The Trick To Writing Admission Essays

The Trick To Writing Admission Essays The purpose of the admissions essay is to convey a sense of your unique character to the admissions committee. The essay also demonstrates your writing skills as well as your ability to organize your thoughts coherently. DON’T try to sound “academic” or give the “what they want to hear.” DO write what only you can write. (“I am… I was… I have been…”) DO use active, interesting details. DON’T just talk about why the school is a good fit for you. Colleges are not looking for the next Ernest Hemingway or Toni Morrison. You will sound smart when you use your own words and your own voice to tell a genuine story that shows who you are. The more you enjoy your subject matter the easier it will be to write the essay. Come back the next day with a fresh eye and go over it. You will be able to streamline your line of thought that way so you can fit into word counts. I read and review essays for a living and my students tell me the insight is invaluable. DO make sure that your own personality shines through. Colleges look at the personality of each student as well as their qualifications. DO talk about what you plan to contribute to the school, and why you are the perfect candidate for it! DON’T send it off without having someone else read it first! There aren’t too many things you can do to ensure rejection, but plagiarism, also known as cheating, is one of them. If you use a thesaurus to find words rather than trust the words you know and use every day, you will not sound like yourself. What’s more, you might use a few big words incorrectly, which will never impress an admissions officer. The essay is an opportunity to impress an admissions team that may be on the fence regarding your application. While much of the application review process is automated, the essay is an opportunity for students to be evaluated on their creativity and personal experiences. Mitch Warren, the director of admissions at Purdue University, drives this point home. While many students stress over their essays, it's important to remember that this is just one component of the admissions process, and rarely the decisive factor. 2) Make sure you know what you want the college to know about you before you decide what story to tell. Read the prompt before, during and after you write your draft, then ask someone else to tell you whether or not you responded to it. This mistake shows that you don’t care enough to proofread your application. Admissions committees might forgive a typo, but they don’t like to hear that you wish you were going to school somewhere else. This is your chance to show them who you are, not just what you’ve done! Don’t be afraid to ask for help on wording and style either, just make sure that your voice is always the one being heard, not your proofreader’s. Colleges can tell when you weren’t thinking about them specifically as you wrote your essay and were just casting a really wide net. Especially if you put the wrong colleges name on the essay! DON’T use too many exclamation points- you want to seem passionate about something, but exclamation points are informal, and too many can seem overly frivolous. That doesn't mean that the essay is unimportant; it does give you an opportunity to directly make your case to the admissions committee. Just keep a healthy perspective on its relative importance as you write. Essays are used to learn more about your reasons for applying to the course, university or company and your ability to benefit from and contribute to it. Your answers will let you state your case more fully than other sections of the application, and provide the evaluator with better insight about you and how you differ from the other applicants. In marginal cases, the essays are used to decide whether an applicant will be selected. Do tell a great story that communicates some unique qualities you offer a college. Do tell a specific story that grabs the reader’s attention. Don’t focus on a negative event or a struggle without spending more time on what you learned or gain from it? Don’t write about a person without spending 2/3 of the essay focusing on how that person shaped youâ€"specifically. Each essay should focus on different qualities and events, and should help you become 3-D for the admissions officers.