In my experience as a tutor, your college application essays have the power to make or break your application package. The highest test scores and best grades can’t keep you in the “yes” pile if your essays are firm “no”s. I love helping students with their essays – you will take away tips that will change your writing for life! – but if you’re doing them on your own, here are my top ten tips from the past 20 (!) years of writing and revising application essays.
You might also want to check out the top 5 errors that students make on their college essays – with real before and after examples.
1. Just start.
Do not procrastinate. Write something. You will throw away a few drafts, and that is a necessary part of the process. Your “great topic” will be really boring on paper; your “life-changing summer” may prove impossible to put into words. Try outlining or rough drafting 2-3 responses to each of your main essay questions, and see which one feels most exciting to you to write about.
2. Showcase your strengths.
I mean this in two ways: in your topic, and in your writing style.
Choose a topic for your essay that highlights something great about you that doesn’t get enough attention in the rest of your application package. Have you always worked part-time or volunteered every week despite keeping straight A’s? Did you raise your little brother on the side? Do you have a passion for tiger training? Personally speaking, some of my most successful essays focused on playing the violin – I had played with dedication for over 10 years by the time I was writing application essays, and my journey as a musician was full of struggle and personal growth that would not have been apparent to an admissions team just from a few lines on my activities resume.
Choose to write in a way that speaks to who you are and how you think. If you’re great with florid, luscious prose – do that. If you are poetic and incisive – be that. If you are analytical and love structure – love that. Don’t languish in recounting the pale, hot skies of Kenya and the shimmering desert heat for 6 lines if what you really want to talk about is how efficiently your team renovated a school and made deep friendships a world apart.
3. Don’t fall in love.
Be prepared to throw things out that don’t work for you. Be prepared to be ruthless. These restrictively low word counts demand only your best. Don’t get married to your first draft (or your second or third) – it’s just a group of words.
4. Start early-ish because…
You will need a few weeks to work on your essays. You will need time to revise and let your essays rest so that you can come back to them with fresh eyes. You words will need time to sit with you and make sure they still resonate. This isn’t a school assignment – this should mean something.
5. Discard all of your adjectives and adverbs.
Ready for a shortcut to “show don’t tell”? Toss out ALL of your adjectives and adverbs. (I recommend printing a double-spaced copy of your essay and crossing them out by hand.) Now, replace them with strong, exciting verbs. Did you “go quickly” or did you “hurry”? Were you “waiting excitedly” or “anticipating”?
Not only do extra adjectives and adverbs use up your word count, but they also slow down the reader and make your essay boring. Verbs are where it’s at!
6. Transport your reader.
Take your reader with you by incorporating dialogue, action, and appropriate amounts of setting.
Before: Kenya was very hot. Every day I woke up early. There were a lot of mosquitoes in our dormitory. I was always very tired from working so hard and trying to sleep in the heat.
After: BZZZZZZZZZ. My mosquito-alarm awakened me before the blistering heat of sunrise crept down to the bottom bunk where I stored my weary bones for the night.
Boom. (This is usually a step for revision, not for drafting.)
7. Remember your goal.
Showcase you. Admissions readers go through piles of these things; you can probably stand out just be being you, because you are the only you there is! (That’s a bit Dr. Seuss-ian, but it’s true.) Don’t feel like you have to tell the whole story or write a 5-paragraph essay.
8. Get feedback, but…
Get feedback from a variety of sources. English teachers, parents, siblings, and friends each know you in different ways. They may encourage you to do the same old thing they have come to expect of you (you don’t have to), they may push you to make something too academic (you don’t have to), and they may just be focused on commas (there’s a time and a place). I love providing feedback on college essays because I’m neutral – I don’t know you that well – and only there to help you shine!
9. Don’t be lazy.
You might have to tweak your essays slightly from school to school – just do it. You might have to write something completely different for certain schools – just do it. Don’t waste your chance to apply, just because you didn’t feel like whipping out another 350 words. If you started early (#4), you are fine. If you didn’t, what’s one more night without sleep?
10. If you’re really, really stuck:
Do what I do! Put at timer on for 22 minutes and just make something happen for one of your essays. Write, revise, whatever needs to happen next. Then save it and walk away for at least 10 minutes. Repeat as needed over the course of however many days you have left to work until your essays are done.
I’m here and ready to help your college essays be their best, even if it’s at the last minute (well, if it’s after midnight I might not get back to you until the morning), so send me an email whenever you’re ready to start drafting or revising!
Don’t forget about the top 5 errors that students make on their college essays – these are what my real students do wrong, with examples and corrections so that you can fix your own essays!