Is Every College Essay Read? How Many Admissions Officers Read Them?

Is Every College Essay Read? How Many Admissions Officers Read Them? Start with your main idea and follow it from beginning to end. All good stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end, so shape your story so that it has an introduction, body, and conclusion. Following this natural progression will make your essay coherent and easy to read. The rules for writing a good essay are no different. Instead, focus on trying to include all of the details you can think of about your topic, which will make it easier to decide what you really need to include when you edit. Contrary to what you may have learned in elementary school, sweeping statements don't make very strong hooks. If you want to start your essay with a more overall description of what you'll be discussing, you still need to make it specific and unique enough to stand out. Also keep in mind that, at this point in the process, the goal is just to get your ideas down. Wonky phrasings and misplaced commas can easily be fixed when you edit, so don't worry about them as you write. If you have one essay that's due earlier than the others, start there. Otherwise, start with the essay for your top choice school. That way you'll be able to see exactly what you need to do and when you need to do it by. Stellar Results We help 95% our students get into at least one of their top 3 choices. Reading aloud will also help you ensure your punctuation is correct, and it’s often easier to hear awkward sentences than see them. Let your essay sit for a while before you proofread it. Approaching the essay with a fresh perspective gives your mind a chance to focus on the actual words rather than seeing what you think you wrote. Instead, focus on including lots of specific details and emphasizing how your topic has affected you, since these aspects are vital to a compelling essay. As I touched on above, the narrower your focus, the easier it will be to write a unique, engaging personal statement. The simplest way to restrict the scope of your essay is to recount an anecdote, i.e. a short personal story that illustrates your larger point. CollegeXpress has everything you need to simplify your college search, get connected to schools, and find your perfect fit. This forces you to read each word individually and increases your chances of finding a typo. Possible topics include hobbies, extracurriculars, intellectual interests, jobs, significant one-time events, pieces of family history, or anything else that has shaped your perspective on life. One way to find possible topics is to think deeply about the college's essay prompt. I would also recommend starting with a longer personal statement before moving on to shorter supplementary essays, since the word essays tend to take quite a bit longer than word short responses. The brainstorming you do for the long essay may help you come up with ideas you like for the shorter ones as well. Once you've fixed those, ask for feedback from other readersâ€"they'll often notice gaps in logic that don't appear to you, because you're automatically filling in your intimate knowledge of the situation. Finally, take another, more detailed look at your essay to fine tune the language. When you start writing, don't worry about your essay's length. Once you've gone through the questions above, you should have good sense of what you want to write about. Hopefully, it's also gotten you started thinking about how you can best approach that topic, but we'll cover how to plan your essay more fully in the next step. After you brainstorm, you’ll know what you want to say, but you must decide how you’re going to say it. Create an outline that breaks down the essay into sections. Your essay should add something to your application that isn't obvious elsewhere. Again, there are sections for all of your extracurriculars and awards; the point of the essay is to reveal something more personal that isn't clear just from numbers and lists. What experience, talent, interest or other quirk do you have that you might want to share with colleges?