College Essays

College Essays Too much feedback will give you a lot of contradicting opinions while too little feedback could miss some glaring problems if that person isn’t experienced in college essay writing. A good number of people to get feedback from is about three or four different people. These should be people who know you well and have experience with personal writing. These essays are usually for some of your top choice schools, so make sure to spend a lot of time polishing these essays and getting feedback, similar to your Common App personal statement process. Many of these essays will also be reused for other prompts later on. This is a really important decision for your application. You might want to plan to do one pre-writing essay, wait a few days, and then do another pre-writing exercise. As mentioned in step 2, writing a college essay takes time, but with enough pre-planning the actual essay writing will be easier. The importance of college essays has increased in the past few years. To add physical description to your story, slow the action down and write about what actions you were taking in that moment. I truly love helping high school seniors find the perfect topic for their college essays and then guiding them through the process of writing it with honesty, voice, and style. Writing your college essay can be a daunting task. These 650 words or less â€" your personal statement to colleges â€" will be one of the most important pieces of writing you’ve done in your life up until this point. You definitely want to prioritize the remainder of your applications here. Twenty-six percent of college admission offices consider the college entrance exam is of “considerable importance” in the admission process . Some colleges weigh essays higher than other parts of the application. Procrastination + the unfounded belief that you’ll definitely get into Penn for Early Decision is a recipe for disaster. If you’re applying to all the Ivies, the two weeks in December after early results come out is not enough time to effectively work on your regular decision application essays. Getting your early application essay work done this early helps you to space out all the regular decision application work later on. Your top priority schools should be worked on first so that you have more time to work on/perfect them. If you have a long college list, you have a lot more work to do and you can easily fall victim to overconfidence. This should be the first busy month for essay writing. The summer is the best time to get essay drafts done, and most students have this entire month off from school. If you can decide on which schools you’ll be applying to early, it’ll be easier to know how much work you have to finish before the Nov. 1st deadlines. The only thing holding applicants back from REALLY putting the pedal to the metal is the fact that many schools don’t release their updated essay prompts until August. While Stanford is the exception to the rule â€" many top colleges will just require one or two longer essays â€" it doesn’t diminish the effort needed to effectively apply to these schools. However, the essay is not the most important part of your application when you are applying for college. Your overall Grade Point Average , college preparation, test results, and the strength of the high school curriculum all outweigh the essay . However, teacher recommendations and extracurricular activities rank below the college essay . Therefore, it is extremely important to submit a well-written college entrance essay. Physical Description makes your essay more authentic and increases the chances that an admissions officer will remember your story after a long day of reading 100 different college applications. As a result, it’s imperative that rising juniors get a head start on their college essay brainstorming, writing, and editing. You need to end your application essay just as strongly as you began, so the committee remembers you when it comes time to make their final decision. When there are only a few spots left in the class, you want to be the one they choose. If your essay is forgettable, well, you might be too. Your personal statement essay is the face of your application and one of the only ways to show your personality. Make sure to get feedback from not too many and not too few people.