Advice On College Essay

Advice On College Essay The goal is to narrate this event or situation in a way that the reader can fully experience and understand. This type of writing generally incorporates both narrative and descriptive writing, which are two of the main modes of writing. But sometimes students misinterpret this to mean â€" “tell me about a totally unique experience” â€" and they get totally stressed out because they don’t feel that they have any unique experiences. Telling a story “only you can tell” means that you tell the reader a story from your perspective. These are the qualities of successful college students, who will be able to navigate the independence college classes require and the responsibility and quasi-adulthood of college life. A personal essay is a broad essay that often incorporates a variety of writing styles. Most personal essay assignments ask writers to write about an important person, event or time period in their life. Now parents â€" you all know the difference between fixing typographical errors and making massive substantive changes to your child’s essay, right? Remember â€" the admissions officers read thousands of essays every admissions season, and they can spot an overly polished essay a mile away. So â€" yes â€" it’s fine to take a quick read to look for spelling errors, but it’s not fine to write your child’s essay for him or her. I have seen too many essays where parents “helped” and as result, the essay lost the student’s voice. You don’t have to pull out all the stops to impress the reader, you just have to be authentic and creative. There should be no mention of how miraculous your life is and how profound you can be. A great college essay gives the reader a glimpse of the person behind the page. Lots of counselors tell students to “tell a story only you can tell,” and I definitely agree with that. But, if you feel like you don’t have anything to say, start here. Imagine an admissions counselor reading that in your college essay. While it seems like an interesting story, the excerpt above is a complete lie. The reader should never think about fact checking what you’ve written. Your essay should be genuine and based on fact, not fiction. One way to do that is to work step-by-step, piece-by-piece. The end result should be a carefully designed, insightful essay that makes you proud. Take advantage of being able to share something with an audience who knows nothing about you and is excited to learn what you have to offer. Just be sure that it still reads like it was written by a 17 year old and it shares the story that is important to them and not just an important sounding topic that a parent thinks would be more impressive . When it comes to the college essay, admissions committees have seen it all. The worst thing you can do is make up a story for your college essay. You are good enough the way you are, and there is definitely a topic out there that you can write about without having to lie. You don’t even need to tell a slightly exaggerated story. Interested in learning more about college essays? This connection of past experience to current maturity and self-knowledge is a key element in all successful personal essays. Colleges are very much looking for mature, self-aware applicants. One of the most common struggles students encounter is resisting the urge to squeeze everything they’ve seen, done, and heard into their essay. But your application essay isn’t your life story in 650 words. Instead, pick one moment in time and focus on telling the story behind it. Too many words had been added that just did not reflect the student’s vocabulary or mode of writing. College admissions readers are bright and intuitive and can tell when an essay has been “helped” too much. I see no problem with parents doing a grammar/spelling check as well as offering suggestions on how an essay could be improved.