High school seniors: You’re finally seeing the light at the end of the college prep tunnel, but the application essay is still hanging over your head...
Cheer up! While it would be great to have the essay done, the fact is, you are suddenly in a different phase of your life in the fall of your senior year, and your perspective may have changed a lot since July or August. And sometimes the pressure of impending deadlines actually help you buckle down and do your best work.
Here are some tips to help you get going.
- Brainstorm freely. Jot ideas about your best traits, your most meaningful experiences – both academic and otherwise – an important influence in your life, what’s key about you that isn’t represented otherwise in your school grades and test scores.
- Write freely for ten minutes each on 2-3 of your favorite ideas. Review what you've written and then write more on whichever one most excites you. If none do, then brainstorm again.
- Once you've got a great personal topic, let the words and ideas flow. Don't worry about organization or length, grammar or style. Just let yourself go so that you can bring those ideas to life.
- Think small! If your theme is perservence and you want to write about your experiences on the hockey team, bypass the usual "big game" narrative and focus instead more narrowly, for example on your relationship with your teammates, one big play in slow motion, or what your team jersey represents to you.
- Start to organize your essay, keeping clearly numbered copies of each draft. As you edit and refine, you may also lose some of your earlier spontaneity, so you want to be able to go back to review and renew.
- Review your final draft for cohesion, flow, spelling, grammar and typos. Run it by your parents, a teacher and a friend for comments. If you are feeling burnt out, let it rest for a few days and then tackle your final edit.
Need more? Here are some great resources for brainstorming and writing your college essay:
Books:
"On Writing the College Application Essay" by Harry Bauld
"The College Application Essay" by Sarah Myers McGinty
"Writing a Successful College Application Essay" by George Ehrenhaft
College advisors in New York who specialize in essay consulting:
Debra Resnicoff, Sundial Academic Success
Elizabeth Wissner-Gross, EducationalStrategy.org
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