Worries Grow About Application Essay Help That May Go Too Far

Worries Grow About Application Essay 'Help' That May Go Too Far Finding a cure for cancer, saving the whales singlehandedly, or traveling abroad to build homes for orphans does not automatically make a great essay. It’s all about the delivery, the reflection, the conversational tone, showing not telling that will make for a winning essay. This is the point in your life where you pour the largest amount of bullshit you can muster into a paper. If you think you know the answer to that question before you start writing, then you don’t know what writing is. Writing â€" through thinking and brainstorming and free-writing and revising and revisingâ€"is a way of searching for the answers to such a question and then writing down those answers as accurately as you can. A good essay would surprise the you you were before you began to write it. The essay is your opportunity to reveal that element of diversity that can be found uniquely within you. You’ll hear a lot from “experts” about taboo topics (sports, death, disease, divorce, pets, etc.) and generic essays on related topics are not a good idea. On the other hand, if you have experienced something intensely personal and profoundly meaningful within such a topic, help the reader to know how the experience affected you. Have them give you comments and encourage them to be honest. CampusChat keeps parents, students, educators and counselors informed of college news, tips, and resources -- all delivered directly to your inbox. Ed Weathers is a retired magazine writer, editor, and college writing instructor. His writing website is writeyourbest.blogspot.com. Writing about hiking the Appalachian Trail or obsessively reading “To Kill A Mocking Bird” is noble but not memorable. Simply recanting facts will not distinguish you from other candidates with equal class rank, grades and test scores. Making your scholarly endeavors personal will pique curiosity and demonstrate your potential to contribute to an academic community. If you can make the reader laugh, say “I get that” or “me too”, you are on your way to a strong application. In addition, you are sharing something about yourself that is not anywhere else in your application. Be thoughtful in both your topic choice and the tone of your writing. Colleges look for students who have dealt with adversity, have overcome challenges and continue to grow from their experience. Admitting shortcomings is a sign of maturity and intelligence, so there is no need to portray yourself as a superhero; they will see through it. Focus on ways you have internalized and personalized academic research and demonstrate how this will enhance the university’s academic community. There is a very good chance an essay developed in this manner will meet at least one of the listed essay prompts. Selective institutions often employ supplemental essay prompts to sort the whimsically submitted applications from those that are more intentional. An essay where highschoolers have to boast about how awesome they are in order to get into the colleges they want. The harder they boast the more likely they'll get accepted. Connecticut College admits students of any race, color, national and ethnic origin to all the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to all students at the college. Choose the prompt that comes closest to something you’d like to write about. They can clearly demonstrate the synergy that exists between themselves and the institutions in question. All are historical elements of your college applications. Well established over time, they determine your general competitiveness in the selective admission process. Once you have a revised draft of your college essay, call in your friends and family to take a look. Too often students get stuck on the choice of a prompt and never get to the essay itself. The Common App essay prompts are not requirements; they are ideas designed to stimulate a creative thought process. Focus instead on the key messages you want to convey and develop a storyline that illustrates them well. Some experts suggest that you start your 500 word college application essay with a brief personal story and then draw a “moral” from it that expresses your values. What are Your hopes, expectations, fears, joys, tastes, desires, foibles, sins, and virtues? That’s a lot to expect of a 500 word college application essay. Admissions officers can have a sense of humor too, and, when used appropriately, humor can make you stand out. However, don't make being funny one of your top goals in your college essay.