OVERCOMING ‘PAGE FRIGHT’!
WRITING YOUR COLLEGE ESSAY

Your college application form is a vital tool for entry into the college of your choice. While your grades, recommendations and test scores show admissions officers what you have done, your college essay describes who you are.

Although the admissions committee will not accept or reject you on the basis of your essay, it can make you stand out from the crowd. You must make sure you do it well.

STEP 1: On Your Marks

STEP 2: Get Set

STEP 3: GO!

STEP 1: On Your Marks

Before you start writing, think about how you would answer the question "Who are you?"

How well do you know yourself? Do you know what you want? Do you know what your dreams are? A test score says nothing about your character, your likes or your dislikes but the essay will tell the reader more about you as a person.

As the essay is the only place an admissions office can get the measure of your individuality, this is not the time to be cautious about expressing your opinions. What makes your essay stand out is a strong point of view and a sense that you are a real person. The person reading your application will not be impressed if they feel you are only trying to tell them what you think they want to hear.

Great college application essays are important for a number of reasons. They portray you as an authentic person, someone who is unique and worth having at that college. They help college admissions officers determine how well you are suited to college life in general and how well suited you would be to their college in particular. If you can write your essay so it conveys a self-motivated, honest, enthusiastic attitude, you will definitely improve your chances of being accepted.

The essay question may be direct and ask you to choose something about yourself to discuss, or it may be indirect and ask you about something such as an event or a book. The admissions office will learn about you through the choices you make.

• Preferences – personality assessments and tests use preferences to draw conclusions about character and personality. Generally a person who likes to talk to dolphins has a different personality to the person who likes to collect war memorabilia.
• Values – making choices reflect value judgements. Spending $20 a week on a manicure might say something different about your values than the person who volunteers at the homeless shelter. You might do both. This will also say something about you.
• Thought processes – Are you methodical? Whimsical? Impulsive, Analytical? Pessimistic? Optimistic? Questions and choices that will reflect your thinking style, level of intelligence, insight and how carefully you have considered the question and how seriously you undertook the task of answering it.

STEP 2: Get Set

Colleges may request one essay or a combination of essays and short-answer themes to learn more about what kind of person you are and how well you can communicate your thoughts. Generally essays fall into four categories:

1. Tell us about yourself; this is the most common topic. Beware of making a chronological list of events because that is just dull reading. If you are going to write about a negative experience, for example, a death, divorce, illness, remember to also accentuate the positive. Emphasize what you learned from the experience, and how coping with adversity has strengthened you. Here’s a couple of ideas: describe an accomplishment that you had to struggle to achieve or alternatively describe ‘regular’ people who have motivated you or have made a really strong impression in your life - say how they made you the person you are now.
2. Tell us about an academic or extracurricular interest. Choose a school activity, a job, community service, travel. Choose your favorite book, play, sport, movie. Describe what it has added to your life but keep focused and specific. A broad area may be too extensive and therefore, too general.
3. Tell us why you want to come to our college; some schools ask for an essay about your choice of school or a particular career. Not only do they want to know about your educational direction, they also want to get an idea of how much you know about them, what research you’ve put into your choice process and how serious your commitment is to their school. Don’t try to flatter the person reading your essay, show a solid knowledge of the school and know your subject thoroughly. Be matter-of-fact and focused. Name names, course offerings, professors, and facilities. Make a connection between you and the college of your choice.
4. Show us the imaginative side of your personality; the college will use this creative outlet to evaluate you through your choice of topic: a national issue, a famous person, the contents of your purse, lunch with Renoir or dinner with Nietzsche. From this, the college may find out what you read, how imaginative you are and how thoughtful you are. Don’t forget that your essay needs substance. And don’t get your facts wrong. Don’t have lunch with Renoir and discuss his famous painting ‘Mona Lisa’ with him.

Vulgarity in your essay is definitely not a good idea and eccentricity can be dangerous. However, it is worth taking a calculated risk as admissions personnel don’t like ‘safe’ essays. Don’t try to write what you think they may want to hear, it will just sound insincere and unsubstantial.

The writing itself reflects your power of persuasion, organizational abilities, style, and mastery of standard written English. The essay is worth your serious attention so give it all you’ve got.

STEP 3: Go!

Are you ready to start writing? Ok. Now just relax about the first draft. Give it some thought but don’t worry about logic, grammar, spelling as all this can be sorted out later. Don’t forget you are already an expert at writing essays. After all, you’ve spent the last 12 years writing them!

• Start by brainstorming. Write down anything that pops into your mind, then look for good connectable ideas. Try to find a theme amongst your ideas.

• Choose your subject. You? Your values? Your thoughts? These will all become one as your essay develops.

• Write a draft. Try to write: an introduction, a main body of work, and a summary. Keep your style simple and flowing. Some people benefit from leaving their draft copy alone for a few hours. Unfortunately it won’t rewrite itself, but next time you look at it, you can view it more objectively.

• Revise the draft. Read your essay aloud. How does it sound? Is it coherent and logical? Does the grammar make it easy to read or are you stumbling over your words. Correct your mistakes, add more detail, remove repetitive phrases and rewrite any sentences you are not happy with.

• Final draft. Proofread the final copy. Better still, ask someone else to proofread because it’s more difficult to spot your own mistakes. Ask yourself "Is this what I wanted to say?" Are you being specific, detailed and vivid? Ask a teacher to read it and pay attention to their comments.

USEFUL TIP: Unless the institution requests a handwritten essay, you should definitely consider typing it. Handwritten essays may seem more personal but a well-typed paper is easier to read.

Here are a few more helpful guidelines:

• Because this is a personal essay the rules for writing academic essays don’t apply quite so strictly here. You can use ‘I’ and you can use a little humor (but don’t try to be Tom Green).
• Try not to be James Joyce. You did not enter this tempestuous world, kicking and screaming, one moonlit night in the early 1980s. You were born November 14, 1982. Eschew ostentatious erudition.
• Don’t enclose chocolate-chip cookies, flowers, balloons, videos, love-letters, or invitations to dinner. Don’t write your whole essay backwards, in red ink, or purple ink, draw cartoon characters on it, or write ‘Britney Spears rocks my boat’ in the margin.
• Avoid cliches like the plague
• Don’t use no double negatives
• Verbs has got to agree with their subjects
• Don’t use commas, which aren’t necessary
• Don’t rely on your spelling checker to be 100 percent accurate because:

Eye halve a spelling chequer

It came with my pea sea

It plainly marques four my revue

Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word

And weight four it two say

Weather eye am wrong or write

It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid

It nose bee fore two long

And eye can put the error rite

Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it

I am shore your pleased two no

Its letter perfect in it’s weigh

My chequer tolled me sew.

-- Sauce unknown (from collegeboard.org)

And finally……

Before you send anything ask yourself these questions:

If you’re applying electronically, did you type carefully and check your spelling?

Did you take shortcuts? A partially completed application form clearly indicates that you are not interested.

Did you send too much information? If the college asks for a two page essay, don’t send four. If they ask for two letters of recommendation, don’t send five.

Did you send everything they asked for? Transcripts, test scores, letters of recommendation? Don’t forget anything.

Last but not least – Did you meet the deadline?

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