Your essay should be passed around to the
admissions office… They’ll be in love with it immediately. Or not? The
admissions staff may occasionally receive a well-written, sincere essay that
gives insight into the student’s maturation. However, we suspect that there are
many essays that make them giggle, laugh, and cry “never again!”
How can you make your essay belong in the first category and not the second? We asked our colleagues that have a good blog for students – https://classtaker.net/. They gave a few pieces of advice and we are ready to share it.
So, what are tips to help you avoid writing a
cringeworthy essay?
- Don’t write the “safe” essay. Choose a topic you are passionate about. You could share your experience, but you should be able to give your personal perspective on how it affected. Many students believe that colleges only care about community service. This is why they feel the need for writing about their mission trip experiences. It can be very difficult to write an essay that stands out from hundreds of thousands of mission trip essays. It has been read many times before by admissions officers. These are the most commonly used mission trip snippets.
- Be specific. Do not pretend to be well-rounded, or that many people have influenced you. Tell the reader about your life, what you have done and how you were influenced.
- Don’t repeat yourself. If you have certain info in your papers, you may nor add it to the limited word count essay. Colleges will ask you for information about your participation (hours per week, weeks per year). The student should use every opportunity to give insight into their personality and impress the admissions committee. You can certainly talk about extracurricular activities in an essay. But, avoid listing all the details and talk about what you’re doing.
- Don’t complain. It is okay to share your story if you’ve been through difficult times. Don’t blame others, whine, or act like you have given up. It is important to show perseverance and resilience. A better essay will describe how you dealt with, and hopefully overcame, the obstacles.
- Do not talk about rankings. When writing essays about why they chose this college, many students enjoy focusing on numbers. The college thinks they flatter them by telling them that their reason for wanting to attend the college is because it is highly ranked in Here&There News. Although schools know their rankings, they want to find out why you would like to attend.