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Category Archives: Essays

The SAT Essay 2020-2021: What to Expect

July 19, 2019

Last updated: July 2020

How to write an SAT essay:

  1. Read the prompt to understand the task.
  2. Read the sample passage, underlining the examples and evidence.
  3. Come up with a thesis statement.
  4. Outline your SAT essay.
  5. Write a draft.
  6. Edit it: check arguments and evidence, make sure there’s a logic in the essay.
  7. Proofread your SAT essay: check grammar, spelling, sentence structure, etc.

Good news for those afraid of SAT essays:

This section is optional now. It means they won’t require you to write an SAT essay this year.

Bad news:
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Essays, Writingessay writing, sat, sat essayLesley Vos View all 3 comments

Narrative Essay: Inside Out

August 22, 2019

What is a narrative essay?

How is it different from other essay types?

How to write a narrative essay so it would impress a teacher, or any other reader, and be worth sharing and retelling?

This ultimate guide on narrative writing gets all the answers straight.

narrative-essay-writing-guide

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Essaysnarrative essaysLesley Vos View all 4 comments
personal-essay

The Ultimate Guide to Personal Essay Writing

May 25, 2020
A personal essay is a short writing work where the author describes a significant event from his life experience and tells about a lesson he learned from it. In academia, a personal essay is known as a “college essay” or a “college admission essay.”

personal-essay

Personal essay is not about college admission only:

Twain, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and other famous essayists wrote them often to share their experiences, thoughts, and reflections. Some employers ask candidates to write personal essays before inviting them to a job interview. And even when you share a story in your blog, you write a somewhat personal essay, telling your followers about your experience.

But more often than not, a search intent of most students googling the information about these essays is about how to write a personal statement for college. Right?

Continue reading →

Essays, Writingessay writing, personal essay, writingLesley Vos View all 2 comments
how-to-write-college-essay

How to Write a College Essay

May 25, 2020

Here go your steps to take:

  1. Make sure you understand its purpose.
  2. Check a few persuasive college essay examples.
  3. Brainstorm and pick a topic for your college essay.
  4. Write the outline.
  5. Start writing a college essay.
  6. Edit and submit your college application essay.

College essays are of many types. But when looking for information on how to write a college essay, high school graduates and students mean a college application essay. It’s also known as a college admission essay or a personal statement for college.

In this article, we are going to reveal the process of college essay writing, step by step. Here you will find all the necessary details on how to write a good college essay.

Ready?

how-to-write-college-essay

How to Write a College Admission Essay

For those wondering how to write a college application essay, there’s our personal essay writing guide and the #1 rule to remember:

Despite its conversational tone, it should have a definite purpose and structure. It’s your chance to introduce yourself to admissions officers, share who you are now, and make it clear for them what you will bring to their campus communities.

So before you sit and start writing, you still have a lot of work to do. Please check your steps on how to write a college essay:

Step 1: Make sure you understand its purpose

A college essay is the most significant part of your application. It tells the admissions officers about your personality and who you are beyond high grades and test scores you got in school. Before you decide on a topic of your college essay and start thinking about the facts to include, take a minute to imagine yourself a reader:

  • What would you think about the author if you were a college admissions officer?
  • What’s in the essay that conveys your background to the officers?
  • What would you say to the admissions committee if you stood in front of them and needed to share the most important story of your life?

As admissions officers say, a college essay is a chance for applicants to share who they are and what they can bring to the campus. The purpose of your college application essay is to give officers the answers on the following questions:

  1. Who is this person?
  2. What will he or she contribute to our college community?
  3. Is this person able to express thoughts in the written form? Does he or she understand how to write essays?

In college essays, applicants share their goals, challenges, influences, life experiences, and lessons they learned. In plain English, you write a kind of a narrative essay, but with a personality and learned lessons between the lines.

Step 2: Check a few persuasive college essay examples

For a better understanding of how to write a college essay, it’s worth taking a look at great examples written by students. It will help to get an idea of a general tone, topics, arguments, and structure to use while writing.

Below are two great samples of college essays from the Johns Hopkins University students, Maryland. Shared by usnews.com, they inspire and provide a clear idea of what a good college essay looks like.

Sample 1:

college-essay-sample-1

Sample 2:

college-essay-sample-2

Both samples go with the comments from admissions officers on what and why they liked about those essays. Understanding that, you’ll find it easier to come up with a topic (a story to tell) for your personal statement for college.

Step 3: Brainstorm and pick a topic for your college essay

Now it’s time to take a seat and think about all possible topic ideas for your college essay. Admissions officers wait for you to highlight your experience and strengths, but it doesn’t mean you have to focus exclusively on your past. Think of topics that would:

  • describe your growth as a person;
  • have a moment of revelation (what you’ve learned from the experience, and how it connects you with the personality you are now).

Don’t brag but keep readers wondering, “What does he or she mean by that?” or “How is that going to turn out?”

To come up with the best topic idea for your college essay, do the following:

First, take a seat, relax, and reflect on all the events or happenings that were significant to you. Which of them could serve as persuasive examples of your strengths that could set you apart from other applicants? Please write down all the ideas that come to your mind.

Now, re-read what you’ve got and narrow down the options. Try to choose the top three concepts that you think could fit the college application essay best.

And finally, choose one you’d like to tell. Which of those three would describe you best? Do you have enough arguments and supporting details to develop this writing idea further and get the readers interested in your story? Stay with the topic that strikes your chord.The great option would be brainstorming and structuring your college essay, depending on what type of personal statement you’d like to share with admissions officers. Ethan Sawyer, aka College Essay Guy, specifies four types of personal statements:

personal-statement-types

Once you decide which is your case, consider Ethan’s exercises and tips on how to structure it.

Step 4: Write the outline

A college essay outline is like a map for your writing. It’s a step-by-step plan of your essay, where you specify its sections and strategies you’ll use to grab and hold readers’ attention.

There are no strict word limits for application essays, so feel free to make it as long as you consider it necessary. On average, such college essays are about 500-650 words, so stick to this when writing an outline.

In the outline, specify the critical parts of your essay: Make sure it will have an introduction, the central part with your story itself, and a conclusion. Think of a hook you’ll open your essay with, so it would make the admissions officers interested in reading. Come up with a thesis statement. And write down the takeaways you’ll share in your essay conclusion.

Step 5: Start writing a college essay

So, now you know what you’ll write about; and, it’s time to start writing. Stick to the outline, be yourself, and use your writing style (it’s your personal essay, after all!)

  • Keep the essay’s focus: Start with the thesis (your main idea) and follow it to the end.
  • Be specific: Remember about the rules of good writing (say no to vague phrases, cliches, predictable word constructions, etc.; support your idea with facts, examples, quotations, and reasonings).
  • Be concise: Don’t write fifty words where five are enough; share only the information that is necessary for your story to flow.

Don’t be afraid to sound vulnerable: Write about how the described event or experience made you feel, how it changed you, and whether it had an impact on your values. Do your best to hold a reader’s attention throughout the essay: If it makes sense within the context, create a story twist, reveal something unexpected so that a reader would say, “Wow!”

Tips: Don’t spell out the point of your essay right off the bat. Avoid writing something like, “And that was the moment when I realized” or “The most important lesson for me was…” Structure your story so that admissions officers could read between the lines.

Step 6: Edit and submit your college application essay

As far as you remember, not only admissions officers learn about your personality but also check your writing skills when reading your college essay. So, once you’ve finished writing, give yourself some time—and proofread and edit your work before submission.

essay-note

  • Make sure your college essay shows rather than tells. Check if you’ve shared examples that support your statements and make your writing more interesting to read.
  • Check the essay for consistency. Do you use the same tense throughout the article? Do you refer to a particular college? And what about your writing style and tone of voice you use?
  • Proofread your essay. Make sure to avoid the most common grammar and spelling mistakes. Ask someone to read your essay and help you notice weak points, but don’t allow them to change the overall tone of your work. Professional essay writers and editors can help you here.

Once ready, submit a college essay along with the rest of your application. Good luck! 🙂

Essays, Writingessays, personal essay, writing, writing tipsLesley Vos One comment so far
college-essay-topics

College Essay Topics

May 25, 2020

You write tons of essays on different topics in school. Sometimes it’s a teacher who assigns a topic, and there are some cases when you need to come up with college essay ideas by yourself. Depending on essay types assigned, you know a strategy on how to do research and decide on a topic for your paper.

It doesn’t work that way when you need to choose a topic for your college application essay.

college-essay-topics

According to admissions officers, they seek students who demonstrate a unique experience that influenced their worldview, are passionate about what they tell, and want to find their voice. How to decide on the topic that would cover all this?

In this article, we’ll share some college essay tips and many college essay ideas to answer your question, “What should I write about?”

What Should I Write About: Choosing a Topic for Your Essay

Our ultimate guide on personal essay writing mentioned the importance of a topic for your college application essay’s success:

This essay tells the admissions officers about your personality and worldview, and it’s a chance to share who you are and what you can bring to their campus.

With that said, you need to come up with a college essay topic idea that would demonstrate a committee that you are a person with a voice, life experience, and established values. Do you have anything to contribute to a college community?

Your college application essay is a kind of “about me” sample, where you can share goals, influences, challenges, experiences, and lessons you’ve learned from them. Think of writing a narrative essay, but short and with your personality between the lines.

college-essay-topics

Your “about me sample” can be about everything related to you, but, at the same time, specific about who you are. You can write about:

  • a friend or relative who influenced your worldview
  • a teacher who changed your mind about something
  • an award you won, and its role for your life experience
  • a test you failed
  • a famous person or a creative genius who influenced your mindset or plans for the future
  • facing a fear
  • overcoming some obstacles
  • making a difficult choice
  • falling in love

Long story short, any moment or persona in your life that changed you in some way can become a core topic of a personal essay.

The best essay topics are always those profoundly relatable. Write about some moments that could happen in everyone’s life, those communicating some universal truth.

Your story doesn’t have to be with a happy end or solution. Just provide a context for readers to learn who you are and what brought you to this stage in life; also, make a connection on how this experience has influenced your future aspirations.

College Essay Ideas: The List of Topics to Consider

Admissions officers want to read a good story over anything else. Yes, even if it doesn’t have a happy end but provides us with a lesson anyway. When thinking about a topic for your college essay, imagine how people reading it will feel; think of something that excites you or something that has affected you deeply.

Long story short, get personal, be yourself, and keep your story simple yet focused on a discrete moment from your life

Below you’ll find the list of college essay ideas. Regardless of which of them you’ll choose, please make sure that this story will be uniquely YOURS. Be yourself and write about things that matter to you.

brainstorm-gif

Six groups of topics (aka prompts) to consider for your college application essay:

  1. Share a story on your hobby, personality facet, or experience that is meaningful to you.
  2. Tell about your learning from obstacles.
  3. Write about personal growth.Share what captivates you.
  4. Tell about a situation when you challenged a common belief.
  5. Write about the experience of solving a problem.
  6. Share a story about a personality that influenced your values and beliefs.

More specific issues to cover in your college essay:

  1. Write about a situation when you failed at something. How did it affect you?
  2. What about a time when you challenged your worldview?
  3. Describe a moment of your shift from child to adult.
  4. Write about a book (movie) where the protagonist had to make a difficult choice. What do you think about it?
  5. Tell about a person in your life who helped you understand yourself better.
  6. Share one accomplishment besides academics that you are proud of most.
  7. Write about a moment when you had to stand up for what you believed.
  8. Imagine yourself giving a TED talk. What would it be about?
  9. Tell us about a problem you would like to solve.
  10. Please tell us about your life goals.
  11. What was the most embarrassing moment in your life? What have you learned from it?
  12. Write about the best advice you got. Who gave it? Did you follow it?
  13. Tell about the role of your hobby or any other particular activity in your life.
  14. If you had a chance to talk with anyone in human history, who would it be and why? What would you discuss with him or her?
  15. Describe your “Aha!” moment and what sparkled it.
  16. Is there any day in your life that you’d like to change? Share this story, please.
  17. Given that you have a time travel machine, what is one day you would go?
  18. Tell us about why you want to attend this college or university.
  19. Do you have anything you’d like people to know about you, but what you are afraid of telling them?
  20. What do you want to accomplish in college?
  21. If you could prevent one thing from happening, what would it be and why?
  22. If you could read people’s minds, would you use this ability? How?
  23. How your neighborhood modeled the personality that you are today?
  24. Write about your most unique skill differentiating you from others.
  25. Describe the experience that has changed your life forever.
  26. What advice would you give to a 10-year-old you?
  27. Choose a quote that defines you best and explain why.
  28. If someone decided to write your biography, what epigraph would you recommend them to use?
  29. Describe a facet of your personality that is essential to who you are.
  30. Write about why you have decided to spend the next four years of your life in college.

College Essay Tips to Consider

Choosing a great topic for your college application essay is half the battle. Now you need to craft this topic into a compelling story, with its morals and call to action.

These writing tips will help you stand out:

college-essay-tips

  1. Write about what’s important to you.
  2. Be specific and make sure this story is uniquely yours.
  3. Don’t merely describe the events, but reflect.
  4. Do your best to make readers smile or even laugh! But be careful: Humor is a relative thing; and, what seems funny to you may not be so for adults working in college.
  5. Catch their attention right from the start: Use a compelling hook for your college essay.
  6. Show, don’t tell. Use expository writing, with descriptions, anecdotes, and examples. Please do your best to make your essay engaging.
  7. Write several drafts, stay with the one communicating your message best.
  8. Proofread and edit it carefully. Not only your college application essay is about a story but your writing skills too. If in doubt, don’t hesitate to ask professional editors or essay makers for help.
  9. Avoid repetitions and contradictions. What you write in your essay shouldn’t contradict any other part of your application.

Any questions left?

Further Reading:

  • The College Admissions Essay: Finding a Topic
  • How to Come Up With Great College Essay Ideas
  • 21 College Essay Topics and Ideas That Worked (Guide + Examples)
Essays, Writingessay topics, essays, personal essay, writing tipsLesley Vos Leave a comment

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