The summer is the perfect time to draft your college essay. The college application essay is your chance to show a different side of you that is not in your application already. As an essay writer, you can tell about your week and strong sides, hobbies, family, etc. Your grades, the classes that you took, and standardized test scores (if sending) demonstrate your academic rigor. Your recommendations show how others perceive you.
This is your chance to let the admissions reader get to know and understand you. They are wondering how you will fit into their campus environment. What kind of roommate will you be? What are you going to be like in the classroom? Is your experience adding a unique perspective to the student body?
The college application essay is a 250 to 650 word essay. Aim for well-chosen 500 words, but don’t be afraid to deviate from this word count in order to create a statement that is your best work. Consider also hiring professional proofreaders from a write essay for me service to polish your admission essay to perfection.
Resources to Read Great Application Essays
When I applied to college many decades ago, I found that reading successful college application essays helped me to see a wide range of examples. I used Harvard’s book, but here are 26 Outstanding College Essay Examples for free from The College Essay Guy.
50 Successful Harvard Application Essays
50 Successful Ivy League Essays
What is a Great College Application Essay?
One successful strategy is to tell a story and show how it changed you. You want to convey something that speaks to your values.
The key here is how it changed you. With only a 500 word count, one strategy is to pick a defining moment that illustrates how you changed.
What Not To Write About in Your College Application Essay
If you imagine that college application readers are reading applications at a rate of one application every 3 to 5 minutes, you can see how it adds up. That’s the entire application, not just the essay. If the admissions officers have been doing this job for years or even decades, that’s a lot of essays that have they have read.
When it comes to avoiding topics, it’s all about not writing something that the readers have seen a million times. You want your college essay to evoke an emotional response, not a yawn.
Winning or Losing the Big Game
This has been overdone so it’s too trite of a topic to impress a college application reader. You can still talk about sports, but don’t center it around The Big Game. You could write about a specific experience in a game or practice and how it altered your personality or perspective on life.
College Essay Advisors suggests, “For example, maybe your experience diving for the ball as a volleyball player allowed you to take a risk in applying for the job of your dreams. Perhaps the qualities needed to be a good basketball player and also the skills needed to command a boardroom.”
Service Trip
The gist about service trip essays is that it is hard not to convey that you are privileged and able to pay thousands of dollars to go to a foreign country for volunteer work. If you must write about your trip, Putney Student Travel has 6 Tips for Writing a College Admissions Essay About Your Travel & Volunteering Experience. (Of course, they are in the service trip business, so they want you to pay thousands of dollars to go to a foreign country.)
The Three D’s: Divorce, Death, Disease
In general, these are three topics that college admission readers have seen over and over again. If you write on any of these three topics, make it personal about how you responded to this situation and how it shaped your goals or changed your responsibilities.
How To Get Inspired to Start Your College Application Essay
Getting started is the hard part. Start by pulling up memories from the past three years. Does anything come to mind?
Another strategy is to look at your playlist and listen to the songs’ lyrics. Is there something in the lyrics that relates to something that you have experienced?
Make a list of your struggles, accomplishments, and goals from the past three years.
Consult your friends and family about memories they have of you that they think you should write about.
Create your resume. You will need it anyway to give to teachers who will write your recommendation. If your high school uses Naviance, a college and career readiness software provider, you need to create a resume there. It’s also never too early to create your LinkedIn profile which is essentially a resume. Writing your accomplishments in a resume format might help you think of small moments and achievements that you can use in your essay.
A 7 Week Strategy to Draft Your College Application Essay This Summer
This is easy. Spend one hour a week for seven weeks to work on your college application essay.
At the end of seven weeks, you will have a draft of your college essay that you can give to friends, parents, and neighbors to look over. Choose just 2 or 3 people to ask for feedback. You want them to help identify if there are any points that are confusing as well as edit grammar and fix typos.
Supplemental Essays
You definitely want to submit supplement essays to colleges that offer them as optional. BUT, don’t start the supplemental essays during the summer because the questions may change from the prior year. Colleges don’t post their supplemental essay questions until August 1.
You are just seven weeks away from a great college essay! The hardest part is getting started so mark your calendar and don’t procrastinate. You can do this!!
p.s. If you doubt whether all the requirements have been met, ask an experienced writer to check your work. With a fresh perspective and a wealth of experience, the expert will be able to suggest what can be improved in your admission essay. And in order not to make a mistake in choosing the appropriate service, read reviews on essaysadvisor.com. The site’s editors have done all the tedious work of finding quality service for you.
p.s. Related posts:
How To Write a Great College Application Essay
Top 5 Tips to Choose a College & Visiting Trinity College
Boston Performing and Visual Arts College Fair
7 Things that Make Your Admission Essay Stand Out
How to Apply to College as a Home-Schooled Student
How To Get Recruited to Play Sports in College During COVID-19
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