What’s the Point? | 5 Tips to Writing a Better Essay
What’s the Point of a College Admissions Essay?
A college admissions essay is a staple of almost any college’s application process. Do you know why this is such a common element of the admissions process across the board? Here are some of the reasons why so many schools use a college admissions essay as a determining factor of admission.
It shows off your writing skills.
In college, you will be writing lots of different essays for all of your courses. Writing is an incredibly important skill in general, and colleges want to find students with strong writing skills. The best way to discover these students is to require a college admissions essay with each application. With this, they can screen their potential students’ writing skills.
It shows them who you are.
If you are going to be attending their school, college admissions officials want to get an idea of what type of person you are, what your values are and what goals you have. Based upon this, they can decide whether or not you’d be the right fit for the campus community. A college admissions essay allows you to tell colleges who you are, and this is why the topic generally centers around you personally.
It shows creativity.
Admissions officials will be reading many of these admissions essays, and many of them will be very similar. You can’t just use this essay to simply tell the college who you are. You have to take a creative approach with an interesting theme. If you approach your college admissions essay with a fresh focus, the admissions officials will be thankful for something out of the ordinary, and it shows that you are a creative and intellectual individual.
It’s your chance to pitch yourself to the college.
Your college admissions essay is your chance to tell a college why they need you as a student. You can highlight everything that you could provide to the campus and academic community if you were to be a student there. You will not get another chance to do this, so this is your best opportunity to try and influence the final decision of the admissions process.
Clearly, colleges learn many things from college admissions essays about potential students, so you should make sure that your essay is creative and well written to ensure that it stands out from all the other admissions essays that the officials will be slowly working their way through. Impress the officials with your college admissions essay and your chances of being accepted to that school will skyrocket.
5 Tips to Writing a Better College Admissions Essay
The college admissions essay is a common element of most college’s application process. Since admissions officials have to read many essays every day, you should make your essay stand out and be unique to you. Below we have included 5 tips to ensure that your college admissions essay is one of the absolute best.
1. Choose an interesting topic.
While the general topics of most college admissions essays tell the college about yourself, you’ll need to do take it a step further. Don’t be like everyone else who ramble off a list of his or her achievements and personality traits. Take your essay to the next level by finding an interesting way to talk about those things. Have a favorite book? What does the theme of that book say about who you are? Are you a sports player and how can that be related to who you are? Focus on something important to you, and then use it to show the college your personality.
2. Don’t trust spellcheck.
Spellcheck is not your friend so don’t rely upon it to proofread your essays for you. Spellcheck can miss many grammatical errors, and it often corrects words to similarly spelled words that you did not intend to use. Read over your essay several times and have someone else look over it before sending it in. An extra set of eyes always helps.
3. Brainstorm before writing.
You have probably done different styles of brainstorming throughout your high school career. Choose the one that has worked best for you, and take the time to gather your ideas before writing your college admissions essay. Having a rough outline for what you are going to write will keep you from rambling and getting off-topic.
4. Don’t try to tell them everything about you.
There is no way you can fit everything that a college needs to know about you into a single essay. Choose what you consider to be your best traits and highlight those in your essay. This focus will allow you to go in-depth as to why the traits you choose are so important.
5. Don’t be afraid to take a risk.
If you think a topic could be a stretch, consider going for it. It could make your essay stand out from all the others because it would be different. Who knows, the risks you take in your essay could be the memorable factor that causes an admissions official to recall your essay, improving your chances of acceptance. Of course, bounce your ideas off of someone you trust to talk about your ideas before you just dive in.
Keep these 5 tips in mind when working on your college admissions essay to make sure that it stands out from all the others. The better and more memorable the essay, the better chance you will have of acceptance. Make sure you leave plenty of time to write your college admissions essay and make it the best and most creative essay that you have ever written.
