4 Tips For Writing A Successful College Admission Essay

4 Tips For Writing A Successful College Admission Essay Before asking others to give feedback, really try to finalize the essay to the best of your ability. Once you have completed your application essay, be sure to find a couple of people you trust to look over your work before you submit it. I don’t recommend a friend who is afraid to correct your mistakes, or a parent, if you can help it. Make sure to get things into them ahead of time and be respectful of their time. If you didn’t get your drafts to them in due time to give feedback, don’t get upset if they tell you that they won’t sacrifice their vacation to help you. Like I mentioned before, continue to look for opportunities to reuse drafts for other schools. You should be reaching critical mass around this time of having an essay draft for just about any prompt that a school will give you. You’ll just have to adjust word counts or the focus of the learning point a little bit. Yet, this book helped me ground all the swirling thoughts in my head into one short page, 1000 words. It may have been published in 1978, but it's still 100% relevant in today's college environment. It's funny, filled with examples, and quite a joy to read. The UCs rarely change the prompts and even if they did change them, the changes would probably be announced by now. Just like it says, some students are still not satisfied by what they’ve come up with, but think they’re really close to finding the right topic. Remember, your main essay is the only essay that you put THIS much work into because of how important it is. In order to give an essay a proper chance in the editing process, it needs to be crafted to the vision that you have for it. Great essays ideas are oftentimes thrown away because the first version of an essay was executed poorly and readers are unable to even comprehend the message behind it. There are student personal statement examples and vivid examples from famous writers. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. Even now, I'm getting it as a gift for some rising high school seniors as they embark on their undergrad app journey. Another great thing about this book are the examples. Don’t go at this journey alone, especially in the editing process, and always ask for help. Also, I know that procrastination and writing fatigue are real obstacles in this process. You guys aren’t essay robots able to churn out quality drafts on a strict schedule. This timeline wasn’t meant to be followed exactly. If this sounds like you, please share your story. One great way to keep yourself accountable in the essay drafting process is to work with a friend, a parent, a teacher, anyone who will expect you to send them drafts. A teacher or family friend would be a great choice. Since you already know how it’s supposed to read, and you’re accustomed to reading it, it’s often easier for another person to catch your mistakes. First off, make sure to get your early admissions applications submitted. A majority of deadlines are Nov. 1st, but some are Oct 15th, so make sure to not miss those. To be safe, try to submit your applications a week or two ahead of the deadline. Get feedback on your two Common App personal statement essays, decide one which one to use, and make final edits. If you’re really hesitant to work on essays because official updated prompts for your schools haven’t come out yet, then working on the UC essays can be a safe alternative. But that doesn’t mean that setting goals and putting pressure on yourself early on isn’t going to help you get the ball rolling. Trust me, a little work now will go a long way towards boosting your confidence and overall preparedness throughout this process. If you’re getting any help from counselors or teachers for editing your essays, keep in mind that many of them will stop checking their emails once Christmas break starts.