The Perfectionists Guide To The College Essay

The Perfectionist's Guide To The College Essay Notice that Rachel will be applying Early Action where it’s offered. (She cannot afford to apply Early Decision because her family needs to compare financial aid offers.) She intends to submit all applications by Oct. 15, even those that aren’t due until January. That will allow her to focus on academics and enjoy the holidays. Did you know that Babson has a Writing Center on campus? Staffed by professors and peer consultants, it offers a supportive environment to practice and refine your writing. DO write about other people as well as about yourself. The two “unique” essay prompts are already fairly well defined, so Rachel doesn’t need further brainstorming on them at this stage. Rachel will write 150 words for Michigan about her love of basketball and her growing leadership experience (she’s now team co-captain), focusing on engendering a sense of mission and camaraderie. No; probably every teenager in the world will write about that this season. The sorrow of being far away when her grandmother died? She feels sad even thinking about it, making her reluctant to write; and even stateside kids have lost faraway grandparents. “Favorite work of literature” essay (UVA, ; George Mason, up to 750). Main essay for the Common App of up to 650 words. To her surprise, it takes Rachel more than a week to obtain all the data and organize these lists, and now she wishes she had started working on this during the last week of school. DON’T let your tutor or your teacher or your parents take over your essay. The resulting essay will not reflect you and thus will not accomplish its goal, no matter how “good” it seems to be. DON’T be pretentious or overly formal â€"this is not the time to play the role of Albert Einstein or Mother Teresa if that’s not who you are. University of Mary Washington (EA Nov. 15) CA main essay. For lots more information on applying to college, see the links on the next page. is a published poet and a high school English teacher. She has a BA in English from Skidmore College and an MFA from the Warren Wilson Program for Writers, where she studied poetry. We are defined as individuals largely through relationships and experiences with others. DO write about something about which you feel strongly. If you write on a topic in which you have little interest or knowledge, your lack of sincerity and enthusiasm will show. Essay writing tips adapted from Kelly Tanabe’s “Four Steps to Writing a Winning Admissions Essay, Part I”. You don’t have to make changes based on everyone’s comments, but give them all some careful thought and try to imagine how the essay would look if you made each change. An introduction like this is colorful and intriguing. It gives the reader a sense of expectation and excitement, without giving too much away from the beginning. See how eliminating extra words actually makes your point stronger? Eliminatingprepositionsis a great, easy way to tighten your writing. Start with a creative lead.Capture the readers’ interestin the first two sentences. Describe a time when you made a meaningful contribution to others in which the greater good was your focus. Tell a story from your life, describing an experience that either demonstrates your character or helped to shape it. Resist the temptation to portray yourself as a saint with a 4.0â€"you’re better off presenting the real you. DO be yourself â€" your essay should sound as if it could have been written by no one else. Before earning her graduate degree, she attended the New York Summer Writers Institute, The Breadloaf Writers Conference, and the Five Powers of Poetry Conference for Teachers. We’ll make sure you get the right guidance at the right time. Students use their grades and test scores to select where they apply. That means every college has a pool of applicants with similar grades and test scores.