college application writing sample

college application writing sample

Crafting a Compelling College Application Essay

1. Introduction to College Application Essays

College application essays, from the personal essay to the creative writing essay, are a critical component of our assessment as educators, alumni volunteers, deans of admissions, or members of our selection committees. We believe that college counselors can play a pivotal role in assisting students with the application essay. In fact, the demeanor and experience of a good college counselor can equip the student to work virtually alone on the application essays and to deepen the student’s observing and reflecting skills and/or to expand on the student characteristics of serenity, passion, and emotional receptivity where inspiration may flow. Your student’s individual qualities are very important to us. Consequently, the college application essays allow us to ascertain the following: what we can learn about a student’s intellectual depth, talent, and character; depth from the student’s viewpoint about themselves; shared view; contributor to community effort; willingness to acknowledge questionable viewpoints; willingness to act uncommon; and what are the attitudes in the teacher-applicant relationship.

You are invited to craft your college application essay so that it represents the best of who you are: as a student, thinker, reflective person, and/or concerned citizen. Please note that brief quotations are used throughout each of these essays to illustrate certain features. They are not intended to be the words that you input. The desire is to make the college application process less demanding and perhaps more heartfelt and personal than any other task a student may confront all school year.

2. Identifying Your Unique Voice and Story

What are the qualities that make a compelling college applicant and essay writer? They are the following: the desire to learn from a variety of perspectives and experiences, including those shaped by the ethnic/cultural background and circumstances they come from; the ability to share one’s ideas, values, and experiences with others; and individual goals, initiative, and the ability to plan and execute these abilities. Your college essay is the ideal way to communicate this information to a college. If you cannot show the reader you are creative, innovative, and committed by writing a compelling essay, it is unlikely you can do it as a student using your test scores, grades, and letters of reference. Your college essay is a unique opportunity for you to give the admissions officer a “picture” of you and your personal background.

Our first piece of advice is to stop and think. Think in terms of your strengths and interests; think about the most important stories you want to tell to people you have not yet met (from the admissions committee); and think about your audience so that you can make a connection between their needs, concerns, and goals and your stories. The worst thing you can do is to write an essay that your reader will put down because it is a chore to read and it is not what they expected from you. Every admissions officer at every college you apply to will read your essay, and therefore, it will also be read by many supportive adults whose opinion you value.

3. Structuring and Organizing Your Essay

Your own voice, picking up and passing through those strings, will definitely provide an enrichment in the academic sphere, and you, in your turn, will obtain some super important skills of critical thinking and analysis. The dissertation structure also significantly varies from the standard logical successions, starting with a key point instead. As noted by the author, the rhetorical pressure may provide the essay with a new meaning because despite it would focus on different topics, it will strive to connect them into a thesis naturally and easily, revealing their influence on the others and general interconnection. Another issue with such an approach is that you could determine the critical point (either in developing or disclaiming the thesis) during work on the paper. The opposing to an argument variation in essay structuring will give you such an opportunity because all their essays will have a clear 1 key point and 3 argument key sections configuration.

Of course, there is an essay you used to write for secondary school or intro level classes, finished with an intricate and deep thesis, exciting development, and beefy conclusion. It is that kind of essay that professors generally hate. In fact, canopy big formulas and typical features of an essay cannot override the exotic nature of the topic and the originality of your personal thinking if present at all. However, still start with those typical feelings. First of all, use the popular structure division. It helps the readers easily understand what, in fact, you are striving to reveal in your work and where the emphasized edge of significance lies. Secondly, it helps you to design the theme-string with stretched key points — a prerequisite for those who have never before tried to maintain a dense thought.

A college essay, as a genre, is supposed to harbor vocal thoughts and personal experience, and that will definitely be an advantage. You will have to prove your necessity, and probably uniqueness, many more times after that, and training essays are a good chance for finding a unique voice. But any voice can talk a book only if it knows how to communicate the message, and structuring the essay is something to help with that. The structure of the essay can vary according to both the classification of the genre (whether it is a research paper, a reflective essay, a self-analysis paper, etc.) and the personal style of writing within the academic genre.

Repeat after me: An essay is a structured piece, not something born from chaos and a creative mind. As an experienced college writing teacher, I understand that making originality look neat can be quite complicated. But being able to present the material, regardless of the format chosen by the teacher, can save you a huge amount of trouble. However, college essays will become an integral part of your academic homework, and you will have to sit down and write them regularly in a year or two. So it is also worth giving them some thought and effort.

4. Showcasing Your Achievements and Personal Growth

Usually the list of such warm community and the image college wants to project may include references to non-existent or at least small differences among ethnicity and race. Prompting essays that address ways of bridging differences or other related questions as the important option in college application may have different message than their well-crafted goal and other brochures imply. Goal is to complement what college admissions officers already know about you from grades, scores, and extracurricular activities, and to give them a better feel for how you are as a person, to differentiate your application from the many others that they evaluate. Your essay may suggest that your personal, academic, and professional approach to any problem is at a higher level and that you will bring motivation, from personal and academic successes to the college that you are applying to. A strong application essay should give the admissions committee an expanded sense of who you are, your past experiences, your hobbies, your personal background, and that they can look for strengths and contributions to socially diverse environment which allows everyone in the community to learn and grow.

The essay should be an opportunity to present your personal voice and perspective, your distinctions, your personal experiences, and the way to demonstrate county and breadth of your extracurricular activities, your academic success, and any of the unique qualifications that will contribute to your academic community and beyond. This is in part due to wording shared by mass media as well as the way the language contributes to an almost incantatory quality. Unfortunately, marketing pamphlets with phrases like this you often receive from colleges will apply more to the way they are written than how people actually are on campus.

5. Editing and Polishing Your Final Draft

Don’t go it alone. Far too often, kids simply sit down in front of the computer, and there’s no one there to help them through the essay writing process. Let your essay sit for a day. Then sit down, reread it, and consider the writing. What’s been left out? Was your basic theme not properly addressed? Obviously, check spelling and grammar. How’s the fun aspect doing? Are there any hidden surprises that will allow your real nature to shine through? Make sure someone else reviews your piece. Can your mom and dad offer some critique based on the essay requirements? Teachers might know best what the essay requirements and the core expectations are. Do you think Wonderful Wilma Workable, your trusty English teacher, would be willing to act as a critical friend for your work? Your best bud on a rainy-day lunch date?

Editing is the single most important activity of any writer. It’s especially important when writing a piece about yourself that will be read by a group of complete strangers. Be careful to take the time to think about the new you you’re creating via your essay. It’s yet another way to start differentiating yourself from the other applicants. Oftentimes, going from the first to the second draft accents your content, so be sure to reread your opening and revise to make sure your new content jives with your original, overarching theme. When editing the essay, watch for redundancy and cliché. Instead of saying you helped your younger sister with her homework, describe exactly what you did, how you did it, and what the ramifications were to your sister’s learning experience.