Category Archives: Writing

Best College Essays That Worked: Advice From Admissions Officers

May 25, 2020

Okay, we guess you’ve learned our ultimate guide on personal essay writing already. You’ve got the purpose of this essay type, learned its topics and format, and understood how to start and write it.

We have one tiny, yet significant detail left to go:

Actionable tips and advice from admissions officers themselves on what the best college essays should look like.

First things first:

Do you know that your college application essay makes 30-50% of the final decision on your admission?

With that being the case, its writing is worth your effort, agree?

Let’s see what admissions officers recommend to applicants to do so their essays would impress a committee.

Secrets Behind Writing the Best College Essays

David Kirby of the Huffington Post has interviewed admissions officers from some of the leading institutions to find out what they would recommend to students who want to impress committees with great college essays.

Here go the experts:

Garrett Brinker from The University of Chicago
Liz Cheron from Northeastern University
Shawn Abbott from New York University
Richard Friesner from George Mason University
Matthew Boyce from George Mason University
Amy Jarich from UC Berkeley

These people have been spending years weighing the pros and cons of each applicant that hopes to attend their prestigious institutions. So, their tips and suggestions on writing the best college essays are worth considering.

That’s what admissions officers recommend:

1) Embrace Your Creativity

With tons of prompts available at CommonApp, it’s tempting to choose one and reflect on it. The problem is that those prompts are general for more than 500 universities, which means that you’ll get drowned in the ocean of same-looking essays from other applicants if you choose a topic from proposed ones.

All these prompts are given to encourage your creative thinking and provide you with some ideas on what your story can be. Use them to reflect on your past experiences, analyze how you feel about a particular topic, and think of what you have to share with admissions officers.

2) Make All the Necessary Efforts

Since your college essay can make or break your future, give it the time and respect it deserves.

Every writing assignment should follow a precise workflow. So please don’t rush, take your time, start thinking of your college essay early so that you could deal with it on time. At the very least, your essay writing process should include the following:

Examine all the prompts available
Choose the most relevant to your experience and revise it accordingly so that it would be uniquely YOURS.
Write an essay outline.
Craft the first draft of your college essay.
Read it, edit it to come up with the second draft.
Proofread and edit again until you get a polished final version to submit.

3) Pick a Safe Topic – and Stick to It!

As far as you understand, admissions officers have to deal with hundreds of applications yearly. It makes them read your college essay real quick. So, please make sure you grab their attention from the very first line of your essay and keep them engaged for the rest of it.

For that, be specific. Don’t stray too far from the topic, and don’t try to cover too much ground. Admissions officers want to learn about your growth rather than read about every meaningful experience in your life.

Also, consider age, cultural, and background differences between you and committee members. If you want to write about something super-specific to your generation, make sure you expound enough so the reader will understand. Slang and emojis aren’t your best friends here.

Likewise, if you are writing about a controversial topic, come at it from an educational standpoint rather than strictly opinionated (which could come off as offensive). Stay away from the radical thesis – those usually aren’t well-received at schools.

4) Remember It’s Not a Resume

There are plenty of other sections of the application where you can highlight your awards, achievements, and qualifications. Don’t focus on those in the college essay. If you do, you’ll come off as lazy – with a lack of creativity.

Instead, share your passions and interests. Let your character shine. Tell admissions officers about the things that are most meaningful to you. Create a story.

5) Be Comprehensive

Take a look at your whole application. Are most of your experiences and accomplishments about grades, sports, social life, politics? If so, avoid these topics in your college essay: Admissions officers don’t need to read about the same facts they saw in your other documents.

Show them you are passionate about multiple things. Let colleges and universities know you can contribute in more than one way to their institution (and your future).

6) Motivate Readers to Action

The best college essays are about surprise, inspiration, and motivation. Ultimately, you want those admissions officers to think something like, “Man. This one is awesome. I want to see this person in our college!”

Your essay should tell that you are more than capable of contributing to the real world someday. Let a committee know you can overcome obstacles. Let your past experiences reflect on how persistent, professional, and driven you’ll be in the future.

Make a committee laugh or cry. Try to motivate them to action. If you do, admissions officers are more likely to form a personal attachment to you – and be more willing to fight on your behalf.

7) Check Your Writing Skills

How do you expect to create a personal, compelling story with an essay full of spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes? The purpose of your college application essay is not only to help admissions officers know you better and learn what you can contribute to their college community. They’ll also check if you can express thoughts in the written form.

So make time to craft your writing skills. Practice essay writing, read books to master grammar and spelling, and make it a habit to write a short story every day. Also, don’t hesitate to ask experts to review your writings and provide you with feedback. All this helps your skills grow.

Your List of Best College Essay Tips from Admissions Officers

To make it easier for you, we’ve gathered all the tips in one place so that you could use them as a checklist when writing your college application essay. Feel free to download and rely on it whenever needed.

[Download this checklist]

And last but not least:

Don’t Stress Yourself Out Too Much

When it’s all said and done, the majority of college essays land smack dab in the middle – not terrible, but not fantastic. Don’t kill yourself trying to compose something the admissions officers will remember five years from now.

Just tell your story. Make it the best story you can create – and then leave it at that.

Further reading:

Essays That Worked, by Hamilton students
Essays That Worked, by Johns Hopkins University students
120 College Essay Examples for 14 Schools + Expert Analysis
Top 147 Successful College Essays
How They Wrote (and Rewrote) Their Harvard Admission Essays

Featured image source: Stewart Black

College Essay Format

May 25, 2020

How to format a college essay:

Choose a topiс.
Write an essay outline.
Come up with an intro: write a hook, describe a story, add a pivot.
Tell readers about the lessons you’ve learned.
Write a conclusion.
Create a few drafts, and then stay with the best one.
Proofread and edit your college essay.

As a rule, personal essays are not about strict formats or word count.

When you write a personal essay, you need to focus on a story and make sure it reveals your values and traits best. The format of college essays reminds a narrative, with all the elements of storytelling in it. And with a standard, five-paragraph essay structure in mind, you can turn your story into a powerful statement to stand out from the crowd of other college applicants.

Let’s see how to do that.

College Essay Structure

The first and foremost question all students ask is, “How long should a college essay be?” And although there’s no strict word limit for personal essays, admissions officers suggest keeping it up to 650 words.

It doesn’t mean they’ll stop reading it if it’s longer. Such limits are since most students tend to wordiness when writing, therefore risking to turn a story into a dull and watery text. And, as far as you understand, such essays won’t hold the reader’s attention for as long as you want.

So, the optimal length for your college essay is 250-650 words.

And now, for a college essay structure.

As well as any other essay type, it needs an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. However, there’s no strict separation in paragraphs a la one paragraph—for an intro, three paragraphs—for a body, and one last paragraph—for a conclusion. Most personal essays that worked were from four long to ten short paragraphs.

So, feel free to write as many paragraphs as warranted by the context of your story.

Start a college essay with the introduction. It will need a hook to grab your readers’ attention, a short description of your story, and a pivot to the rest of your essay. (A pivot is that very “aha!” moment when you go from a general to bigger picture, explaining how the described experience influenced and shaped you.)

In storytelling, it’s about exposition (an inciting incident and a rising action).

Source

Then, format a body of your college essay where you’ll share more essential details and insights you’ve got from the described experience—this part where you continue sharing the plot of your story, with its climax and falling action.

And finally, a resolution. It’s the conclusion of your story, with a moral or point of view you wanted to share.

College Application Essay Format

More specifications for the format of your college essay depend on your admissions office requirements. Read carefully and pay attention to the details such as word count, font, spacing, alignment, etc.

Unless stated otherwise, format your college essay as follows:

Write between 250-650 words.
Make an essay 1.5 or double-spaced.
Consider fonts that are easy to read: Times, Arial, Calibri, etc.
Make your font 12 pt.
Use standard one-inch margins.
Delineate your paragraphs with a single tab at the beginning.
Submit your college essay in .pdf file unless other file formats are required. Before submitting, make sure this format is accepted.
Unless stated otherwise, don’t include your name and the heading of your essay to the document.

Above are the general format rules for college essays submitted as attached documents. At the same time, most schools ask applicants to submit articles via online forms by copying and pasting them into a text box. That being the case, please pay attention to the following moments:

Make sure your college application essay wasn’t cut off!
Word count and paragraph spacing can get messed up there, so please check everything twice or even thrice before submitting it.
The online form won’t probably let you use bold, italic, etc. Also, the big chances are that they’ll standardize a font and its size. If not, please format it with Times or Arial of 12 pt.

And please, avoid formatting your college essay with ALL CAPS, cutesy, unnecessary symbols, emojis, and #hashtags! Make it look professional rather than casual. It’s not a story for your blog or social media account, after all.

College Essay Samples

For you to get a better idea of how to format a college application essay, here are a few samples of essays that worked. But please don’t use them as templates: They are good to get inspired by different topics and writing styles, but their patterns won’t reflect your original voice and unique experience.

The first college essay sample goes from Kaylee:

Read the whole essay here.

The second one is from Benjamin:

The full version is here.

And finally, let’s take a look at this one from Curtis:

The end of this story is here.

As far as you see, all three essays have different formats (word count, paragraph quantity and length, writing style, etc.), but they are fantastic because of their sincerity and reflection.

Ready to share your story with admissions officers? (And our essay writers are ready to help you choose the best format for your college essay, if needed!)

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.

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.

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.

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

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

More specific issues to cover in your college essay:

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

Write about what’s important to you.
Be specific and make sure this story is uniquely yours.
Don’t merely describe the events, but reflect.
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.
Catch their attention right from the start: Use a compelling hook for your college essay.
Show, don’t tell. Use expository writing, with descriptions, anecdotes, and examples. Please do your best to make your essay engaging.
Write several drafts, stay with the one communicating your message best.
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.
Avoid repetitions and contradictions. What you write in your essay shouldn’t contradict any other part of your application.

Any questions left?

Further Reading:

How to Start a College Essay

May 25, 2020

The most common application essay question most students ask:

How to start an essay about yourself?

Indeed, essay introductions are the most challenging part of writing for many. And while we can find tons of articles online about how to start an essay, guides on writing personal essays intros are not that frequent.

In this article, we are going to change this. Here you’ll learn good ways to start an essay about yourself.

Essay Introduction vs. Thesis Statement

You know that every college essay needs a thesis statement, don’t you? It’s a central claim of what you’ll discuss in your work, and it’s a sentence or two you write at the beginning of your essay.

The problem is that many students don’t see any difference between essay introductions and thesis statements: They believe it’s the same thing.

That’s not so.

A thesis statement is a part of an introductory essay paragraph, not an introduction itself. As a rule, it closes the intro rather than substitutes it. Therefore, you have a hook, an overview, and a thesis statement in your essay’s first paragraph.

But when it comes to personal essays you write, applying to college, there won’t be any universal thesis statement in introductions. Here you’ll write a so-called pivot, a sentence or two (three maximum) where you explain how the experience you describe has shaped you.

The Structure of Personal Essays Introduction

Long story short, here go the elements of your common application essay’s introduction:

A hook: a general statement that will evoke curiosity, build a reader’s expectations, and stimulate them to keep on reading.
A description of your topic: what you are going to cover in your personal essay.
A pivot: a sentence or two at the end of your introduction paragraph, where you go from a general to bigger picture. Explain how the described experience influenced and shaped you.

Example:

Source

As far as you see from the above example, an introduction in personal essays can take more than one short paragraph. In fact, this section can be about half of your whole piece because you need to tell a brief story that gives readers the idea of what happened and how it influenced you.

And now, let’s take a closer look at how to write hooks and pivots of your common application essay’s introduction.

Hooks to Use in Personal Essays

Tim Nicholas did his best to describe the nature of writing hooks and their role in essays. He speaks about hook as the first line of your work to “really make a great impression” and “grab your reader’s attention.” Plus, Tim comes up with five useful tips on essay hooks writing:

In other words, an essay hook is either cliffhanger evoking a reader’s curiosity or scene-setting that stimulates a reader’s imagination. In both cases, it engages and encourages readers to continue examining your work.

Here are good ways to start an essay:

1) Quote

Most guides on essay hook writing recommend students to start an essay with a relevant quote of famous people. “Thanks” to this piece of advice, quotes have become so overused that teachers don’t take such openings seriously.

Quotes aren’t bad themselves. The problem is that students choose too obvious or irrelevant sayings in essays, while teachers (as well as admissions officers) want to read YOUR thoughts.

What you can do when writing a personal essay is to start it with your or someone’s quoted direct speech! It’s catchy, emotional, and it’s about your experience.

Examples:

“You can handle it, Matt,” said Mr. Wolf, my fourth-grade band teacher, as he lifted the heavy tuba and put it into my arms.
“On and off,” I squealed as I fiddled with every remote control device in the house—from the TV to my RC toys.
“No, no, no, you’re all doing it wrong! The secret to developing realistic drawings lies in your ability to study every nuance of the object in front of you,” my art teacher advised. “Try sketching with one eye closed; it’s all about perspective, people!”
“These people are just confused,” Emily whispered to me as she stared out the car window at the gay couples walking down the rainbow streets of the Castro.

Note: All the examples here and below are from jhu.edu, hamilton.edu, and stanford.edu

2) Detail

An excellent way to start an essay is a short sentence where you mention one grabby detail. It intrigues admissions officers and motivates them to keep on reading to learn more.

Examples:

I was born with an extra hand—kind of.
When I was in eighth grade, I couldn’t read.
I have old hands.
Goal: 40,000. I wrote because it made me somebody else—somebody who mattered.
I change my name each time I place an order at Starbucks.

3) Controversial statement

A hook’s role is to grab attention and spark interest so that a person would continue reading your essay to learn more or find answers. That is why general statements don’t work here. Arguments such as “Life is wonderful,” and all this stuff are your proven way to fail.

Instead, please start your application essay with a counterintuitive sentence. Give readers something controversial or arguable so they would want to respond.

Examples:

If string theory is really true, then the entire world is made up of strings, and I cannot tie a single one.
Writing a college essay is an intimidating business. Just coming up with an idea, let alone writing about it, is a challenge. So, I asked for help.

4) Question

Why not start a personal essay with a direct question to readers? Just make sure it’s intriguing and specific enough to stimulate interest.

Examples:

While traveling through the daily path of life, have you ever stumbled upon a hidden pocket of the universe?
What does it mean to be an advocate? I didn’t find the answer in any sort of textbook.
“If you had to choose one food to eat for the rest of your life, what would it be?”

5) The End

This hook is about starting your essay with a conclusion, a lesson you’ve learned, or a central idea you’d like to communicate to readers. And the rest of your article will be a flashback, telling about how you’ve arrived at this decision.

Examples:

I’ve recently come to the realization that community service just isn’t for me.
Cancer tried to defeat me, and it failed.

How Not to Start Your College Essay

An essay hook is your best chance to grab the attention of admissions officers and get the impression of the right candidate for their college. Sure thing, a hook alone can’t save the whole essay, but it needs to be strong enough for the audience to keep on reading and estimate the entire work of yours.

Here go a few writing techniques to avoid in common application essays. Overused and non creative, they’ll make most admissions officers roll their eyes heavenward.

Try not to start your essay with:

A definition. Descriptions from online dictionaries are far from creative ideas to write in academic papers, especially in college application essays.
An obvious thesis or general statement. The former is a kind of spoiler in your essay introduction (who wants to read a paper if you reveal everything in the first sentence?), while the later is merely dull. Leave all the exposition and arguments for the body and the conclusion of your personal essay.
“In this essay, I’m going to tell you about…” It’s the worst option for a personal essay hook. First, you reveal the whole story at once; and second, most teachers consider this grammar construction a sign of poor writing skills.

Pivots in Your Common Application Essay

As mentioned above, a pivot is a sentence of two at the end of your essay introduction. You go from a general story to a bigger picture: What you need to do here is to illustrate what your described experience tells about you.

Example 1:

Example 2:

In other words, you need to focus on the “aha!” moment of your story in a pivot. Tell about the moment of realization, therefore moving from one part of your essay to another.

A pivot is not necessarily one sentence at the end of your first paragraph. Feel free to write two-three sentences in the middle of your article (after a hook and a description). But make sure that a pivot is what makes your story move from a general idea to a bigger one, demonstrating your concluding observations from the situation.

How to Start an Essay: In Short

If you still doubt how to start an essay about yourself, here is a short, step-by-step formula:

Start with a hook to grab the audience and motivate them to read your story: Write a quote, a short sentence with a grabby detail, a controversial statement, or a question.
Continue with a story itself: Describe the situation that happened.
Finish with a pivot: Come up with a sentence or two, revealing your “aha!” moment. What was the bigger idea behind your story? Any moment of your realization there? What is the lesson you’ve learned?

And remember:

You don’t have to start with hooks or pivots once you’ve opened the document to write an essay. Tell your story first, describe the details, and then work on your first, catchy sentence to impress admissions officers.

Further reading: The Ultimate Guide to Personal Essay Writing

How to Write a College Essay

May 25, 2020

Here go your steps to take:

Make sure you understand its purpose.
Check a few persuasive college essay examples.
Brainstorm and pick a topic for your college essay.
Write the outline.
Start writing a college essay.
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 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:

Who is this person?
What will he or she contribute to our college community?
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:

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:

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.

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! 🙂