College Application Essay Tips

You have a couple of minutes at most to impress the admissions team at any school/program. Mostly, they want to know that you can follow rules and articulate coherent thoughts in reasonably correct English. However, if you annoy them with a poor essay, it will count against you. If you bore them with a standard essay, it won’t help you. If you really do something interesting, it may push your application over the edge and get you in.

Obviously, I am not going to give away all of my secrets here, but the following are some important rules that applicants writing personal statements and application essays for college/grad school should follow:

1. Answer the question. This sounds obvious, but you should always make sure you answer the question in your college’s essay prompt. The answer to the question should come in the form of a thesis. If your college/program does not supply you with any specific questions, you still need to have a thesis. In that case, your thesis should answer a question of your own choosing.
2. Tell a story. Do not answer in block format or paragraphs marked 1, 2, 3. Write paragraphs that flow together and that build off one another to explain your thesis. In this case, then, your thesis is the moral/climax/point of a story about yourself. (But make sure you answer the question!)
3. Be interesting. Don’t write about a cliche. Don’t write about something you might have written in the writing section of the SAT. Don’t write about something that Miss America or a political candidate might say. Write about something particular to you. If you are interested, then your reader won’t be bored or annoyed at you.
4. Follow directions. This also sounds obvious, but many students don’t follow the directions on the applications. Read them carefully. Adhere to any formatting, word count, and other directions.
5. Show that you understand the school/program to which you are applying. Colleges and graduate schools want applicants who are interested in them. You should indicate your familiarity with their academic programs and the social/cultural life on campus. Additionally, knowing your schools is a good insurance policy that you are applying to the right places. If you aren’t familiar with these things already, start reading and visiting. I’ve met numerous students who are unhappy because they’ve enrolled in schools/programs that they knew too little about and ended up hating because of this. Finally, it’s always good to mention majors, courses, and professors that might be relevant to you.
6. Communicate that this particular program/school is the right thing for you at this point in time. In fact, your thesis may simply be that this school/program is right for you now because …
7. Talk about yourself … but don’t be bombastic. First person is fine in this type of essay; actually, it’s required. You want to highlight a few of your accomplishments, but only in terms of how they prepare you for school. You also want to show that you are intellectually engaged in something that might relate to your school, but don’t come off like a know-it-all smart ass. Don’t be afraid to show your personality, either–colleges and universities want interesting people who can contribute intellectual, artistic, and political energy to their campuses, be good citizens, and even show school spirit. If you’re funny, you can be funny in your personal statement.
8. Show flexibility. By this, I mean, demonstrate through anecdotes or through your style that you are willing to learn, interested in broadening your horizons, open to new experiences, open to changing your mind, etc. Many colleges actually look kindly upon students who are willing to recognize contradictions and complications. You don’t have to pretend to be super-positive about everything, or that you are completely polished and fully formed as an adult, or that you are a golden child who does everything right … unless you really are one of these things, in which case you are pretty boring.
9. Finer points: grammar check, spell check, read aloud to yourself, have a friend read it, and revise. Hire a tutor or editor if you can.
10. Don’t use: contractions, the second person (you), slang (unless necessary), old-fashioned language (because you think it sounds smart or formal), words from a thesaurus that you don’t understand, quotations from Roget’s that you don’t understand and to which you have no connection, curse words, or essays you found on the internet.

Good sources:

• Carleton College
• U. Michigan
• Conn College
• U. Virginia

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