How To Write A College Essay, With Examples

How To Write A College Essay, With Examples They can clearly demonstrate the synergy that exists between themselves and the institutions in question. All are historical elements of your college applications. 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. 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. There is a very good chance an essay developed in this manner will meet at least one of the listed essay prompts. Selective colleges are most interested in students whose sense of purpose is illustrated in their recognition of compatible learning opportunities on their campuses. When they ask the “why do you want to come here” question, they are not interested in knowing whether you can recite their institutional superlatives. Rather, they want to see if you have made the conscious connection between your sense of purpose and the opportunities that exist within their educational environment. For instance, if you’re applying to Cornell’s School of Hotel Management, you might describe how you’ve been collecting hotel brochures since you were a child in the hope of one day opening your own. That, combined with your desire to be on a large, rural campus with deep ties to the surrounding town â€" and work every job possible in a student run hotel â€" made you know Cornell was the school for you. This essay is about your relationship with the school, not solely the school itself. In fact, it’s really more about you than the college â€" how and why you will thrive there. To that end, use the space to explore why you’re a mutual fit. Combining your larger reasons with the specific details paints a clear picture of why this is the right college for you. Use the details to ground the bigger-picture aspects of your story. 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. It is best not to recite the facts of your life. Instead, take the reader between the lines to better understand you, as a thinking person. Colleges value diversity of thought in their classrooms. 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. The manner in which you like to engage in learning. We don’t all process the same information the same wayâ€"and colleges don’t all deliver it in the same manner! This is especially true if you are an experiential, hands-on learner who values testing ideas. Be prepared to provide evidence of this learning style in your supplemental essays. Selective institutions often employ supplemental essay prompts to sort the whimsically submitted applications from those that are more intentional. It can be especially helpful to use a story or anecdote (just not, “I’ve had a Yale sweatshirt since I was 10”). People think that students who get accepted into top colleges have to be extremely well-rounded and accomplished in multiple areas. There are supplementary essays for some schools, in addition to the common app essay, that are just 300 words or less. If you think about it, that’s only sentences or so. If I had to assign the MVP of the college application essay, it would be the very first sentence. 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.