse, they aren't memorable.
Picture an admissions officer reading through five hundred essays. Five. Hundred. Essays. How many of these feel the same? How many are about a success in a sporting event? Push further, past cliche and into the elements of who you are that are specific to you and what you do. Things no one else in your school can say.
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November 30th, 2011
You mean I can have any bag of lettuce? Any bag at all?
So many choices.
We have written about the style of the college essay many times here on CEO Blog. The form at its best is almost its own genre of writing – it is a combination of story telling, personal expression, and resume that demands a level of revision that most high schoolers are not used to.
There are all kinds of things that can make a writer freeze up when putting together a personal statement, but ironically, one of those things is having too many options. Many essay prompts, including the Common App’s long response, allow you to write on a topic of your choice, which is to say anything at all.
When you can write about anything, write about your passion.
Your passion won’t be the thing you think you’re supposed to write about, or the thing you think will be most impressive to the guidance counselor you are imagining, but it will be the thing that makes you sit up and say, “I can write about that.”
When you have that a-ha moment and recognize what you care about, your writing will actually improve. You will avoid cliché and, better yet, you will be able to write with detail that shows you understand the world you’re talking about. You will be able to invite the reader into an understanding of what you love and show why your involvement in it matters.
In short, you’ll be able to describe for the reader something about yourself that your resume doesn’t reflect as well as it could, and that’s the job of this piece of writing.
Tags: Application, College, Essay, Help, Open-Ended, Tips
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November 28th, 2011
Now that you've all come out of your turkey-induced comas, let's get back to the matter at hand - finishing off all those college application essays you have hanging over your head. This kind of writing can be hard to kick-start, especially if you’re used to writing more academic essays, but hopefully with the guidance we've been able to give here on CEO blog, you'll be able to write memorable pieces without falling into the common traps. What common traps, you say? Funny you say that. We've got five common mistakes for you to avoid, listed here for your list-loving pleasure.
Don't go down this road, people. Please.
1. Don’t write a traditional 5-paragraph essay with a thesis, body, and conclusion. Take some risks with the structure and show your personality. Use the first person and just start writing. See what happens. You can pose a question or start with a distinctive opinion on a topic. Almost anything goes.
2. Don’t be gimmicky. We’ve all heard about the student who wrote his essay about his childhood years with a crayon and got accepted to every college. The likelihood of this being true is slim. It’s like communism: good in theory, impossible in practice. Let the substance of your writing be the real story.
3. Don’t come off as arrogant. This can be difficult, because part of what you’re trying to do with your personal essay is highlight something positive about yourself. But it’s one thing to call yourself awesome in your own essay and quite another to write about things you’ve done that show how awesome you clearly are. The old rule of writing applies here: show, don’t tell.
4. Don’t be cheesy. You shouldn’t come off like a bad Hallmark card. Let’s be serious. You’re not somebody who is so inspired by the beauty of the world you are brought to tears at the sight of a single flower. Come on. You know over-sentimentality when you see it, so keep it out of your essay.
5. Don’t use overly formal language. Applying to college is serious business, but that doesn’t mean that the tone and style of your essays need to be stuffy. Colleges are looking for personality and character, so relax when you start expressing yourself. Instead of writing something dry like, “I have come to this understanding according to certain factors that have influenced my life…” write something lively like, “During the summer of 2009, I was stalked by my literary hero.”
Tags: avoid, college admissions, Essay, Help, mistakes
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November 21st, 2011
Will you take a risk when you write your essays?
Chances are, your days are already pretty packed: classes, extracurriculars, seeing friends, spending time with family… and now applying to college on top of that. Senior year can be overwhelming, especially when it comes to writing your personal essays. And while you’ve certainly written essays on the Civil War, Einstein, or plant biology, a personal essay is a different animal. It can be time consuming and even emotionally draining, depending on your choice of topic. Make sure to pace yourself accordingly and keep that pile of college essay assignments manageable.
Make sure to set aside a little bit of time every day to work on your essay. It’s better to spend 20 minutes on it daily than 10 hours right before it’s due. You’ll find that visiting it every day will help your ideas flow and connect better, give you perspective on what you’ve already written, and reduce the chances of sloppy mistakes.
As for topic selection, instead of trying to brainstorm an essay that matches an existing question from your school of choice, try working backward. Think of a personal experience that moved you or changed you, then tailor that to answer the question. Let’s say you want to write about your experience playing the flute for the first time with a large orchestra. This story answers a lot of possible essay questions: what was a personal activity of special significance, or an accomplishment you are proud of—even an adversity you have dealt with. This one story can be tweaked into the many essays your colleges require.
It’s great to get feedback from a friend or a teacher on a draft you’ve written, but don’t overdo it. A common mistake is an essay written “by committee” – too many people have read it and the writer is trying to please too many different opinions. In the end, you’re left with an essay with all the life sucked out of it. Find one person you trust—preferably not a family member or friend—and let that individual be your sounding board.
Tags: Admission, Application, college essay, Tips
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November 4th, 2011
The New York Times has a magazine piece up today about the influx of Chinese students into the American university system in recent years. Many of the students, the article notes, are from middle- to upper-class families that can afford to pay the full tuition - a boon for schools struggling under recent budget cuts - but who often arrive without the requisite English skills to keep up in the classroom.
The onus is on them, for the most part, and though navigating a university education in one's second language is an enormous challenge, it's one that isn't dissuading Chinese parents from sending their children to America in rapidly-increasing numbers.
As with any international shift in the college admissions game, understanding the system is of primary importance, especially when choosing your school and managing the college essay process. A number of the students cited in the article admit that when they applied to the school, their English was not strong, which is all the more reason to keep the application process simple, efficient, and direct, so as not to write any unnecessary essays or misinterpret what's required for a given application.
Use of College Essay Organizer has likewise grown among international applicants and international counseling services, and that's to everyone's benefit. Keep things simple and targeted, and make the most of what you have.
Tags: Application, China, college admission essay, English, Essay, New York Times
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November 3rd, 2011
The New York Times has offered up another piece about how to edit your college admissions essay, and though it is often hard to hear such advice, the point is as true now as it's ever been - good writing does not need to be long, and it especially doesn't just need to be "done" - it needs to be good. It's often very difficult for students to hear that they need to edit large parts of their essays, or in some cases, delete the entire thing and start over.
It should be said again and again - the college application essay is one of the most important pieces of writing high school students will ever do, and for many students, it is the most important thing they've written at that point in their lives. So make it count. Never send an essay in without doing at least five drafts, and be sure that you've considered the subject at great length. Be sure you've chosen something that's not cliche, and that reaches into a part of your experience that the rest of your application does not.
The tips in the New York Times article we've linked above are key, so we'll repeat them there. But remember, no mechanical advice will substitute for personal, emotional writing and honesty about your own experience. Write about what makes you feel like yourself, and don't shy away from the subjects of greatest value to you.
- Know where to start.
- Try a trusty literary device.
- Avoid adjectives, adverbs, and qualifiers.
- Pay close attention to sentence structure.
Not bad ideas if you're looking to get your word count down, but have a look at the article and hit us back up with your feedback.
Tags: College Admissions essay, Help, New York Times
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October 31st, 2011
Each year we're asked about how to most effectively cut the word count of college essays down to the limits the schools assign for them. The first piece of advice we always give is to check and see if you actually have to hit that limit - in many cases, you don't, thanks to the "Upload Document" feature that's become so common on college applications.
The large majority of schools now require (or at least prefer) that you use an online application, either the Common App or the school's own application. If the school has an upload document feature instead of a text box that the essay needs to be pasted into, you can upload a file with an essay that goes over the word count. In many instances, this is to your benefit, because you can include the details that you feel are most significant to your application, without compromising the overall flow of the piece. We recommend that you not get crazy with your essay length, but if an essay is limited to, say, 500 words, it's not unreasonable to push it over 700 or even to 800 words.
Remember that the biggest priority for your college admissions essays is that it be good. Good is more important than short, and good is certainly more important than just "being done with it already." This writing is something you should put a lot of time into, and you may find that the college essay is the piece of writing you've revised most in your life. It is not uncommon to do five to ten drafts of each piece you submit. Writing can always be better! So work it as best you can and make it shine.
Tags: college essay, Common Application, word count
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October 19th, 2011
Now that you're wrapping up your early decision and early action applications, it's time to turn to the rest of the applications on your pile. Regular decision applications make up the bulk of the work required of most applicants, and in some cases can mean ten or more additional essays, not to mention the supplemental applications themselves.
The last thing you want to do is to wait until you hear back from your early application schools in mid-December to begin the rest of your work. If, unfortunately, you are denied acceptance to your top-choice schools, you'll have a substantial numer of essays and application forms to finish in only a few weeks - weeks that happen to span the Christmas and New Year's holidays.
Try to finish about 75 percent of your essays before you hear from your top-choice schools, so you're in good shape to complete your regular applications quickly and with far less stress. As always, College Essay Organizer can help you simplify and optimize the work you need to do for all your applications. Just head over to your Essay RoadMap preview and see how many essays your schools require, and how College Essay Organizer can help you make your workload much more manageable.
Tags: early action, early decision, Essay RoadMap
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September 28th, 2011
The most frequently-asked-about piece of advice at College Essay Organizer revolves around how to tell a school that you want to attend. Surely they're not just looking for you to write about what makes them great, right? They already wrote their own guidebooks. They should know what makes them great.
And you're right. The purpose of these essays is not to talk about them but to talk about you. Your job in all of your college essay writing is to convince the reader that you're an interesting person who belongs in their highly-selective class. You're trying to get them to choose you instead of someone else.
Easier said than done, indeed. So today we direct you to a post written last year that has gotten a lot of traffic: How to tell a college that you're interested.
Always keep in mind that your job is to express what you have that they want. It's already implied that they have what you want - a great education and a raft of opportunities for your future, whatever that may be. Do this by identifying your own intellectual interests and developing them from a personal standpoint.
Tags: accomplishments, Admissions, CEO, College, College Essay Organizer, Common App, early decision, Essay, Guidance Counselor, Guide, Help, IECA, Independent Educational Consultants Association, Intellectual Interests, Organization, personal, Recommendation, Regular Decision, School, statement, Tips, Top Choice, university, Why are you interested
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