If you have a dream college that you want to join and the last hurdle between you and your admission is the college entrance essay, then you may want to make it the best essay you have written in your entire life. A college admission essay, ranging from about 200 to 700 words, is what decides your future in college. The admission authorities will have minimal time to read through hundreds of essays, hence it is important to grab their interest so you can stand out among the other applicants.
Being an essay writer, there are various things that I believe are highly important if you want to create the ‘perfect’ essay for your college. These include the right structure, use of attention-grabbers, the right tense, grammar, and content of the essay. In order to write a good essay, it is important you know some prerequisites regarding this style of writing.
What NOT to Do When Writing a College Essay
- Use clichés at the start, middle, and end of your essay. These clichés can include phrases, words, or even sentences, such as ‘you cannot judge a book by its cover’, ‘I learned more from them than they did from me’ or ‘bring to the table’.
- Being too confident and not giving your essay a review. This practice can be quite risky because if your essay has a lot of typos, grammatical or spelling, the inspector can reject your application straight away. It is because this behavior exhibits carelessness and a lack of interest in something.
- Write false and exaggerated things about yourself in the essay. There is a high possibility that you might want to improve your essay by adding things like sports you play when you don't actually play it. This could serve as a major setback for you if this comes to light.
- Plagiarize something you saw on the internet and found interesting. Plagiarism is a strict NO in any case. If you are going to plagiarize even a couple of sentences for your essay, this could be considered as an ethical shortcoming, and you will be disqualified before the authorities even get the chance to read your essay.
- Searching for the best templates. This might not seem like a problem, but trust me, this is one of the things that will get you out of the admission competition in no time. Every college or university has a standard template, and unless they tell you to do whatever you want, you ought to use the given outline.
- Summarize your resume in the essay. One thing that you would definitely want to avoid in the admission essay is writing things about you that were described in the resume already. This can give a bad impression of your creativity and weaken your application.
Now that we know about the things that are needed to be sidestepped, let’s move towards the things that you should do to make your essay the right one that can get you that admission you have been dreaming of.
A carefully written essay can put your application right where you need it to be. There are things that you need to avoid if you want to make sure your application lands in the ‘accepted’ folder of the college. Here are a few things that I avoid when I write my essay that help me craft a good essay.
What to DO When Writing a College Essay
- Thoroughly read the instructions provided by the college administration. Following the essay guidelines provided by the college is extremely important because if you are not able to follow these instructions, the authorities will get the impression that you will have a hard time abiding by the rules of the college. Hence, it is important to take note of the provided instructions such as word limit or format.
- Follow the proper structure of an essay. If you want to impress the admission consultants, you need to make sure your essay is organized, and by organized I mean, it should have a proper opening, closing, and body.
- The introduction is the most vital element of an essay, which is responsible for making or breaking your entire application. You need to make sure the introduction is compelling and contains attention-grabbers. For a good opening paragraph, be sure to introduce your topic and briefly describe what the reader should expect from your essay. The reader from the admission staff might not have enough time to read the whole thing and would want to select by reading the first paragraphs only, so it is important to make this paragraph flawless.
- While writing the body of the essay, be sure to use authentic and real information. Using examples will also increase the credibility of your essay and make it seem like you wrote it with full interest.
- The closing paragraph also bears similar importance as that of an introduction. Hence, you need to make sure it is well written. The conclusion should contain a concise but paraphrased summary of things you discussed above and how you see them as being useful to you in the future. Also, don’t forget to include how you see your future once you become a part of the college.
- Lastly, be sure to have someone proofread your essay. Reading the same thing, again and again, can be frustrating and you can also miss out on some of the most obvious mistakes. Hence, it is better to consult a friend or teacher and ask them to review it for you.
College admission essays are of great importance as they confirm your entry into the college you have worked all your life for. Hopefully, the guide will help you craft the perfect essay and help you get into your favorite college. However, if you still have some ambiguities, you can always contact an essay writing service that can help you with writing and proofreading the essay.