11 Tips To Writing Your College Admissions Essay In One Day

11 Tips To Writing Your College Admissions Essay In One Day So, it’s worth putting in the time and effort to write a good one. Your child has narrowed down the list of colleges to apply to and now comes the all-important college essay. No subject is more anxiety-inducing than the essay. It will capture who your student is beyond grades, test scores and co-curricular activities. The college essay is your child’s story, and it should be written using their words, in their voice. Your son or daughter is a high school senior, and the essay should sound like one. And certainly not one of the most revered writers of all time. At ScholarMatch, Watson uses freewriting exercises to help students start their essays. The essay, however, doesn’t have to be an insurmountable project. With the right information, realistic time management and good proofing and editing, it should be easy to write the best college essay you can. When you sit down to write a college application essay, just remember that this is an opportunity to show who you are as a student and who you can become at a university. Admissions officers like Warren are excited to admit students who are passionate, creative, gritty, and driven. The college essay is your personal touch â€" an opportunity to demonstrate your writing and communications skills and prove your readiness for college-level work. Remember that writing a college essay reveals a glimpse of who you are and your unique personality â€" it’s your voice. Expressing yourself through this written exercise adds a three-dimensional quality to your application and conveys your personal qualities. Your narrative, along with your academic record and test scores, will complete your application. Once you’re past a college’s GPA and test score criteria, your college essays become one of the most important elements of your application. Especially if you’re a marginal candidate, a stellar essay can make the difference between an acceptance and a rejection. For this post, we asked Shania the most frequently asked questions we see from students about how to write college essays. Shania graciously shared her experiences and insights as well as her drafts and the final version of her Common App college essay. Some parents just cannot resist editing (or even writing!) their child's college essays. Nick was recently in a meeting with a student he respected tremendously, but he could tell that his mom had written all his essays. While many students stress over their essays, it's important to remember that this is just one component of the admissions process, and rarely the decisive factor. That doesn't mean that the essay is unimportant; it does give you an opportunity to directly make your case to the admissions committee. Just keep a healthy perspective on its relative importance as you write. One mistake Warren has seen is students who submit the same essay to multiple schools without changing the name of the university in their essay. Many schools do not require an essay, and in cases where it's optional, some applicants skip it. The essay is an opportunity to impress an admissions team that may be on the fence regarding your application. While much of the application review process is automated, the essay is an opportunity for students to be evaluated on their creativity and personal experiences. Mitch Warren, the director of admissions at Purdue University, drives this point home. Students come to ScholarMatch workshops feeling nervous about the process. Freewriting helps kids relax and simply write; it also usually helps elicit an essay topic. For the exercises, Watson asks students to write whatever comes into their minds. From the freewriting, he and other writing coaches help students identify points they can develop into an essay. The essay creates frustration for students, stress for parents, and an overall feeling of dread as the deadline for submission approaches. It told a story of the struggle between two cultures that many immigrant students experience, and furthermore, it didn’t reveal anything about me that felt unique or essential to my personality. I didn’t want to be labelled as just another Asian immigrant by college admissions. However, I felt like I spent too much on background information, and my essay lacked an overarching concrete experience for readers to grasp onto. Most students choose to write their college essay about a singular experience, which is what I ended up doing as well. Of course, this is not to say that this is the only way to write your essay, but it’s what I felt best grounded mine.