How to Write an Outstanding College Application Essay (Six Tips)
- Jun 17, 2018
- 7 min read
Updated: Dec 11, 2019
Over the past few decades, undergraduate applications to college have increased in number, while the percentage of these students accepted has declined. This leads to an increasingly competitive and elaborate application process, which is time consuming and difficult for even the most diligent and hard working students. It used to be that this process would include an in-person interview with someone on staff at a prospective university, however this has now been largely replaced with the personal essay. The essay is required by most colleges, and (especially at liberal arts schools) is one of the most important aspects of the college application. It can mean denial for a student with perfect SATs and notable extra curricular talent, or it can mean admission to tough universities for otherwise mediocre students. All of that being said, the college application essay is well worth the extra effort, and if perfected may mean admission into your top choice school (plus as a bonus could earn you some nice scholarships).
The Essay: What is it?
Before we get into details on how to ace the essay, it would probably be best to understand exactly what colleges are looking for. In addition to the main essay, some colleges require a second long essay, or multiple short essays (often in response to questions such as "Why do you want to attend College X?"). This article will deal with the main essay, as it is typically written a little differently than the short answers. The application essay is typically capped at around 650 words. There may also be a minimum, but if you're anywhere close to that, you're doing something wrong. The essay sometimes has vague prompts, but often (and on the Common App.), there is an option where you are free to write about what you want. Essentially, what admissions committees are looking for is an essay about an event in your life, that will give insight into your personality in lieu of an interview. Now, on with the tips!
1. Tell a Story
Though it is not explicitly stated in most prompts, what colleges are looking for is a story. Don't list off information point by point -- that is what the rest of the application is for. Also, don't write an analytical essay you might turn in for an English class -- this tells the admissions officer reading the essay absolutely nothing about you. Telling a story is an easy way to make yourself memorable to whomever is reading your essay, and if done right will also endear you to them (thereby giving you a higher chance to get in).
2. Be Concise
Now, I know that for the people who constantly struggle to meet assigned word counts on essays, this may not seem like a problem. However, it is a lot easier to write a story about yourself that it is to write about what John Keats may or may not have been implying about urns. Therefore, if you want to write about say, a vacation, don't write about the whole trip. Pick a single day, or better yet, a single moment, and tell it in a detailed and captivating way. For me, the moment I wrote about lasted less than ten minutes, and I still had trouble cutting it down to the word count! A good way to achieve conciseness is to start right off with the story (or even start with the middle of the story), rather than with an introduction. Just pick something specific and short, and you will be able to write about it more beautifully.
3. Steer Clear of Controversial or Cliche Topics
Don't write about politics, religion, abortion, gun control, etc, etc. Just don't! Now, you'd think this is pretty obvious, but lots of students make this mistake anyway. You may think you have the most insightful, brilliant, new take on topic x, but you probably don't. You may be perfectly respectful in how you treat the opposing side of the issue. It doesn't matter. At the end of the day, these topics are not only overdone and unoriginal, but there is a high likelihood that they will offend (or at least tick off) the person reading your essay. If you write an eloquent piece on topic x and the person reading it has the opposite view, they probably aren't going to be rooting for you to be offered admission. Admissions officers try to be unbiased, but it's simply wiser to avoid such topics altogether. On this point, don't write about any of the cliche topics that are popular in application essays (unless however, you have an interesting take about a specific aspect of it). This includes but is not limited to: That One About The Sports Game I Won; The One About The Sports Game I Lost But Grew From; The Dead Pet One (yes, this is a thing); or its variant The Dead Relative Who Meant So Much To Me One; The Cool International Vacation One, and more. Remember, the whole idea is to give an original account of your personality that will be memorable to admissions officers.
4. Don't Brag on or Berate Yourself
Again, this is another tip that would seem pretty obvious, but it's hard to find the balance between self-promotion and arrogance. The trick is to make yourself look good without saying anything that implies that you think you're good. There's not really a cut-and-dry way to do this, but one helpful way is to have other people read your essay (which is something you should be doing anyway). A person other than yourself will better be able to read the essay objectively and honestly tell you what impression it paints. Also, and this should be a bit easier, don't try to get the reader to pity you. Don't be self-demeaning or obviously fishing for sympathy. This is likely not going to go over well and doesn't portray you as the type of student colleges want to fill their campuses with.
5. Proof Read and Edit Constantly ( + bonus: Get an Early Start)
This, though the most simple, might just be the most important item on this list. You could have the most thought-provoking, moving story about helping the homeless in a third-world country, but as soon as you use the wrong form of "your" or mess up subject-verb agreement, the strength of the essay goes swooping down like a swan diving into a lake of rejection letters (Another tip: maybe don't include too many confusing similes and/or metaphors). A good way to prevent this is to-- shocker-- not start the essay the night before it's due. Or even the week before. I started my essay the summer before the application opened in August, so I had plenty of time to brainstorm, write, edit structure, edit content, edit wording, write again, edit again, get opinions from others, and edit a final time. It also gave me time to put down a solid rough draft and leave it for a few weeks, returning to the piece with a new perspective later. Please don't simply rely on spellcheck. Get a friend who just really likes grammar to read it over for the more minute mistakes you missed, in order to avoid embarrassment later.
6. Connect it to a Passion
In the day and age we are living in right now, not only has the college application process gotten harder, but the type of person colleges are looking to admit has also changed. No longer are they looking for the "Renaissance" student who has their thumb in all of the respective extracurricular pies, but rather for a student who has a passion that they have committed to over multiple years of high school in multiple aspects of their life. This can be just about anything. For me it was justice alongside public speaking, for my sister who is currently working through the application process, it is health/nutrition and Spanish. Whatever it is, make sure that it's actually something you care about! Now, naturally, this passion is something you want to weave throughout all aspects of your application, perhaps most obviously in your essay. This does not mean you should write a piece on what passion x is, or on a list of ways you fulfill passion x. Instead, write, again, a story that stems from your passion. To give an example, I wrote about a short speech I gave to a group of vulnerable girls in India. This incorporated not only my passion for justice but also for public speaking. I didn't write about how awesome my speech was or the huge impact it made, but rather on the story of how it came about, and my perceptions and feelings while giving it. You shouldn't have to state what your passion is out right in the essay. Write in such a way that your passion overflows through the essay and influences the person reading it.
As I conclude this post, I want to add a couple of qualifiers and a little bit of encouragement. First, a lot of what I wrote here was influenced by a book I read on this process called "Conquering the College Admissions Essay in 10 Steps" by Alan Gelb. If you have the spare time to read it, I highly encourage it. It not only elaborates and expands on what I've written here, but includes rough and final drafts of real application essays for you to compare. The second thing I want to add is that I'm not an expert. Obviously, I do not work in a college admissions office, nor do I know what was thought of my essay by admissions officers. However, I do know that I personally was proud of my essay, not in the least because of the effort I put into it. I believe that it was one of the stronger parts of my application, and that it helped me get into the school I will be attending in the fall: the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The essay is one of the most important, and thankfully most controllable parts of the college application. At the end of the day, you can't undo a gpa you've been culminating for years, nor can you suddenly become an expert pianist or all-star sports player. However, you can write an incredible story that will endear you to admissions officers and result in offered admission to just about any university.
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