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College
Prep
Writing Your College Application Essay
BY DAVE PETERSON
© Copyright
1999 by Parents' Press
Illustration © 2001, Artville, LLC
Groan! Another college application to grind out and another essay to write! A lonely, creative chore, putting your inner self on the line for an unknown reader to judge and possibly make a decision that will change your life. Ugh!
But that's the dark view. Completing a well built, thoughtful body of ideas about yourself can be most rewarding and a source of valid pride. Seize the challenge and relish the outcome!
Now, let's get started.
By the Numbers
1. Begin early in the application process to form topic ideas. Make some notes, talk with friends and adults about ideas.
2. Closely read the specific instructions before starting to write.
3. Plan your content and arrangement in outline form, in a logical order.
4. Move to sketching out a rough draft according to that outline.
5. Put it aside for a couple of days, then re-read it, pretending you are the admissions officer. Look for cliches, trite concepts, vagueness, dullness, wordiness, "cuteness," humor that may not work, smugness, poor transitions, lack of energy. Do some reworking of the draft. Don't be too proud to make changes or too timid to face your own initial weaknesses; all good writing must go this route!
6. Share a later draft you feel good about with respected adults, and ask for their candid and thorough critiques. Encourage them to talk to you about the "vibes," the hidden agendas, the imagery and detail, the elements that don't work, types of changes that might strengthen the flow, word use, and diction level. Urge them to be honest and helpful, not to spare feelings. You're on a learning curve at this point!
7. Rewrite and share the next draft with the same people to see if their suggestions are correctly addressed. Mechanical accuracy can now also be addressed by all.
8. Try amid all this to keep a sense of spontaneity and energy in your writing, and a conversational informality that makes for easy reading. Read it out loud. Does it work well on the ear?
9. Remember the subject of every essay is essentially you! Be sure your treatment of whatever topic clearly shows how you relate to it, why it's vital to you, how it has helped to shape you as a unique person.
10. And also remember that the particular concern for a college is seeing you as a potential student at that college. Your essay might well conclude by addressing this issue directly, relating the topic to yourself as a college student.
11. Look back at what you have done. Do you come across as genuinely self-directed, or simply rather self-centered? Do humility and humane-ness come through? Does the reader expect to find in you a stimulating, caring friend?
12. And have you conveyed a sense of your difference, your originality, that makes you a unique and perhaps engaging addition to that campus?
13. Finally, scrutinize your final copy for those last-minute typos that always seem to creep in. Now, with a smile of pride, mail off your excellent effort!
Dave Peterson has been an admissions officer, high school teacher, counselor, guidance director, and consultant to the College Board. This article first appeared in longer form in the October 1997 issue of Parent.TEEN.
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