The Only Four College Essay Writing Tips Youll Ever Need

The Only Four College Essay Writing Tips You'll Ever Need New York teen Alex Tiso wrote his college essay on burrito bowls and got into his dream school. A thoughtfully crafted essay and a clean, clear application can make a tremendous difference in the college admissions process. We have found that the #1 reason for essay procrastination is that students don’t feel confident in getting started â€" i.e. they aren’t sure what to write about and how to structure it. Here are 5 essential traits of a compelling college essay. But please, please, please do not not procrastinate on your admissions essay. Everything I’ve covered in this article matters only if you give yourself enough time. If you choose not to disclose your disability in your essay or college application, remember, you may still disclose at any point after you are accepted into the school. You will need to do this to receive any of the accommodations and support services that you might need to be successful. To help youth applying to college navigate the college essay in order to submit their best work with their college application. Use the proofreading skills that you have developed to carefully read your drafts. Try reading it out loud to yourself or have someone else read it. Make sure you are reading it carefully and specifically for grammar and spelling. Watch that you are using the same tense and point of view throughout your essay. Always read your essay over for grammatical and spelling errors one last time before you submit your application. It’s a lot like the cover letter you write when applying for a job â€" it’s your chance to reveal the person behind the accomplishments and statistics. Your goal should not be to include all of your accomplishments and activities . The most engaging essays tell a story and have a clear focus. A thoughtful and detailed narration of a difficult time in your life tells far more about you than a list of competitions won and honors achieved. Alex Tiso, 18, wrote his college application essay on burrito bowls and got into his dream school. If you start the day before the application is due, all I can say is good luck. For the most part, it’s unlikely that you’ve experienced anything extremely uncommon in the relatively short amount of time you’ve been a human. Most high school students lead lives that don’t deviate too far from the norm â€" except that one quiet guy in your class who sits next to the window near the back. There are several simple list of dos and don'ts for college essays. After you’ve written a few drafts of your essay, go back to make sure you’re following them. Remember the tips discussed earlier in the module and try not to get overwhelmed by all the information included in these lists. It would be tragic to turn in an essay that includes all of the above but is littered with misspellings and grammatical errors. After showing their essay to everyone, students edit it again and again to make each reader happy--and before you know it, their story has been ground down and their voice has vanished. DO NOT PROCRASTINATE. Look, we all procrastinate. Most importantly however, a great essay will reveal an aspect of a self that a student has chosen to highlight and a voice that is unique to that self. We've cooked up a bunch for you, based on, uh, who you are slash what you care about. Now that you know a little about college essays follow a couple steps to get you started. He’s almost certainly either a genius mech pilot or the subject of some prophecy in an alternate dimension that he’ll be transported to. Even if you’re only applying to a couple schools that you know you can get into, it will still serve you well to write a compelling admissions essay. Standing out from everyone else could put you in the running for additional scholarships and will also simply make a good impression, which never hurts. So treat a college application essay as a tool for standing out in ways the robots can’t.