Essay Prompts

Essay Prompts College Admission Essays are an important part of being selected to college in the admission process. Here are 10 tips for how best to accomplish the essay that will help you get accepted. As I got to know him better through our frequent email exchanges, I soon discovered that he had a great sense of humor, in addition to genuine sensitivity. In a sense, the only part of the application over which you have complete control right now is the essay. While the essay is a valuable tool that we use to understand you better, it is rarely if ever a “make or break” component of your application. There is a word-count requirement, so make sure you stay within it. For the actual content, read each sentence by itself, and see if you can say what you mean with less words, and not being overly wordy. If this is a legacy type of situation, where you have relatives that have gone to that school, you can mention that as well, in such a way that endears the school to your family. It’s possible that schools will be glad to hear how their university has impacted your family. When selecting anecdotes for your essay, pick vivid ones that you can tell succinctly. If a story would require 450 words of a 600 word essay, then you’re not going to have a lot of space to express self-reflection and analysis of the situation. Remember that the admissions officers are more interested in your perspective of what happened than the events themselves. In our experience, the main worry that applicants have is that their essay won’t stand out. The admission essay isn’t terribly time consuming, but you want to not be rushed. Write the draft of the essay, and give yourself time to reflect on it. Can you substitute an advanced vocabulary word for a phrase? Writing concisely expresses to the admissions officers that can organize your thoughts and that you respect their time. Advanced vocabulary should be the spice of the essay to give it flavor, so you’ll use plain language most of the time. Essays that are riddled with advanced vocabulary can seem pompous or even inadvertently comical to the reader. This time of reflection and thinking about the essay can be the most rewarding. Put something on the page early, and think it over, and make changes without pressure of finishing under an impending deadline. Imagine that each school has a unique character that you’re aligning yourself with. The goal of the personal experiences described in your essay is to show that you’ve reached the level of maturity and competency to thrive in their school. When we began discussing ideas for essays, I encouraged him to choose a seemingly mundane event from his everyday life and develop it using his unique humor. As you'll see here (with Mike's permission), he followed my suggestion with smashing success. This year's seven prompts offer a wide variety of approaches for you to display your writing skills. Each one has potential -- either obvious or hidden -- for you to make a meaningful impression on your admission readers. Then read the context, and see if you’re fully conveying what you mean. Give the essay some time after you’ve written it, and come back to it and read it anew. The idea is to be the key to their lock, and that you’re conveying a proper fit to their school in particular. As such, send unique essays for every school in which you apply. This is a legitimate concern as you will likely compete with numerous applicants who have backgrounds similar to yours. Therefore, follow these tips to ensure that your essay shines in the competitive admissions process. The college admission essay can be so crucial, yet so daunting regardless of what you plan on studying - psychology, social work, public health, real estate, teaching. Here are five tips to help you polish up your college admission essay to make it as good as you can. This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists.