10 Topics To Avoid In A College Admission Essay

10 Topics To Avoid In A College Admission Essay If you can tell a story in response to the prompt or question, do so. Telling a story will be much more engaging or interesting than just listing a bunch of reasons why you want to go to college. Admissions officers are often looking for students who can engage their audience, and the more interesting your essay is, the more an admissions officer will want to read it. DO talk about what you plan to contribute to the school, and why you are the perfect candidate for it! DON’T send it off without having someone else read it first! I read and review essays for a living and my students tell me the insight is invaluable. Do tell a great story that communicates some unique qualities you offer a college. Do tell a specific story that grabs the reader’s attention. Don’t push to use fancier language or longer sentences than you normally would. Use the simplest word you need to get a point acrossâ€"every time. Sell yourself as you really are, so that reading your writing and having a conversation with you both feel like meeting the same person. The genuine article onlyâ€"everything is significant when it comes to telling your own story. DON’T try to sound “academic” or give the “what they want to hear.” DO write what only you can write. (“I am… I was… I have been…”) DO use active, interesting details. DON’T just talk about why the school is a good fit for you. If you use a thesaurus to find words rather than trust the words you know and use every day, you will not sound like yourself. What’s more, you might use a few big words incorrectly, which will never impress an admissions officer. Colleges are not looking for the next Ernest Hemingway or Toni Morrison. You will sound smart when you use your own words and your own voice to tell a genuine story that shows who you are. It doesn’t matter where you’ve been or what you’ve seen, and this is not a time where a reader is judging your list of achievements. The most important factor of your college admissions essay is that you’re writing about what’s truly important to you. Have confidence in your own choicesâ€"what music is special to you, the authors you most value, the activities you participate in. Your enthusiasm for wood carving, slam poetry, Coen Brothers movies, or whatever, is what will jump off the page. Get too much help.There is a fine line between asking someone you trust to review your essay and getting too much help. When your mom, dad, teacher or tutor starts giving you words to use or edits too much, your voice disappears. Word order means more than word choiceâ€"you need to check, double-check, sit for a while and check again to make sure your admissions essay is as polished as possible. Basic grammar is really, really, important; it won’t get you into a school on its own, but without it, you could cost yourself a spot. Making sure you have the right punctuation in the right place and using active voice over passive is vital. That said, make sure your good grammar doesn’t keep the essay from sounding like you. 2) Make sure you know what you want the college to know about you before you decide what story to tell. Read the prompt before, during and after you write your draft, then ask someone else to tell you whether or not you responded to it. This mistake shows that you don’t care enough to proofread your application. Admissions committees might forgive a typo, but they don’t like to hear that you wish you were going to school somewhere else. There aren’t too many things you can do to ensure rejection, but plagiarism, also known as cheating, is one of them. Don’t focus on a negative event or a struggle without spending more time on what you learned or gain from it? Don’t write about a person without spending 2/3 of the essay focusing on how that person shaped youâ€"specifically. Each essay should focus on different qualities and events, and should help you become 3-D for the admissions officers.