How to write the college admission essay

[I_teach_writing]

It's application season again. I spend hours coaching writers through application essays, and I thought I would pen a short piece to get you started. This is generic advice that will work best for essays for undergraduate college admissions. But to a limited extent it will help for law school, med school, grad school, etc.

The essay is probably not as important as you feel it is. Things like GPA, SATs & ACTs, and the courses you have taken in high school matter much more than the admission essay. But by the time you sit down to write the essay, it is the only thing you have control over, and that can make it feel important.

That being said, the essay is important, and not because it will get you into a school: A good essay won’t necessarily get you into a school, **but a poorly written essay will give them an excuse to keep you out.** Plan on spending a good deal of time with this piece of writing.

Warning: The admission essay is an ill-defined genre, and what works for some schools will not work for others. You should seek the advice of a number of people. And get as much feedback as you can from as many people as you can.




Here are some general guidelines about content and style:

1) Revise. Revise. Revise. Don’t be afraid to write the entire thing over three, four, or five times. I did. And it got me into one of the best English PhD programs in the country.

2) When in doubt, write with a professional tone. Humor is good. Too much humor makes you look like a clown. How do you check to see what “tone” you are writing in? When you have finished the essay, ask yourself the following question: if my essay were wearing clothes, what clothes would it be wearing? If you answer a business suit, or a shirt and tie, you’ve hit gin! If your essay is wearing clown shoes, consider revising.

3) Write concretely with nouns and verbs, not adjectives and adverbs. Consider the following:

A) I am a hard worker and a responsible student. <-- bad

B) Each day after school, I left soccer practice to go and flip burgers to save for college. <--better


4) Don’t make any stupid generalizations about: 1) members of the opposite sex 2) minorities 3) poor people. In fact if you find yourself making a big generalization about society at all, delete it.

5) Almost any topic can be a good topic, as long as it is not frivolous and you take it seriously. Approach hot political topics at your own peril, and don’t write about the girlfriend or boyfriend who broke your heart.

6) It takes a long, long time for colleges to read over admissions essays. An admissions officer may have seen 50+ that day before they get to yours. You may consider making it skimmable and putting the important information in the first sentence of every paragraph.




Here are some pointers about the form of the essay:

1) Stick to the word limit. Enough said.

2) Your grammar and mechanics should be perfect. Pay an editor if you must. Have five or six people read over the final copy.

3) Use the right words, not necessarily the big words. Writing to make yourself “sound smart” usually makes you look stupid. Use good, clear, precise language.

4) When you are almost done, go through the essay and chop 1 of every 10 words. It won’t make a difference to the meaning of the piece, and it will make your essay easier to read.



Remember that even professional writers don't get it right the first time. Plan on drafting it six or seven times, which means you can't start the week before. Get started. Good Luck.



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