You should be jumping with joy for this opportunity to differentiate yourself, articulate your own personal style, and bring life to a college application full of grades, scores and facts. Instead, most students deliberately procrastinate and resent that they have to write a personal essay which, in reality, is less than three pages typed, double-spaced!
The secret to producing a great college essay is selecting the “right” topic or life-experience.
Many students haven’t had such monumental growth experiences beyond making Varsity in tenth grade or scoring the winning point in that crucial game, which can be a stumbling block to a remarkable essay. In addition to generic sports themes, contributor to College Apps, former Assistant Director of Admissions at Sacred Heart University, Michael G. Tarantino, suggests staying away from the 3 D’s which are divorce, disaster and death…the most common (but depressing) life-changing, growth-inspiring circumstances affecting teens.
If you really have no clue what to write… use Google.com to search “100 college essay topics” which leads you to a listing of essay prompts previously utilized by colleges and universities through the years. Note: You may not be able to use any of these exact topics for your essay, but one may remind or inspire you to recall something relevant which can motivate you to start typing!
Don’t make your essay a play-by-play description of some event or circumstance.
For instance, Matt, one of my students, wrote his essay on an experience he had as a rear-seat passenger during a major car accident. He went on to describe the road conditions, the speed of the vehicle, the moment of impact, and his mother’s frantic response in the aftermath…a true play-by-play of the event. The essay was fine… grammatically correct and properly formatted, but it said nothing about Matt!
After a brief discussion, Matt revealed how his friend, who was also riding in the back seat, reached for him before impact to protect and draw him away from the impending impact of the car hitting the guardrail. That was it! The “golden nugget” of the story…how another 17-year old kid had the capacity to recognize and react to protect him during such a split-second, frightening and dangerous moment. Once Matt incorporated his deep respect and awareness of this amazing feat into his essay, the play-by-play details of the accident were left out for more important, almost tear-inducing, insight and speculation.
Expect to write an essay or two to fulfill the requirements listed in your supplemental college applications.
Hopefully, one well-written essay will fit the majority of prompts, perhaps with a different opening thought, comparison, or conclusion. The Common App at www.commonapp.org is the gold standard for streamlining the process of applying to college because it allows students to provide the same data to many member colleges and universities through one Internet portal account.
The Common App provides the following five essay prompts to guide students in writing their essay in 650 words or less:
(https://appsupport.commonapp.org)
Have you noticed that these prompts are open-ended? The trick is to stay true to an event or inspiration you’re passionate about and relate it back to the prompt you selected. And if you do, the actual typing of the essay will take less than an hour or two. The feedback and proofreading efforts, however, should take weeks with the help of others.
- One of your most respected English teachers will do justice to the grammar, format and syntax of your essay;
- Your guidance counselor will be a soundboard to the propriety of your topic, including age-appropriate subject matter and purpose; and
- Your parents and other supportive adults in your life will weigh in on your skill in writing with a true, authentic voice.
I apologize, but my software tells me I am approaching my word-count limit…and I need to be mindful of my requirements. As you’ve read, 650 words can go quickly if you believe in what you write!
Trish Portnoy is a blogger, writer, app developer and high school teacher who helps high school students and their parents to research colleges, understand their options, and make choices using resources from the Internet, guidance counselors and other helpful people.