College Essay

College Essay After showing their essay to everyone, students edit it again and again to make each reader happy--and before you know it, their story has been ground down and their voice has vanished. A thoughtfully crafted essay and a clean, clear application can make a tremendous difference in the college admissions process. Read the top 147 college essays that worked at Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, and more. 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. The same applies to wanting to be in a city or town or being part of a small, medium, or large student body. Remember the tips discussed earlier in the module and try not to get overwhelmed by all the information included in these lists. It would be tragic to turn in an essay that includes all of the above but is littered with misspellings and grammatical errors. Use the proofreading skills that you have developed to carefully read your drafts. You will need to do this to receive any of the accommodations and support services that you might need to be successful. To help youth applying to college navigate the college essay in order to submit their best work with their college application. Your goal should not be to include all of your accomplishments and activities . While you may prefer certain settings or sizes, the fact is, you can easily find those qualities anywhere. We've cooked up a bunch for you, based on, uh, who you are slash what you care about. Now that you know a little about college essays follow a couple steps to get you started. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Here are 5 essential traits of a compelling college essay. Your essay doesn’t need to have all 5, but college admissions officers look for at least one of these traits or possibly two. Once a student picks one or two of these to focus on in their essay, they are on the writing path to a stellar essay that describes exactly who they are and why they would be an asset to a college. Think of the college application process as a video game, and the dreaded college essay is the dragon that needs to be slayed. When I was in second grade, I read the essay for the first time and learned the donor was a professional musician and an accomplished guitar player. This knowledge was the catalyst for me to begin exploring my own musical abilities. I quickly learned to play the clarinet and joined the elementary school band. We hope these essays inspire you as you write your own personal statement. Just remember to be original and creative as you share your story. We have found that the #1 reason for essay procrastination is that students don’t feel confident in getting started â€" i.e. they aren’t sure what to write about and how to structure it.