College 101

College 101 ” don’t start the essay with “The most influential person in my life is…” It’s dull and the admissions office created the prompt, so it’s telling them the info they already know. Your essay may be the ultimate product, but before you start worrying about the final edition you’ll send off to colleges, take some time to work on the process. Free-writing will help you hone your skills and practice for the real thing. The same applies to wanting to be in a city or town or being part of a small, medium, or large student body. While you may prefer certain settings or sizes, the fact is, you can easily find those qualities anywhere. Now that you know a little about college essays follow a couple steps to get you started. There are several simple list of dos and don'ts for college essays. After you’ve written a few drafts of your essay, go back to make sure you’re following them. Remember the tips discussed earlier in the module and try not to get overwhelmed by all the information included in these lists. College essays, though not the most important thing, are very important in the application process. It would be tragic to turn in an essay that includes all of the above but is littered with misspellings and grammatical errors. To help youth applying to college navigate the college essay in order to submit their best work with their college application. We've cooked up a bunch for you, based on, uh, who you are slash what you care about. Your goal should not be to include all of your accomplishments and activities . The most engaging essays tell a story and have a clear focus. A thoughtful and detailed narration of a difficult time in your life tells far more about you than a list of competitions won and honors achieved. Just be yourself and write the best way you know how. The essay is one of the few things that you’ve got complete control over in the application process, especially by the time you’re in your senior year. Many students fall into the trap of offering superficial or generic reasons for wanting to attend. An admissions committee doesn’t want to hear that you’re attracted to the warm weather â€" you can just as easily find that at another college in the South. Emory even calls out the commonality of that response in its prompt. You can write an excellent essay, but if you don’t focus on answering the question that the college is asking, you will likely not be admitted to the school. If the prompt of the essay was “Who is the most influential person in your life and why? (noun, pl.) A completely masturbatory work of high school fiction, used by college admissions officials as psyops tests in order to evaluate your personality. These, on college applications, are better left blank, so long as your GPA, SAT, and other tests are in your advantage. Otherwise, sarcastic embellishment is usually required, in the form of a Hail Mary Pass. Jose may have been a big man on campus in high school, but here at UCLA he's just another college essay. There’s no such thing as the perfect college essay. Watch that you are using the same tense and point of view throughout your essay. Always read your essay over for grammatical and spelling errors one last time before you submit your application. Whether writing is a strength of yours or a struggle, it is imperative that you start early on the process of writing your essay. Writing a good essay can take a long time and require several drafts. No one ever gets a piece of writing perfect on his or her first draft. You will need to be patient with yourself and give yourself plenty of time to take breaks, ask advice, and edit your essay. If you choose not to disclose your disability in your essay or college application, remember, you may still disclose at any point after you are accepted into the school. You will need to do this to receive any of the accommodations and support services that you might need to be successful. Use the proofreading skills that you have developed to carefully read your drafts. Try reading it out loud to yourself or have someone else read it. Make sure you are reading it carefully and specifically for grammar and spelling. It’s also not a place to reiterate one’s résumé or explain away a bad semester (there’s a section in the application for that). Colleges want to “hear specifically what you learned from an experience” â€" not clichés. College counselors weighing in on the college review website Unigo indicated that, depending on the school, up to four people could read a single essay. For the application season, the Common Application announced that their 600-plus member schools, which include many private and public universities, need not require essays . Inside Higher Ed, a popular website monitoring issues in higher education, estimated that 20 percent of members will eliminate the essay requirement.