How To Write The Best College Admission Essay

How To Write The Best College Admission Essay Rick Clark is the Director of Undergraduate Admission at Georgia Tech. In this role, he directs the Institute’s recruitment and enrollment efforts, manages the review and selection of all undergraduate applications, and leads the admission team. Under his leadership, the Institute has dramatically increased brand awareness, improved overall academic class profile, and exceeded goals for geographic, gender and ethnic diversity. Knowing the topic won’t differentiate you, it has to be something else, right? And like the list of extra-curricular activities, it needs to be clear in the first sentence or two. I know many readers who read the first and last paragraphs and only go back if those are compelling. Otherwise, it’s a dime a dozen and the ratings are accordingly average. My point is that your energy should not be spent on selecting the topic. Once you figure out which question you want to answer, meaning you really have something to say or you’re somewhat excited to respond, start writing. Choosing something you’ve experienced will also give you the vivid and specific details needed in your essay. Admissions committees are looking for an in-depth essay. Cover too many topics in your essay, and you’ll end up with a list. Some college advisors, such as The College Essay Guy and Essay Hell post winners. You are creating a guideline of ideas and topics to choose from that are uniquely tied to your life. If you’re having trouble organizing your piece, try talking it out with someone, writing it a few sentences, creating it as an infographic or even a graphic novel - whatever helps you see it. Then, try writing it in a more traditional format. That might be a good form for you if, for example, you were trying to convince a school that your summer job working on a landscaping team taught you a lot about chemistry, your chosen major. My poem told my story, beginning with rosy-cheeked five-year-old me landing in America on a snowy night and rubbing my eyes in awe of the whiteness covering the new world. Then, as an excited six-year-old starting school, I became self-conscious of how different I was when an intrepid boy welcomed me, “Ni Hao,” his butchered pronunciation tinged with contempt. When I was eleven and received a 100 on a math test, my pride and hard work were stomped on by my classmates exclaiming, “It’s because you’re Asian! ” At thirteen, I was caught between my Peranakan roots and American upbringing, unable to understand the idea of being both Asian and American. If it’s your story, your ideas, your thoughts and actions, you won’t be at risk of plagiarizing. Once your essay is complete, a plagiarism checker like this one from Grammarly just to make sure you were paying attention. The idea I settled on was my Asian-American identity, but how I wrote about this broad idea really evolved through my drafts. I chose to write about it because it was so integral to my identity through my extracurriculars and my experiences growing up as an Asian immigrant in the American South. Beyond the hook, you will want a successful thesis statement that you work into your introduction to establish your main idea which will run throughout the essay. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a M.Ed. Prior to coming to Tech, Rick was on the admissions staff at Georgia State, The McCallie School and Wake Forest University. “It allowed me to understand the student on a wholly different level,” she said. Cabrini University is a Catholic, liberal-arts university dedicated to academic excellence, leadership development, and a commitment to social justice. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to make the essay personal. After a decade of living in America, I don’t understand why I’m still a foreigner. To check out her drafts and writing notes, click here. You could “draw” your essay as an infographic or word map or even as a graphic novel. Do what you need to do to imagine the story in your own head. Then, you can start translating it into a more polished form. From my 30-year career in higher education, I’ve compiled these tips to share with your student. On one area, however, Sklarow agreed with the essay coaches -- there is a great danger of all the problems with essay coaches taking place with parents and family friends. For example, the word “completed” has many good synonyms including “concluded” and “ended.” However, don’t use words that are super fancy either, just for the sake of using them. It’s best to write in your own voice and be conversational. Avoid using slang, scientific phrases, uncommon foreign phrases, other hard-to-decipher language and profanity. If you speak from the heart, it will show, and your essay will flow more easily.