college admission essay outline

college admission essay outline

The Importance of a Strong College Admission Essay

1. Introduction

Every part of your college application is important. Nevertheless, when faced with a sea of exceptional candidates, it is an excellent essay that can tip the balance and solidify your place at the college that you desire. A goal of such an essay is to secure an interview or a place in a class. It is an opportunity to demonstrate to the selection committee that you are a well-rounded individual, that you are more than your GPA, that you are a strong writer, and it gives you a chance to talk about your experiences and qualifications in greater detail than what appears on your resume or transcripts. Any piece of writing that helps boost your profile is not only a good thing for you but for the community as it helps raise the enrollment. Good essays will strengthen an application but poor essays could harm an application as the selection committee will wonder why an applicant would submit such a bad essay. Writing a good essay requires refined critical thinking, which can be improved by experience. But one of the key elements to a good essay is form, and we are here to help you with it. There are numerous amounts of college admission essay questions, and they all have similar aim and are trying to elicit similar attributes. However, in the elite schools where the common application seems to have taken over in an attempt to save time, the supplements still remain; and there are still many institutions with creative essay topics to elicit an interesting and unique response, be it a topic about your past, a scenario about the hypothetical future, or your career plans. A strong essay can give you the best opportunity to get into the school that you desire.

2. Highlighting Your Achievements and Experiences

When you write an admission college essay, you have to realize what the admission counselor is looking for in you. Sometimes the admission officer does not have enough information about you, so they might want to catch a glimpse of what you do in your free time. When starting an application, you should have in mind the admissions officer, so you should manipulatively write it that gives him pretty much a glimpse of who you are. Now, if you are good in academics, the important skills for an admissions officer are to look for motivation, maturity, and responsibility. These skills are what set students apart. So, try to remember events where you demonstrated these. Also, if you are a leader of a club and/or team, make sure you describe both the club/team and the role you played in it. The impact that you had there is also very important, so mention any results if necessary. If you have work experience, it is not enough to just mention it. You should also explain the things you learned from the experience and the skills that you have acquired. This may be very useful toward your college education. Though you would not expect it, a part-time job or volunteer work experience can be very valuable to your college education. While writing about high school work, do not write about what you did in the classes. This can often be mistaken by the college as you are trying to avoid the topic. Furthermore, your high school transcript already gives the admissions officer an idea of your academic performance.

3. Showcasing Your Unique Perspective

A great way to capture a unique perspective is to demonstrate how to provide value in an environment where it is least sought. Different cultures place values on different aspects of life. A conservative person from an Asian culture may believe that showing respect to elders is very valuable. The value that they saw may begin to lose its ground in North American society. The writer should aim to illustrate an instance in their life where their own values were tested by unfamiliar circumstances. By doing this, it provides insight on how the writer’s own values were developed based on internal and external influences.

Life experiences are an important factor in being able to showcase your perspective. Experiences are what mold a person, which in turn forms their perspective. If a person has been through very trying times and has managed to overcome those times, it shows that they have perseverance. College admission essays should have experiences that helped the writer develop an inner strength even when the situation was not the best.

4. Demonstrating Your Passion and Drive

One of the worst things you can do is be apathetic and indifferent. These feelings will translate through your writing and cause your essay to immediately lose its zest and pizzazz. I like to advise students to remove themselves from mundane and common place issues (the itty-bitty committee) and instead work on larger projects or issues that they would love to work on. Love is the key word here. When the admissions officer reads your essay, how will your love for a certain project, cause, topic, etc. translate to his/her understanding of you? If you really do care and the issue is a personal or familial one, the world will know. So what can you do to show this love in your work? In the body of your writing you should devote a paragraph to each idea or project. The first sentence of the paragraph should be telling your reader what that idea, project, topic, etc is and then the rest of the paragraph should be explaining why it is important to you and the world at large. If this writing is for an application and you are asked to write about something that has changed your life the addressing of a personal topic would be quite appropriate. Let’s say Aardvark has a grandmother who passed away from diabetes and this significantly affected his life. Aardvark could decide to write the essay about his grandmother and this event, certainly his words will quickly captivate his reader who will feel empathy and understanding to what Aardvark has gone through. This would be a classic example of showing your feelings through writing. Note that the feelings need not be negative either. Aardvark could also decide to write about some research he had conducted at a lab. A few summers prior he had volunteered at a hospital and found it quite disheartening to see how the capabilities of many doctors and medical staff were magnitudes below what they could have been. This was due simply to a lack of knowledge about effective treatment methods for some diseases. Aardvark will then want to explain how he had come to this conclusion, but he will then spend the bulk of the paragraph explaining what the project was and why it was important to him. You can see how all of this encompasses a passion for what Aardvark would like to accomplish. A final point would be to remember to be varied in your writing. Do not get caught in the monotony of just saying “I am very interested in…”, or “This is something that is important to me…”. Instead let the ideas flow in a smooth and understandable direction, getting the point across with articulate and expressive language. Step 1, getting those ideas out on paper, should not be underestimated. Come on, give it a shot, give it several shots. Always strive to improve your writing, fix anything you think could be better. After you have written the first draft, it is time for some peer-review. Your friends are your best critics, and often it is they who make you aware of the annoying habits you sometimes exhibit in your writing. Once you have that first draft, you should be adding, deleting, and rewording things several times before it starts to look like a final product. What you produce may still not be the most amazing essay ever, but it is your job to make sure that you have conveyed an appropriate message to the reader and established that you are the kind of person who deserves to succeed at this venture. An essay based around your strengths, if done properly, can get you in. Best of luck to you all, and do not be afraid to contact EssayEd if you feel you want some help in ensuring that your writing is always the best it can be.

5. Conclusion

Crafting a strong college admission essay is not easy, and it can be a bit overwhelming. However, when all is said and done, it is well worth the effort. Far too many applicants submit essays they think are passable – essays that, if they’re lucky, will simply help them get into their safety school. Craft an essay that will get the attention of the admissions committee, and give you the edge over the other applicants. Try to write an essay that will make someone else put your essay into the “admit” pile rather than the “deny” pile. Furthermore, take pride in your work. Satisfaction in your efforts put forth will make the essay writing endeavor all the more enjoyable. Finally, always keep in mind the importance of the essay. At times, it is the subtle details we provide that make the biggest impact. Your insight, maturity, creativity, and originality will shine through, and a well-crafted essay can make a huge difference when decision time comes.