Essay Writing Help

Writing the College Essay: Tips & Suggestions

Introduction

Writing a colleges essay is no easy task. You should not expect to be able to have a final draft completed in one sitting. It is a process that takes time and effort on your part. Your essay is an opportunity to show the admission committee that you are more than just grades on a piece of paper.

What admissions offices are looking for when they read your essay:
1. Your ability to write.
2. Your self-awareness (understanding of who you are and what you want for yourself.)
3. Your career goals.
4. How their program meets your goals and needs.

The Process

1.Generating Ideas
To begin to generate ideas, brainstorm, freewrite and/or map on each of the following topics.

Strengths: What words best describe you?

Passions: What excites you?

Turn-around experiences: Have you had an experience that turned your life around?

What are your special skills? eg. visual organization, athletics etc...

You as a learner: Discuss your strengths and strategies.

If you could only tell the school ONE thing about yourself, what would it be?

Does a theme emerge?

2. Organizing and Developing Your Ideas

Look over your ideas. Select ideas you'd like to use. Can you group them?

Do you see connections between any of your ideas?
What theme emerges?

Does this theme capture what is most important for a school to know about you?

Can you think of an event/a story or an analogy that could provide an effective opening for your essay?

Your Academic Turn-Around

You can use the following as a general outline for an essay or incorporate the information into an essay of your own choice. If you need to explain your academic past (e.g. your high school records), it is important to do that in your college essay.

The Past
Discuss your past briefly. Colleges will have your transcripts, so talk about what happened. Be honest, but don't dwell on your past.

The Present
Tell a story or focus on a personal strength. Discuss 1-3 reasons why you're a different person now than you were at 18.

The Future
Why are you ready to move on? Why are your ready for this particular college program? How does this program specifically meet your goals and needs?
Before you draft your essay, you may want to talk through your ideas with someone who knows you well, to get feedback and perhaps come up with additional ideas.

Drafting

To show who you are, remember to use your personal voice (an informal and direct tone).
Tell your story in simple words.

Revision

A few questions to ask yourself about your draft:

Does your draft:

1. Have a beginning which will catch the reader's attention?
2. Focus on a theme which is developed throughout the essay?
3. Give the reader a sense of who I am?
4. Contain information about my LD?
5. Address any specific directions colleges have provided (see list above)?
6. Have a personal tone and simple language?
7. Consist of 1.5 to 2 pages of typed, double spaced text?

Proofreading

Once you are happy with the content and organization of your draft, be sure to proofread it AND have someone else proofread, as well.

Difficulties with proofreading?

Remember to use the spell check and grammar check on the computer.
Read your draft out loud. You may want to read one sentence at a time, starting with the last sentence of the paper (to avoid focusing on ideas rather than grammar, spelling, etc).

What Does a Good Essay Need?

1. Main Idea
2. Evidence to Back Up Your Main Idea
3. Organization
4. Coherence, in other words, easy to read
5. Correctness, no grammatical or spelling errors

Things You Should Know About College Essays

1. There are no right or wrong answers to a college essay. Don't get preoccupied with saying what you think the admissions committee might want to hear.
2. Read the question carefully and make sure that you have clearly answered the question being asked.
3. Using words that you don't know is a dangerous game. Using words incorrectly is a dead giveaway that you are not a strong writer.
4. Be yourself, but don't be a comedian.
5. When writing your essay, ask yourself, "who will be reading my essay and have I said anything that could seem offensive to that person"?
6. Unless you are asked to write about a specific political topic, keep your politics, religion, and business affairs out of your essay.
7. You will often be given a limit to how long your essay can be. Do not allow your essay to go longer than the stated limit. Nothing turns off an admissions committee more than students that can't follow directions.

Sample Essay Questions:

There are three main types of essay questions that you may be asked.

1. The "Tell Us About Yourself" question.
2. The "Why Do You Want to Attend Our College" question.
3. The "Creative: We Want to Hear What You Have to Say" about a particular topic question.

Here are some sample of each:

The "Tell Us About Yourself" question.

1. Please write a 1-2 page statement that will convey to the reader who you are.
2. Describe the most interesting experience you have had in your life.
3. What is the most difficult decision you have had to make in your life and how has it affected you?

The "Why Do You Want to Attend Our College" question.

1. Tell us your reasons for choosing to apply to our college and why you think you would be a good fit for us?
2. What are your career goals and how to you think this college will help you achieve them?

The "Creative: We Want to Hear What You Have to Say" about a particular topic question.

1. Who was or is the best president the United States of America has had to date and why?
2. Tell us about a book that you have read recently. What is the main idea of this book and why is this work important?
3. If you had unlimited amounts of money, what would you do with your time?