Writing a college admission essay may sometimes seem to be a challenging task. Read these tips to learn what to do to stand out from the other applicants.
What Should You Do to Stand Out from the Other Applicants?
In case, you got poor exam results, there still exists an opportunity to boost the chances for you to enter your favorite college or university. When applying for a college, these three factors are crucial:
- grades and coursework
- admission test scores
- an admission essay
The Most Effective Tips to Make Your Essay Stand Out
When going through the application process, you are asked to write an admission essay, and this is what might help you if your scores are comparatively low. You may want to solve this problem in some easier way, namely, by asking for help from some admission-essay services if you are struggling with this time and effort consuming task. The admission officers are reading thousands of essays annually, but here we are going to share some insightful tips to make your essay a special one in their eyes:
- Share your personal story
- Prepare for writing
- Write in your own style
- Ask an adult to proofread
Share Your Personal Story
Basically, an admission essay is aimed at providing the admission board with some personal information about a student to know better if he or she fits the college and how he or she can contribute to its prestige, development and social life. The tip here is to write exclusively about yourself trying to focus on the most college relevant aspects of your life.
Avoid talking about your summer camp experience, relationships with friends or family members, even about hobbies and high school activities. Now, all of this is not important. What is important during the application process is highlighting your personality, plans for the future, dreams, goals and their relation to the particular college.
You might have gained a good experience in writing academic essays at high school but writing an admission essay is something totally different. It should not include a thesis statement though it should be divided into the introduction, body paragraphs, and the conclusion.
As the length of the admission essay may be a maximum of 650 words, you are not advised to squeeze the story of your whole life into these frames because you don’t want to make your readers feel like they are reading a résumé. Instead, include the details that would help them to form an opinion and learn what kind of person you are. Also, avoid using general phrases but include specific examples from your own life.
Prepare for Writing
Even though now you are allowed to regard yourself a graduate, essay writing skills are still required and helpful in writing a college admission essay. To write a winning essay, you need to create an outline that contains the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. By writing an outline, you can avoid correcting mistakes on the fly because of the sudden problems which arise in the middle of the writing process.
Think for a while how to catch your reader’s attention with a question, anecdote, citation, etc. Also, brainstorming is still a must-do. Make sure you understand the question you are asked and collect all the ideas that might help to reveal the topic of your admission essay.
Write in Your Own Style
The way you express an opinion and build your story might also tell a lot about who you are. The writing style shows your level of intelligence and reveals your strengths, talents, life experiences, and lessons learned beyond the grades and test scores.
You are expected to write about a real-life experience, so don’t fake the story. Words do not always come easily but try to make a good impression on the admission board and do your best when explaining what makes you unique.
Ask an Adult to Proofread
It is highly recommended to ask an adult to edit your paper. The closer this person is, the better as you need your admission essay to be not only error-free but rich in content and captivating. When proofreading, don’t rely solely on spell-check programs as they may miss some errors related to the word order, misused words and others.
Take a break from writing for a while. After the break, you will be able to look at your piece from a new perspective that will let your eyes see more imperfections and ways to improve the flow.
Conclusion
An admission essay is a piece of writing that students are often struggling with. The most important advice to be given to students is “Be yourself” and “Be specific”. The application essay is aimed at revealing the applicant’s strengths and talents, life plans and education goals.
The student has to tell about himself or herself like from the outside. This story should highlight strong personal points by providing specific examples and supporting details. In the essay, an applicant should demonstrate to the admission officers his or her abilities and achievements as well as a strong desire to study in the particular college.