The College Essay

The College Essay But she does complete very rough drafts of the Catch-22 essays for UVA and George Mason. After returning from vacation, Rachel finds herself jet-lagged, distracted by friends and uninspired. Instead, write an essay that sounds like you are talking to a favorite aunt or uncle. After reading your essay, the committee member should know something about your personality, your style and your values. Every admissions office has a story about receiving an essay folded into origami, or embossed on a five pound chocolate bar. These are not amusing at 11 PM after ten hours of essay reading. Rachel has won numerous awards and intends to play at the intramural level in college. She decides that would make a better topic for Michigan’s “extracurricular activity” essay. Rachel takes a few days to relax after completing 11th grade before creating a spreadsheet listing her colleges. She then uses both the Common App and individual colleges’ websites to find guidelines, deadlines and essay prompts. If Rachel has established a relationship with a college admissions representative, she will ask if supplemental essay prompts for next season will change. If she hasn’t been in touch with a rep, she will use this year’s prompts as a guide. Her counselor also suggests the University of Mary Washington, another Virginia public school, because it’s close to D.C. Below are some tips for writing an essay that will enhance your application. ” Instead, ask, “What should I tell them about me? ” Have someone read your essay to see if your point comes across. Be clear about the theme of your essay from the first paragraph. Grab the reader’s attention with a compelling opening sentence. For example, instead of “it was really very important to me â€" and my parents too - that…” use “it was imperative that I…” Keep your essay around 500 words, unless otherwise specified in the application. Our counselors are accustomed to tutoring over the phone and reviewing drafts by email. In the end, Rachel doesn’t finish all her essays by the start of school. Remember that her list was ambitious, with quite a few supplementals, and her momentum was disrupted by vacation. As her schedule grows heavier, she ends up taking Michigan off her list. Now school is starting, and she hasn’t even begun the unique essay for William & Mary or the conversation with a historical woman for Barnard. She considers dropping her application to Barnard but has a flash of inspiration during a study hall, envisioning herself sitting at a Jerusalem café asking Golda Meir questions about the call of leadership. Show this draft to your college English teacher, your counselor, your Transfer Center director, or a relative who will be brutally honest. Ask this reader if your essay sounds like you, is interesting to read, wanders off the topic anywhere, and is vivid and coherent. Right now, halfway around the globe, an American high school junior is gearing up for the U.S. college admissions process. Let’s give her the way-too-peppy name of Rachel Resilient. Finally, she checks the Common App to make sure supplemental essay prompts have not changed, then gets to work. She plans to write each morning and see her friends in the afternoon only if she has made real progress on her essays that day. Rachel decides to write about her local and global communities of Third Culture Kids. To be able to tweak this essay for several colleges, Rachel will write about her most meaningful community in the first half of the essay, and then gear the second half to each college. Because UVA and Michigan request similar word counts, she will not have to adjust these for length. She now has a short draft of the “Why This College? ” essay for Barnard and a Community essay for UVA; if she has time, she’ll tweak them later for Michigan. She doesn’t even start the basketball essay for Michigan now.