My College Options

My College Options A person they like and remember through the college essay is most likely to be selected. I won’t know exactly when I’ll snap out of my idiotic insensitivity, but at some point I’ll learn the difference between flat tires and gas showers. They say the brain matures at 24, but even after 24, it will be a slow progression from self-centered kid to empathetic adult. It will take a combination of reading stories about survival â€" Nightand The Diary of Anne Frank â€" and growing up. I’ll travel; I’ll teaching memoir writing and I’ll hear stories including ones by students living in a homeless shelter. Don’t procrastinate on this part of your application. Once you zero in on your topic, it’s time to organize your ideas. Besides, trying to get all the members on the same page is a lot like herding cats. For those on a tight budget, families can purchase the hyperspeed application review, which costs $1,000 for two to three hours of work. The college essay is an important vehicle for telling the admissions committee about yourself, but the academic factors are far more important, even if the essay is worthy of a Pulitzer. The author of this post, Kim Lifton, is president of Wow Writing Workshop, based in Huntington Woods in Michigan. Her strategic communication and writing services company is a leading expert on the college application essay. There all kinds of ways to write a college essay and there is no perfect form as long as your piece is engaging, logical, revealing … and answers the prompt. These FAQs about the college application essay should help you tell your story with an end goal of making a good impression on a college admissions officer. I was supposed to believe this typical high school senior, who had inhabited this planet for a slight 17 years, chose to use the word “henceforth.” Mikey was a good kid. The examples, tips, topics and prompts outlined above should help you rock your college application essay. And hopefully, this is an illuminating part of the process, one that not only helps you get into the college of your choice, but one that also helps prepare you for success once you get there. Putting your ideas into the right words may take time. Surprisingly, some applicants never care to ask this question, and they write essays that don’t enhance their applications. Yes, the essay is an important part of your application. But remember it is still a part of your application. In brainstorming about what topic to write about for your Common Application essay, look at what you intend to present in the rest of your application and think about overarching traits that can represent you. Do not allow your essays to descend into an impenetrable bulk of buzzwords and banality. This is best described in How to Write a Great Statement of Purpose, by Vince Gotera of the University of Northern Iowa, which was my guide to writing my essays when I applied to graduate school. The college essay provides a good opportunity to leave a long-lasting impression on the reader, apart from the interview and an efficient way to let the people in the admission know you closely. I attribute a lot of my successes to how my application as a whole, not just the essays, constructs a story about who I am and what I’ve done. David Nathan is a high school English teacher and Nick Accrocco is a college counselor who have collaborated on a book about college admissions. In order to write a great college essay, you don't need a committee. As you know, each college has average requirements for admission. Admissions teams review your GPA, the difficulty of the courses you took, and your standardized test scores, which is data that can be graphed. This information will show them how your scores compare to their average requirements and with other students who are applying to their school or program. I’ll realize how people struggle and suffer and that all these years later I still have no idea what it feels like to be a minority. The moral to the college essay is that there need not be a moral. You are writing a personal narrative, not a parable, so don’t feel compelled to conclude with a lesson learned or a happy ending. Regardless of the topic about which you choose to write, be sure the essay reveals more about you than the other characters or places in the story. The paradox of the overzealous editing of the college essay by many helicopter parents is that they don’t know what a college essay is really about. Unlike the other parts of the application, where high grade point averages and SAT scores reign supreme, the essay is less about being impressive than it is about being authentic. It was right there in the last sentence of the first paragraph of Mikey’s college essay.