Tips For College Application Essays
1. Stay focused on the topic and make sure your essay answers all the questions of the prompt.
2. Know who your audience is when you write your essay as you would speak differently to a doctor than a patient.
3. The most memorable and significant essays are not typically the ones that turn out to be impressive or intuitive. Rather those that talk about silly or meaningful small incidents in every day lives tend to be more significant. In other words, try not to impress anyone or to exaggerate.
4. Try to write in a more casual, familiar style and voice similar to when you are casually speaking to someone. In other words, be yourself and natural.
5. Talk about challenges you had but make sure to include how you dealt with the problems you encountered to overcome the obstacles and what you learned from the experience.
6. Include some actions rather than narrating the story plainly to make the essay more interesting and appealing.
7. Be honest, expose yourself, and make it personal so that the reader feels connected and not only understands your feelings but participates in your feelings and emotions. Elaborate your ordeal with details as descriptive as you can so the reader can vividly imagine your struggle, your failure, and your hardships.
8. Don't be afraid of being different or surprising the reader by talking about something unexpected. This could be the chance to show your uniqueness and true color.
9. You can read up on what other topics students have written about. By doing so, you can learn what the strong and weak essays are, how they can be improved, and to apply what you learned to your own.
10. It is okay to write about your hardships but when you choose a sensational or overly used topic such as illness, lost family, divorce, substance abuse etc. make sure to keep the focus on you and something specific within that topic mentioning how you overcame that obstacle and what you learned from it. Your intention is not to elaborate your hardship or to want any pity or sympathy from anyone.
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