College is the right platform to demonstrate writing skills. Students can strengthen their case by writing an effective college essay. The essay is an excellent opportunity for students to communicate directly with the admission office.
Students use essays as a personal statement to make a positive impact on the college administration. A well-written essay boosts the chances of acceptance. However, you have a few hundred words to make an impression.
Read More: How to Write a College Essay?
For some students, the essay part is quite challenging because sometimes they do not have a clue how to start the essay.
Table of Contents
Guide to Write a College Essay
- Discover your essay prompt and choose a topic
- Begin with your college essay outline
- Write the essay and be prepared for various drafts
- Make changes and proofread your essay
- Submit Your essay
The ideal time for students to start focusing on their essay is the summer. During this time, they are not busy with assignments and extracurricular activities. By starting early, you will have adequate time to work through different drafts of an essay before the deadline of a college application, which can be in early November.
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You can go online to check essay requirements for the college you want to apply to. For example, word limit and essay prompt. A few colleges require students to submit more than one writing sample, along with the main essay.
Through supplement essays, college administration often asks students as to why they take an interest in a specific school or academic discipline. The additional essays are shorter than the main essay.
The student would want to spend more time on the writing process to draft main as well as supplement essays comprehensively.
How to Choose a College Essay Topic?
Sometimes, the most complicated step in the essay writing process is to figure out the topic of writing. Generally, there are many essays prompts to select from on a college application. They are generic, based on the open-ended questions, giving students a choice to write on a variety of topics.
Whenever you choose a topic to write, include relevant details, and avoid irrelevant description.
Read More: How To Start a College Essay?
Narrow Your focus
It is better that you write on a particular experience, hobby or an event that describes your personality. Any activity or incident revealing your strengths or intelligence would serve the purpose for you. There is a common misconception that students do not need to discuss their main achievements in their essay.
Concisely illustrating your significant achievements would help you to create a good impression. The college essay is a reflection of your personality. The college administration is not familiar with you, and that is why they want to have an insight into your personality through your writings. If you are facing problem to brainstorm your topic, get help from your friend or peers.
It would help if you wrote about something that is already not mentioned on your application. If you eloquently write about the distinguishing features of your personality, you will end up making a solid impression.
Writing the College Essay
Before starting the actual essay, students should outline their essay. Through proper outline, you will be able to structure your writing. When you begin writing formally, do not hesitate to erase your words or sentences if you think they are not making sense.
In other words, the first draft of your essay does not have to be perfect. Put down all your thoughts and ideas on the paper. By doing so, you would have plenty of material in the written form on your paper. So, you will be in a position to select the appropriate words and sentences to finalize your essay.
Tips for writing the College Application Essay
Students should be mindful about the overall tone of the essay. Ideally, the tone does not have to be over formal. If you would try to be overly formal, you may start overthinking, which may not be appropriate for effective writing. Imagine you are writing to your favourite teacher. In this way, you will be able to write with peace of mind without any pressure.
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Editing and Submitting the College Essay
The admission officers tend to get an insight into students through the essay. Also, they evaluate your writing skills. Therefore, make sure you submit a high-quality work.
According to Sapp, the Best writing is the rewriting. It means practice would lead you to perfection. After writing, critically review your essay, and if you find any shortcoming or inappropriate use of words, you should consider rewriting or editing.
Once you have done editing, you should get help from someone more knowledgeable. You aim to submit a perfect essay. The perfect essay refers to the content which is coherent and free of grammatical errors.
How to Improve or Revise the unsuccessful College Essay
Students have some options in regard to essay help. They may get help from peers, counsellors, teachers, and family members to perfect their essay.
It is worthwhile that you get other people to proofread your essay in two steps. In the first step, they need to focus on your content. The readers need to point out any ambiguous thing about your content.
Once, the content is polished, the second step of proofreading relates to the style, grammar, spellings, punctuations, and the choice of words. However, the proof-readers do not need to change the tone of your essay.
You decide and set the tone and theme of your essay, not anybody else. When your essay is in refined form, you would typically submit it online alongside the main application.
Students often worry about their essay. But, they should keep in mind, it is not the only thing that admission officers evaluate; instead, it is the gateway, while an application is the main house. So, it would be best if you kept in mind that application comprises several elements. It would be best if you focused on every single aspect of your application.
Conclusion
Through college essay, students communicate with their admission officers. It would be best if you made an outline before writing the essay. Write down all your thoughts and ideas and then edit and proofread. Get an expert to proofread your essay.
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