College Essay Help

Tips For Writing Your College Application Essay

Here are some good college essay help tips to keep in mind when writing your college essay:

Answer the question Read, then re-read the essay question. As you put your thoughts together, make sure you an answering the question at hand. For example, the 2010 application essay for University Of Michigan deals with diversity. It asks you to share an experience into which you gained insight into “cultural, intellectual or social differences”. So, you read it and develop your answer. However, the question continues and asks how your experience would add to the University of Michigan’s collegiate diversity. If your essay only describes your experience it could land your application in the circular file. You didn't answer the question. They wanted to know how your individual insight would contribute to their university diversity. You did not do that which in turn negates the value of college essay.

Writing a Personal Statement This may be the most challenging of all essay questions, as there are few, if any, guidelines. When thinking of what your personal statement should look like, keep in mind that the admissions department wants to learn something about you. So write about something you know, have a passion for and engages you. At a loss, look at the 5 essay options on the Common Application. Even if your school does not accept the Common Application, there are excellent prompts there that you could use to assist in developing a personal statement. They can provide you with college essay help.

Here is an example of a college application essay one of my children wrote that they used as a personal statement. This essay could have been used as a personal statement, or to answer the Common Application questions about a person or artwork that has influenced you. If you are using the Common Application, make sure you check and see if your school has a supplement. Some schools require additional writing samples for their specific application. For example, Wake Forest University (Winston Salem, No. Carolina) has a Common Application supplement that requires short answers to a variety of questions.
Here is a personal statement essay that my son wrote about athletics

DO NOT COPY THESE ESSAYS. THEY ARE FOR ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES ONLY AND HAS BEEN COPYRIGHTED.

Develop A Rough Draft Once you have decided on your essay topic, develop a rough draft or outline and begin to fine-tune that. You may want to share the actual question and your essay with a teacher or parent to get some advice. Finish it and put it down for a couple of hours or even a couple of days. When you are ready to revise it, re-read the question first. Now read your essay draft and evaluate how well you are answering it. Also, ask yourself if it is interesting? Does the reader learn something about you? Continue to fine-tune it and get it into a final draft. Be conscious if there is a word limit and make sure you do not exceed it. This college essay help tip is very important.

Edit, proof read, spell check and ask another “HUMAN” to do the same. An essay with grammatical errors, spelling and punctuation mistakes is a reflection on you. So spend the time to get it all corrected. Do not rush. If you are mentioning a specific college anywhere in your essay, make SURE you edit that out if you are sending this to multiple schools.

Keep a copy If you are working on your essay in Microsoft Word, keep a copy on Notepad. Some applications will advise not to use MSWord, as it will not format correctly. Follow the application instructions and always “preview” your essay where possible to make sure it translated correctly. Always, keep a hard copy or back up your document on a thumb nail drive .. just in case!

Using these college essay help tips, you should now be ready to submit a well-developed, succinct piece of writing that will give the admission department some insight into who you are and what you will bring to their campus community, as well as reflect on your communication and writing skills.

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College Essay Help is just one of many great college application tips. Click here for more

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