Applying for Success
A 2022 Common Application report stated that college admissions applications had risen by over 21% for the 2019-2020 and 2021-2022 school years. If you or your child are planning to apply to colleges this means that you’re facing a whole lot of competition. An excellent college application package includes many things, including your test scores, grades, summary of volunteer work and extra-curricular activities, and anything that may be relevant to a particular university. Today, as test scores have become a less important metric for many college admissions offices, the application essay, or personal essay, has become even more important. Therefore, writing an engaging and relevant essay is vital for admission to your school of choice.
In this blog, we’ll go through the process of writing a compelling personal essay, beginning with understanding the prompt. After that, we’ll look at the structure of a good essay and all of the details that many people forget, including how to tell the story, the proper tone to use, and common pitfalls to avoid. Once you’ve read this, you’ll have the tools and knowledge to overcome this stressful yet most important of all college traditions and begin your quest to get into your dream college!
Understanding the Prompt
Before you do anything, you need to understand what you’re writing about. Chances are your application will go through the Common Application (Common App) system, which has 1,000 member universities across the United States. Common App has released the seven essay prompts that it is using for the 2024-2025 school year, so it will help to familiarize yourself with them.
As you can see by looking at the prompts, many of them relate to a specific time, person, or circumstance in your life that has helped mold you into the person you are today. Once you pick a prompt, it’s important for you to identify the key themes and questions. So, for the sake of argument, let’s consider prompt #3 as an example:
“Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?”
For this prompt, the first key theme is “challenging some of your core beliefs.” Other themes are how challenging those core beliefs brought about personal evolution. These key themes can be worded in the form of questions, but we’ll get to that a bit later. But now that we’ve decided on a prompt and identified some of its key concepts let’s think of a topic to go with the prompt.
Chances are, you’ll pick a particular prompt because you already have a story to go along with it, but you still have to do some brainstorming to determine how you’ll fit this narrative into an essay that will usually be 500 to 600 words. So, for our hypothetical example, let’s say that we’ve chosen the above prompt, so the first thing to do is to think of a time when you questioned or challenged a belief. It’s okay to be a little controversial here, but also remember that your audience is in college admissions, so you don’t want to go too far and alienate them. After some thought, I decided that I’m going to write about how my steadfast atheism was challenged by a close friend who encouraged me to visit many different types of churches, mosques, and temples. This is a good topic because it will give me the opportunity to showcase some of my strengths, namely my open-mindedness and thirst for knowledge and understanding. As I write the outline of my essay and then later do the actual writing, I will always keep those strengths in mind.
Crafting a Compelling Narrative
Whichever prompt you choose, remember that the point of this essay is to show a personal side of yourself to the reader. Therefore, personalize your essay as much as possible in order to stress how your story, and you personally, are unique. Remember, a good college application essay sets you apart from the hundreds or even thousands of other applicants. With that in mind, let’s look at how to structure your essay and the voice you should use when you start writing.
Once you’ve chosen a prompt and developed the narrative in your mind a bit, you can start writing your outline. A good college application essay follows the same basic structure as most other types of essays but with a few notable differences. Your essay should have an introduction paragraph, a body that consists of one or two paragraphs that support your thesis, and a conclusion paragraph.
Although this is not an expository essay, it helps to use a thesis. So, let’s go back to the example I used earlier. For this example, my thesis could be something like this: “I always thought of myself as an atheist until a friend challenged me to visit some local places of worship. I was hesitant to do so at first, but once I did, my entire outlook on life changed for the better.” Then, in the next two paragraphs, I will relate this journey, culminating with how I discovered there is a God and that since that time, I’ve volunteered in my community. Finally, in the conclusion paragraph, I will summarize everything. I’ll go into more detail about each part of the essay in the next section, but now, let’s consider the voice you should use.
By voice I don’t mean your physical voice, but how you’re expressing your ideas in the essay. For a good college application essay, it helps to use specific examples instead of just facts. Facts are good, but this is about you and your background, so the examples you relate to should be detailed and done in a way to reveal your personality. It may help to look at this as though you’re showing, not telling, the reader about your life.
Writing the Introduction
College admissions workers will often say that the key to a good personal essay is writing a good introduction, and the key to a good introduction is writing a good hook. A hook is an attention-grabbing sentence, usually the first one in the essay. A hook can be thoughtful, humorous, insightful, or a combination. Let’s go back to our example and write a sample hook. “You can’t believe in something you don’t see, right? This was my attitude toward God until about six months ago when a friend invited me on an incredible journey.” Then, after this insightful hook, I’ll briefly discuss why this is important before stating my thesis. As you write your intro paragraph, it’s important to be conscious of your tone.
You set the tone for your essay in the introduction paragraph and often in your hook. Let’s say that you’ve decided to write your essay about how you’ve bonded with your stepdad over dad jokes, and in the process, you’ve realized just how important family is. This essay would take a humorous yet uplifting tone. The example I’ve used about finding God should have a more inspirational, insightful, and thoughtful. Whatever tone you use, make sure it’s appropriate. You should also maintain a positive tone throughout your essay and avoid dark themes. If you want to write about how loss or struggles have affected you, always bring things back to a positive place.
Developing the Body
Now, we segue into the main body of your essay, which will be one to two paragraphs, depending on the required word count. As with any other essay, this will be where you develop your ideas that support your argument. So, let’s refer back to our example for a clearer illustration. In these paragraphs, I’ll describe in detail how I didn’t believe in God when I met this friend who suggested that I attend some religious services with her. Because this essay is about a transformation or evolution, I will write about how I was a stubborn atheist for a sentence or two before mentioning that I always thought of myself as open-minded and decided to give it a try. Over the next several sentences, and into the second paragraph of the body, if there is one, I’ll write about how I attended different places of worship and what I thought and felt. Again, it’s important to set the tone and give details, so I’ll describe what I saw, heard, and even smelled when I went to these places and how that related to my evolution.
As you write the body of your essay, it’s important to maintain a logical flow throughout. For our example, describing things in a chronological sequence helps, and it will probably be the case for whatever prompt you choose. Jumping around from event to event with no consideration of the sequence in which they took place will confuse your readers. It’s also important to write a transition sentence at the end of the paragraph(s) of your body and start each paragraph(s) with a topic sentence.
I can’t stress enough that you should always incorporate your personal insights into your essay. In addition to describing in detail the events – in this case, visiting several places of worship – you should also reflect on what you learned from these experiences.
Concluding Effectively
The conclusion paragraph of a good college essay is just as important as the other paragraphs, if not more important. This is your last shot to impress the reader and showcase your unique personality and qualities. Yes, the conclusion paragraph should restate your argument/thesis and summarize the major points of your essay, but it should also be memorable and leave the reader feeling good about accepting you to their college.
It helps to leave the reader with a positive and inspirational statement. For the example I’ve been using, this could be a good summary statement.
“Today, I may not know the specifics of God, or even what religion I am necessarily, but I do know that God exists in the world and in all of us. Because of that realization, I’ve grown closer with my family, friends, and community and now volunteer at a number of places in my city.”
Of course, your conclusion will be different, but it’s important to keep things positive and to end on a memorable note. Don’t get too carried away, and remember that the first draft won’t be your final draft, so you can definitely change some things if need be.
Editing and Proofreading
Even expert essay writers with years of experience in the field produce multiple drafts before submission, so you should plan to do the same. If you sit down and look at your first draft and think, “Man, this is not good!” don’t worry; it’s only the first draft.
Ideally, you will have started the process with plenty of time to spare, so set the paper aside for at least a day or two before you come back and proofread it. You’ll probably see the paper in a different light and be able to spot typos and awkward wording if you do this. When you do sit down to proofread your work, focus on the grammar and diction errors in the first round. After you’ve ironed out the mechanical errors, you can tweak any content or flow accordingly. Next, you can let teachers, peers, or family have a look at it.
I would suggest letting someone who’s been through the process successfully look at your essay. So, if you know anyone who successfully got into their dream school, see if they’ll look at it. After that, I would suggest teachers and let other high school friends look at it only last. I would also suggest having the other readers use the “track changes” function, or something similar, on whatever word processing program they use to leave comments. You may even find it helpful to go “old school” and give a hard copy of your essay to other readers and tell them to mark it with a red pen. Once you get the essay back from the reader(s), you can make your final revisions and submit it.
Common Pitfalls to Avoid
As you’re editing your essay, be aware of these common pitfalls that many essay writers fall into. First and most important, you want to pick a topic that is unique and special to you. Avoid using cliches and overused topics. Stay away from broad topics about politics, for example, unless it directly concerns your story.
It’s also important to strike the right balance between confidence and humility. It’s good to be confident, but there’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance or boasting. Readers won’t like a self-righteous, sanctimonious tone, so remember to be empathetic and establish a connection with the reader.
Finally, don’t stray from the prompt! This is a problem that many young writers have because they’re eager to share all of their experiences, no matter if they are related to the story at hand. Keep things simple and straightforward by keeping your narrative focused on the prompt at hand and the story you write that goes with it.
Relax and Have Fun!
Now that you know what a college admissions essay is and how to write one, you’re halfway to success. You only need to sit down and start practicing by doing some dry runs with the Common App prompts. Focus on the ones that you like and where you can exhibit your unique personality best. I guarantee that once you start writing you’ll find that the process isn’t as difficult as you may have thought.
So, start writing and share your thoughts and ideas with some of your friends. Check out some message boards where others have shared their college admissions essay writing experiences, and in turn, you can share your experiences with others. Don’t be shy to ask for help, but remember to relax, stay positive, and have fun while you’re writing because that will all come out in your final product!
