Why Colleges Ask You To Write Essays

Why Colleges Ask You To Write Essays One way to find possible topics is to think deeply about the college's essay prompt. I would also recommend starting with a longer personal statement before moving on to shorter supplementary essays, since the word essays tend to take quite a bit longer than word short responses. The brainstorming you do for the long essay may help you come up with ideas you like for the shorter ones as well. If you have one essay that's due earlier than the others, start there. Otherwise, start with the essay for your top choice school. When you start writing, don't worry about your essay's length. Instead, focus on trying to include all of the details you can think of about your topic, which will make it easier to decide what you really need to include when you edit. Contrary to what you may have learned in elementary school, sweeping statements don't make very strong hooks. If you want to start your essay with a more overall description of what you'll be discussing, you still need to make it specific and unique enough to stand out. Also keep in mind that, at this point in the process, the goal is just to get your ideas down. All good stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end, so shape your story so that it has an introduction, body, and conclusion. Following this natural progression will make your essay coherent and easy to read. Your essay should add something to your application that isn't obvious elsewhere. Again, there are sections for all of your extracurriculars and awards; the point of the essay is to reveal something more personal that isn't clear just from numbers and lists. What experience, talent, interest or other quirk do you have that you might want to share with colleges? Possible topics include hobbies, extracurriculars, intellectual interests, jobs, significant one-time events, pieces of family history, or anything else that has shaped your perspective on life. Let your essay sit for a while before you proofread it. Approaching the essay with a fresh perspective gives your mind a chance to focus on the actual words rather than seeing what you think you wrote. Start with your main idea and follow it from beginning to end. The rules for writing a good essay are no different. After you brainstorm, you’ll know what you want to say, but you must decide how you’re going to say it. Create an outline that breaks down the essay into sections. Avoid sorting through your existing English class essays to see if the topics fit the bill. That way you'll be able to see exactly what you need to do and when you need to do it by. Stellar Results We help 95% our students get into at least one of their top 3 choices. CollegeXpress has everything you need to simplify your college search, get connected to schools, and find your perfect fit. This forces you to read each word individually and increases your chances of finding a typo. Reading aloud will also help you ensure your punctuation is correct, and it’s often easier to hear awkward sentences than see them. Take time to understand the question or prompt being asked. Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education. Read what admissions officers wish applicants knew before applying. Check out essays by authors like John Jeremiah Sullivan, Leslie Jamison, Hanif Abdurraqib, and Esmé Weijun Wang to get more example of how to craft a compelling personal narrative. These pieces rarely showcase who you are as an applicant. The single most important part of your essay preparation may be simply making sure you truly understand the question or essay prompt. When you're finished writing, you need to make sure that your essay still adheres to the prompt. Wonky phrasings and misplaced commas can easily be fixed when you edit, so don't worry about them as you write. Instead, focus on including lots of specific details and emphasizing how your topic has affected you, since these aspects are vital to a compelling essay. As I touched on above, the narrower your focus, the easier it will be to write a unique, engaging personal statement. The simplest way to restrict the scope of your essay is to recount an anecdote, i.e. a short personal story that illustrates your larger point. Once you've gone through the questions above, you should have good sense of what you want to write about. Hopefully, it's also gotten you started thinking about how you can best approach that topic, but we'll cover how to plan your essay more fully in the next step.