My college essay
WRITING THE COLLEGE ESSAY
PURPOSE OF THE ESSAY
Your GPA, class rank, SATI and SATII scores are all important to a college admissions officer in helping to assess your academic abilities. But they are only numbers – they have no personality. What can make your application stand apart are the personal essays. The college essay will allow an admissions officer to look beyond those numbers and see you as a person. A well-written essay should convey your thoughts, attitudes, personal qualities, imagination, sense of humor and creativity. It will round out the rest of your application and help you stand out from other applicants. In the end, it is one of the only parts of your application over which you have complete control, so it is important to take the time to do your best work.
WRITING THE ESSAY
To write a college essay, use the same three-step process that you would use to write an essay for class: first prewrite, then draft, and finally, edit. Taking the time for this process will help you to identify a focus for your essay and gather details you'll need to support it.
Prewriting: To start, you need to organize potential ideas for the main points of your essay. Since the purpose of the essay is to share more about you with the admissions dean, begin with YOU.
Brainstorm for a few minutes, making a list of your strengths and outstanding characteristics. Focus on your strengths of personality, not your accomplishments (i.e., you are responsible, not “an Eagle
Scout;” committed, not “a three-year starter for the basketball team”). Your accomplishments are important, but more appropriate for the activities section of the application. Discover your strengths by doing a little research about yourself. Ask friends, parents and teachers what they see as your strengths.
Create an outline, listing several pieces of evidence from your life next to each of the strengths that you have discovered to prove your point. Look for patterns and connections in
PURPOSE OF THE ESSAY
Your GPA, class rank, SATI and SATII scores are all important to a college admissions officer in helping to assess your academic abilities. But they are only numbers – they have no personality. What can make your application stand apart are the personal essays. The college essay will allow an admissions officer to look beyond those numbers and see you as a person. A well-written essay should convey your thoughts, attitudes, personal qualities, imagination, sense of humor and creativity. It will round out the rest of your application and help you stand out from other applicants. In the end, it is one of the only parts of your application over which you have complete control, so it is important to take the time to do your best work.
WRITING THE ESSAY
To write a college essay, use the same three-step process that you would use to write an essay for class: first prewrite, then draft, and finally, edit. Taking the time for this process will help you to identify a focus for your essay and gather details you'll need to support it.
Prewriting: To start, you need to organize potential ideas for the main points of your essay. Since the purpose of the essay is to share more about you with the admissions dean, begin with YOU.
Brainstorm for a few minutes, making a list of your strengths and outstanding characteristics. Focus on your strengths of personality, not your accomplishments (i.e., you are responsible, not “an Eagle
Scout;” committed, not “a three-year starter for the basketball team”). Your accomplishments are important, but more appropriate for the activities section of the application. Discover your strengths by doing a little research about yourself. Ask friends, parents and teachers what they see as your strengths.
Create an outline, listing several pieces of evidence from your life next to each of the strengths that you have discovered to prove your point. Look for patterns and connections in