How Not To Start Your College Essay

How Not To Start Your College Essay She tells me large schools receiving 30,000 to 60,000 applications are using software to crunch numbers and manage the volume of applications. There has always been speculation as to the value colleges place on the essay. The college application process is stressful, and the essay can seem like an insurmountable hurdle. Once you’ve proofread and edited the essay till you’re sick of it, let a few people you trust look over it. If they’re willing, get one of your English teachers to read it. These people will point out things you never would have noticed on your own. John Hopkins University has a page full of essays that worked; one in particular, entitled“Breaking Into Cars”, showcases what the writer learned from his experiences well. This second version isn’t going to win any awards, and it definitely needs more work, but the specificity is there. See what you should do with them on the next page. Deciding which college you want to attend is stressful. Preparing your college applications and meeting various deadlines is an ordeal. If the person reading this essay had no idea about marching band or music, this description would give them enough detail to empathize with the writer. It helps you get all the obvious stuff out of your head first. When you begin to write an essay, it’s normal to fall back on clichés. That’s okay to start â€" it gets you in the flow of writing. But we want to get that stuff out of the way as quickly as possible so we can move on to the not so obvious. Worrying about the essay questions you'll be asked -- and how many you'll have to answer -- is agonizing. Combining your larger reasons with the specific details paints a clear picture of why this is the right college for you. Use the details to ground the bigger-picture aspects of your story. For instance, if you’re applying to Cornell’s School of Hotel Management, you might describe how you’ve been collecting hotel brochures since you were a child in the hope of one day opening your own. That, combined with your desire to be on a large, rural campus with deep ties to the surrounding town â€" and work every job possible in a student run hotel â€" made you know Cornell was the school for you. This essay is about your relationship with the school, not solely the school itself. In fact, it’s really more about you than the college â€" how and why you will thrive there. To that end, use the space to explore why you’re a mutual fit. It can be especially helpful to use a story or anecdote (just not, “I’ve had a Yale sweatshirt since I was 10”). Once you have a revised draft of your college essay, call in your friends and family to take a look. Have them give you comments and encourage them to be honest. Last year, CMC had eight admissions officers and 10 part-time readers for 7,100 applications. Both Stanford University and University of California Berkeley officials insist they read all essays. Patricia Krahnke, president of Global College Search and former assistant admissions director at Rutgers University and Vermont State Colleges’ dean of admissions, agrees with Stevens. DON’T try to write an important or scholarly essay. A well-researched essay that shows off your knowledge of a particular academic subject tells the reader nothing about you. The reader will only suspect that your essay is a recycled term paper. DO write an essay that only you could honestly write. If it’s possible that the reader will read anything similar from another applicant, you need to start another essay. However, most people don’t have such novel experiences. Don’t think that your life is too “boring” to provide material for a great essay.With the right approach, you can still write an essay that wows. However, while it’s true that the essay isn’t the only thing that matters to college admissions officers, a great essay can actually compensate for less than stellar grades. On the flip side, abad essaycan overshadow all of your other accomplishments. When you construct an essay that satisfies you, ask a trusted teacher to proofread and critique it. Make any changes required, and type the essay into a word processor or text editor so that you can copy and paste it onto the electronic college application. This will help prevent errors and typos that might occur if you retype the essay into the essay window when you're filling out the application form. So you've got a list of college essay questions.