How long should my college essay be?
A powerful essay answers the prompt directly and sticks to the topic. Admissions teams use these prompts to learn specific things about you, including facets of your character, experiences you've had, or what you hope to achieve. By staying on topic, you make sure your essay clearly covers what the college wants to know, helping them see how you fit into their academic community. If you wander off-topic, your reader might not get a clear picture of what you're trying to say. So, focus on the prompt to tell a clear and meaningful story.
In addition to what follows, I'm sharing three other things with you today. The first is the blog post from which a lot of this text comes. The second is another post that contains three stellar college essays. Yes, it can. While a strong essay can boost your application, a weak or poorly written essay may hurt your chances, even if the rest of your application is impressive. It’s often a deciding factor in competitive admissions, so putting effort into your essay is important. I really enjoy reading and writing (and even editing) essays, so for this post I thought I’d give you all some essay writing tips. I was initially planning to specifically focus on college application essays, but since it’s the end of the school year and many of you are probably working on final essays for some of your classes, I thought I’d broaden my advice a little bit. Hopefully you’ll find each of these tips helpful, whether you’re working on an essay for an English class or for a college application! A strong college essay captivates the reader with an interesting premise and offers insight into what makes you a unique applicant. Strong college essays reveal candidates’ aspirations and challenges. Learning how to write a college essay is crucial for the application process. Follow along to learn how to write a college admission essay. how to write a college essayâ This article is not a general nor comprehensive “How to Write a Personal Statement” piece. Rather, it provides expertise specific to writing the personal statement as an engineering major. It addresses selecting a powerful essay topic for the personal statement but not a comprehensive treatment of the mechanics of writing the essay.
How (and why) to outline your college essay to use a good structure
It's not enough to just know what you want to write about—you also need to have a sense of how you're going to write about it. You could have the most exciting topic of all time, but without a clear structure your essay will end up as incomprehensible gibberish that doesn't tell the reader anything meaningful about your personality.
This section contains five examples of good college essays.
This kind of essay isnât about information and facts, or your resume! You're going to need to write about yourself, through the lens of your own feelings, thoughts, perceptions, and experiences. This can involve some uncomfortable honesty, candor, and vulnerability, and a level of subjectivity that's foreign to most academic writing you're used to!
Resist the temptation to buy the “best college essays” book
Since the papers you write for school are mostly analytical, you probably aren't used to writing about your own feelings. As such, it can be easy to neglect the reflection part of the personal statement in favor of just telling a story. Yet explaining what the event or idea you discuss meant to you is the most important essay—knowing how you want to tie your experiences back to your personal growth from the beginning will help you make sure to include it.
Here is an example of an actual college essay prompt from Yale:
Start in the middle of the action. Don't spend a lot of time at the beginning of your essay outlining background info—it doesn't tend to draw the reader in and you usually need less of it than you think you do. Instead start right where your story starts to get interesting. (I'll go into how to craft an intriguing opener in more depth below.)
Here's an example from a real student's college essay:
Remember that the point of the college essay isn't just to tell a story, it's to show something about yourself. It's vital that you have a specific point you want to make about what kind of person you are, what kind of college student you'd make, or what the experience you're describing taught you.