Application Essay Questions

Application Essay Questions Don’t write about a person without spending 2/3 of the essay focusing on how that person shaped youâ€"specifically. Each essay should focus on different qualities and events, and should help you become 3-D for the admissions officers. 2) Make sure you know what you want the college to know about you before you decide what story to tell. Read the prompt before, during and after you write your draft, then ask someone else to tell you whether or not you responded to it. This mistake shows that you don’t care enough to proofread your application. Admissions committees might forgive a typo, but they don’t like to hear that you wish you were going to school somewhere else. There aren’t too many things you can do to ensure rejection, but plagiarism, also known as cheating, is one of them. If you use a thesaurus to find words rather than trust the words you know and use every day, you will not sound like yourself. I read and review essays for a living and my students tell me the insight is invaluable. DO make sure that your own personality shines through. Colleges look at the personality of each student as well as their qualifications. This is your chance to show them who you are, not just what you’ve done! Do tell a great story that communicates some unique qualities you offer a college. Do tell a specific story that grabs the reader’s attention. Don’t focus on a negative event or a struggle without spending more time on what you learned or gain from it? Don’t be afraid to ask for help on wording and style either, just make sure that your voice is always the one being heard, not your proofreader’s. Colleges can tell when you weren’t thinking about them specifically as you wrote your essay and were just casting a really wide net. Especially if you put the wrong colleges name on the essay! DON’T use too many exclamation points- you want to seem passionate about something, but exclamation points are informal, and too many can seem overly frivolous. You will sound smart when you use your own words and your own voice to tell a genuine story that shows who you are. Get too much help.There is a fine line between asking someone you trust to review your essay and getting too much help. When your mom, dad, teacher or tutor starts giving you words to use or edits too much, your voice disappears. In the conclusion, make a statement on your main theme without repeating yourself. Now that you have decided on the story that you want to tell, the next logical step would be to write it. You need to create an outline that you will use when writing your essay. Most times, an outline should not be based on the college admission essay format which will be discussed below. What’s more, you might use a few big words incorrectly, which will never impress an admissions officer. Colleges are not looking for the next Ernest Hemingway or Toni Morrison. However, this format may vary depending on your university of choice or the course you intend to pursue, as will be explained below. Word order means more than word choiceâ€"you need to check, double-check, sit for a while and check again to make sure your admissions essay is as polished as possible. Basic grammar is really, really, important; it won’t get you into a school on its own, but without it, you could cost yourself a spot. The more you enjoy your subject matter the easier it will be to write the essay. Come back the next day with a fresh eye and go over it. You will be able to streamline your line of thought that way so you can fit into word counts. To write a college admissions essay, start by coming up with one or two life experiences related to the prompt. Then, choose one topic and focus on it, like a situation in your life that made you challenge your beliefs. Also, try to begin your essay in a unique way to grab the reader's attention, like by turning it into a story. Next, use a few detailed examples to show the skills you have, such as leadership, rather than using lots of different ones.