Writing a college essay can be a daunting task, but in this article, we will explore a few means of writing a winning college essay. Authors who work for Write My Paper shared their expert opinion on this topic.
- Understand why the essay matters
When applying to college, it is easy to brush off the essay as another part of the application, just like transcripts, dates, forms, and everything else. While the essay is not the one thing that matters to your college application, writing an impeccable essay can go a long way to stellar your application. On the other side, if you write a bad essay, it can spoil your application by overshadowing other accomplishments. To avoid such mistakes you can always opt for college prep consulting services.
When writing your essay please note that it is a tool for you to stand out; it reveals who you are behind the statistics of your papers and accomplishments. Write a compelling admission essay to stand out and make an impression.
- Pick the right essay topic
Chose a topic that shows your strengths. Not all essays are the same, and different colleges have different criteria used. When choosing an essay to write, choose a topic that interests you. You want to write a topic that sets you up for success from the beginning. Most colleges give you prompts to write your essays; choose the prompt that speaks to you.
- What you shouldn’t write about
When writing an essay, avoid obvious things. Succeeding in these essays depends on the applicant being interesting. Writing the obvious things will make our essay boring, and you want to avoid this, considering the admission officers have thousands of essays to go through.
- What should you write about?
We have mentioned avoiding writing the obvious. When writing, it is good to brainstorm what you will write. It helps you narrow down on topics that will work for you. Once you have narrowed down the list, do some freewriting on each. Freewriting is writing what comes to your head. This exercise helps you to get obvious stuff from your mind. It also allows you to stumble on an idea that may be better than what you previously wrote.
- Avoiding essay writing mistakes
The two most significant mistakes that students make when they are writing their college application essays are.
- They are too vague: many writers struggle with this, not only college applicants. It comes mostly because there is a disconnect between what we know and what we write down. You need to understand that your essay needs to be detailed since the person reading your essay does not know you.
- Feelings vs. events: the second mistake many people make is instead of describing feelings, they describe events. Admission officers are not looking at what happened. They want to know what you learned from that event or how it made you feel.
- Final Tips
Apart from the tips highlighted above, some other pieces of advice can help you write a successful essay:
- Proofread your work over and over again. Ensure that your work does not have any grammatical errors. Such mistakes lower the standard of your essay.
- Edit your work even after you have checked for errors. Apart from grammar, your essay needs to have a flow, style, form, and tone.
- Do not edit alone; have some people give you their opinion on the essay.
- Do not procrastinate
- Relax
Conclusion
Writing a college application essay can be daunting, but these steps can help you write a winning one.