As soon as the time to file college applications comes, students become obsessed with how to write a good college essay. It seems that all tips and hacks have been explored online in-depth. Still, students continue making the same mistakes, which results in some of them getting to colleges and others failing their chances for enrolment.
So, what’s the gist of completing a stellar essay the application committee will surely notice? Here are some unique college essay tips collected by experts exactly from the people who read those works – university admission administrators and staff. Read on to develop your secret recipe for success.
How to Write a Good College Essay? Major Rules
After consulting several admission committee members, we’ve come up with the following set of requirements for an essay to be worth their attention:
Be positive. Even if your admission essay topic is about some negative, traumatic experience in your life, it’s better to focus on the lessons learned from that event, the positive gains after it, etc. Such a perspective shows that you are a proactive person able to recover and see possibilities amid hardships.
Read, reread, and reread once more. Once you’re done with an admission essay, you might feel that the task is over. But writing the paper is only half of the way; now it’s time for editing and proofreading. To complete this task effectively, you need to read the text aloud. In this way, you’ll be checking the text with your ears, not with your eyes and mind, thus spotting many more errors and minor inconsistencies.
Be creative. Outbursts of creativity rarely reach us during active study sessions as the brain is too overloaded with intellectual tasks. Thus, it’s not surprising that many genius ideas come to us when we take a shower or wash up. Don’t ignore those ideas and hurry up to put them down; they can be used later in your stellar essay.
Write as if you’re speaking. People speak differently from the way they write, and written language is usually more complex and sophisticated. To change that, you need to read the fragments of your essay aloud and see whether the text is catchy and easily understandable to the ear. If not, think of how to tell this story simpler.
College Essay Tips from Pros: Which One to Follow?
Probably, the best tip from admission experts you may follow is to embrace your creativity whenever it strikes you. Don’t limit yourself to the hours of sitting down and writing something in a notebook or a laptop. Note all ideas coming to you in a shower, during a morning walk, or at a meeting with friends. Nobody knows when the muse will come to them, so the worst thing to do is try to keep that genius idea in mind, hoping that you’ll never forget it. We bet you will.
How to Write a Good Essay for College: Final Thoughts
Now, getting back to how to write a good essay for college, you might think of the core elements of a creative, productive process – focusing on the task, staying on-topic, revealing your actual experiences with an emphasis on positivity, and proofreading the essay to perfection. Once you follow these guidelines, your essay is sure to get much better and much clearer, which is always an advantage. Good luck with your admission!
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