11 Things Students Should Include In Their College Application Essay

11 Things Students Should Include In Their College Application Essay 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? You will sound smart when you use your own words and your own voice to tell a genuine story that shows who you are. Get too much help.There is a fine line between asking someone you trust to review your essay and getting too much help. 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! I read and review essays for a living and my students tell me the insight is invaluable. 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. 2) Make sure you know what you want the college to know about you before you decide what story to tell. When your mom, dad, teacher or tutor starts giving you words to use or edits too much, your voice disappears. Now that you have decided on the story that you want to tell, the next logical step would be to write it. 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. What’s more, you might use a few big words incorrectly, which will never impress an admissions officer. Colleges are not looking for the next Ernest Hemingway or Toni Morrison. DO make sure that your own personality shines through. Colleges look at the personality of each student as well as their qualifications. 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. 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. Admissions committees might forgive a typo, but they don’t like to hear that you wish you were going to school somewhere else. 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. You need to create an outline that you will use when writing your essay. Most times, an outline should not be based on the college admission essay format which will be discussed below.