Posts Tagged admission essay
What Your Admissions Essay Absolutely Must Be About!
Over the years when I’ve helped students with their writing and their preparation for college one of the things that has always amazed me is that many students have no idea what their college admission essay should be about. Simply put the essay is about YOU. No matter what the question you are writing about is, no matter how strangely or obliquely the question is phrased YOU MUST WRITE ABOUT YOU.
Although the admissions essay is becoming more important every year, it still is NOT the most important part of your application packet. For the vast majority of colleges and universities, the admissions office will use the essay as a tiebreaker. If two students are very close in grades, character, recommendations, and test scores, the student with the better essay has a better chance of being admitted. The admission official is looking for something that will push the applications over into the pile he or she will recommend for acceptance.
However, rarely, if ever is an admissions essay going to gain admittance with a weak academic record, lack of participation in high school activities, and poor test scores. So don’t bank on your admissions essay to carry the ball for you. A well-written essay that isn’t backed by academic records and test scores indicate that someone else wrote the student’s admission essay.
Take a moment and think about how the admissions official will use your essay and what he or she wants. He or she wants to know something about you. He or she wants to know what makes you more worthy of admission than someone else.When you are writing your essay make it personal. Make it about you!
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Tips for Better College Admission Essays
There is ample material available on how to write an essay that will tip the balance in your favor. You could use any of it to hone your admission treatise writing skills. Alternatively you could use the following simple tips to a better admission paper.
- Admissions officers are busy people do not force them to use a dictionary to try and understand what you have written. Try not to use words that are more than four characters long. This is not always possible. But when there is a smaller, simpler word avoid ones that are not used in daily speech.
- Write compelling. Choose an interesting topic. If your essay is to stand out in a crowd of essays that an admissions officer has to go through, then it has to be different. Use your creativity. And keep the interest going right through the paper.
- Give personal details. The admissions officer wants to know more about you. Let the essay reveal your character and your personality. But be subtle while doing this. You should not be saying what an altruistic person you are. The reader should understand this about you from an experience that you narrate.
- Be brief. In trying to be concise you consciously cut out the fluff. This way an admissions officer will not have to read through a sheaf of literature before your personality comes through. Try and keep the essay to the required length. Remember that admissions officers have to go through loads of other essays and will not have the time to go through an endless dissertation.
- Do not be informal. Avoid slang. The use of slang can be quite inappropriate.
- Always write in the active voice. You could use passive voice verbs where absolutely necessary. But unbridled use of passive voice verbs could make your admissions paper uninteresting.
- It would be a good idea to ask others to read your essay. Tell them in advance what they should look for in the paper and what it that should come out easily and clearly.
- Draft. Redraft. Go through your paper as many times as required. Be critical of what you have written.
- Make sure there is coherence between the paragraphs. Focus not just on simplicity and brevity of sentences but also focus of paragraph and sentence constructions.
- Make sure that your conclusion is strong. If it is not an effective summary of all that you have said before rewrite it till it comes out as something that will make it outstanding and leave a positive impression with the reader.
- There are scores of excellent admissions treatises. Go through a few to familiarize yourself with what an exceptional essay is.
Writing effectively comes naturally to only a very few. Others acquire the skill by the sheer dint of hard work. Prepare and practice sufficiently. That is the secret of good college admission essays.
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