If you graduate high school with a high GPA, you may have to write college essays while seeking admission to your preferred school. Many High school graduates freak out once it’s time to write one.
This article on Simple Steps to Write a College Essay is an essential guide and all you need to write an amazing college essay.
Basically, most Colleges in the US and Canada require applicants to write an essay about themselves and why they deserve a place in the college. Studies show that so many students are more verbally expressive and tend to jitter when it comes to writing.
Writing actually requires basic skills that can be learned through constant practice. There are tons of apps to help build your vocabulary and writing skills from high school. However, college essays should not scare you one bit.
While you can make efforts to write good college application essays, you should also know that college essays just need you to be expressive and, generally, write about yourself in clear simple terms.
If you wondering how? Take a quick glance at the table of content below to get a hint of the detailed guide you can benefit from while reading this article.
Table of contents
- What is a College Essay?
- How Long is Great College Essay?
- What is a Good College Essay Outline?
- How long Does it Take to Write a College Killer Essay?
- Tips on How to Write a College Admission Essay about Yourself
- Simple steps on How to Write a College Essay
- How to write a Great College Essay Introduction
- How to Write a good Personal statement Body of Essay
- How to write a College admission Essay Conclusion
- Writing about “Why this College?”
- College Essays Sample Questions
- Killer College Application Essays
- Conclusion
- References
- Recommendations
What is a College Essay?
A college essay is the same as a personal statement. In clear terms, it is an essay about yourself written to a college you intend to attend. The essence of this essay is basically to show the college admission committee who you are and why you deserve to be admitted into the college.
In summary, it’s your chance to show the school you are applying to who you are. To stand a chance, it is important you showcase your writing skills. Unlike your high school transcripts which may appear like codes,” college essays is an opportunity to communicate who you are to this institution.
Do Colleges Read Essays?
Although colleges receive tons of essays each year on different issues, everyone gets read. There’s a systematic process each college adopts to ensure each essay is read because a lot depends on the essay.
To get every essay read, the admission committeee nominates a group of professionals who walk through every essay with a standard process they have set. When an essay fails to meet up to their standard, they trash it.
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What Should be in a College Essay?
The essence of a college essay is to create a room for you to tell the admission committee about you. So, what should be in a college essay is “you”. In fact, everything interesting, captivating, and alluring about you should be in your college essay.
In simple terms, you should include the following in your college essay:
- Write an interesting essay about yourself
- Write about your High school exploits that portray you as a serious and committed student.
- Answer all questions asked by the school
How Long is Great College Essay?
Well, what makes a great personal statement is definitely not the length of the essay. Your content determines how great your application essay.
While the most widely used app by students while submitting college essays will recommend 650 words, there is no prove or indicate that more than that will be rejected.
It is also important to note that writing a million words doesn’t mean all would be read by the committee. Well, except you have the impending skills to hold the reader’s attention to the end.
Generally, there is no stipulated length for a Great College Essay. You should, however, stop when you have done justice to all questions asked. Some institutions indicate that your essay should not be less than 250 words. Hence, if you employ your good writing skills, 250 -1000 words should be enough to deliver a good college essay.
What is a Good College Essay Outline?
The smart thing to do before writing an essay for a college is to draw your outline. Your outline is like a masterpiece of what your essay should look like once completed. The essence is to guide you to know where and when to employ ideas.
Once you have selected a topic, draw up your outline. Basically, your outline will be a meaningful and trustworthy guide only if it answers all questions and tells a readable, coherent, and interesting story about you.
Generally, a good college essay should do the following in its outline:
The first thing to choose while developing an outline is a topic. Your topic is the main idea you wish to write about. Basically, it should reflect what a reader should expect while reading your content.
A college essay is not entirely an autobiography. Your topic should reflect your personal account of your life and an experience you wish to write. For instance, a great college essay topic could be “More than Thick Eyebrows- Caroline.
If you must sustain your reader’s interest, your introduction must be captivating. Your introduction must capture the Big Idea and why it is important to you.
Try to hold your reader spellbound to read further and understand why the fuse about this topic. Don’t worry, the samples below will aid you to comprehend what an introduction.
The body of the essay is divided in paragraphs which each paragraph dissecting a particular point. Actually, depending on how exhaustive the point is, you can divide it into sub points to make your work readable.
Basically, a great college essay outline should bear your points and its sub ideas. Organize in such way that with a glance on it you know which is coming first and which is coming later.
Your college application format should capture the body of your essay as a plot stating which you will unravel first and which follows after.
This is usually the last part of a great college essay. Simply summarize the main points and link your summary to the main points that made up the body of your essay. Finally, reiterate on the importance of the topic to you
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How long Does it Take to Write a College Killer Essay?
Well, how long it takes you to write a college killer essay is not important. What matters is that you write a killer college essay that gained you an admission.
First, you need to start writing your essay on time, good enough that you can write and re-write till you come up with an amazing piece. Generally, how long it takes you to write a good application college essay depends on your writing skill, the number of words, and the topic.
Basically, you should be writing about your personal experience so, the topic may not be too exhausting when it comes to research and knowing what to write about.
The number of words you are writing will also affect how long it takes you to write a college essay for applications. 250 words will definitely take lesser hours than 1000 words.
Apparently, the actual determinant on how long writing your personal statement for admission takes is your writing skill. This will determine how many seconds or minutes or even days it will take you to compress your idea into a simple and clear sentence.
If you need to improve your writing skills, there are tons of English classes online to aid you.
Tips on How to Write a College Admission Essay about Yourself
Remember you are the focus of your college admission essay. You should be writing about yourself and your intriguing experience. To write an amazing piece without drifting from you, follow the guideline below:
- Choose a topic that is quite important to you; it could be anything that has made a great impact on your life.
- Create a story your reader can relate to: One of the best writing skills is the descriptive writing skill. You should not only recount your experience, but you should also reflect it. Let your reader have imagination in response to descriptions.
- Keep it real: This means you should show some level of commitment to what you are writing. However, if you can make your reader giggle, you can hold them to read to the last. In a nutshell, you are not writing a comedy piece either are you writing a tragedy, just be real.
- Start Early: This will help you not mumble words in a piece of paper in twenty minutes to submit on time. It is okay to write and re-write your essay until you get an amazing piece to submit.
- Answer all Questions: Avoid writing one essay for different colleges with just little changes made to the name probably. Each easy must answer specific questions from the school to be relevant.
- Read and Edit your work: You don’t want to submit a college personal statement that portrays you as a lazy writer. Do read your work a number of times and make corrections, re-phrase sentences, and come up with your best expressions. Also, get a friend or two to re-edit your piece before submission.
Simple steps on How to Write a College Essay
From the foregoing, it is obviously glaring on why you need to writing an amazing college admission essay. The following paragraphs will now dissect simple steps to write a College Essay.
Generally, in writing a good college personal statement, you must know how to start you college essay, you should also know how to write a hook for a college essay and what makes a great college application essay.
Below is a guide to write a great college Application Essay:
- Outline your essay
- Write a captivating introduction
- Add flesh to your points
- Answer all questions
- Build a readable essay structure
- Write an amazing conclusion
- Read your essay again
- proofread your work
- Ask someone to edit your work
- Submit your good college application essay
How to write a Great College Essay Introduction
The next big thing to do correctly after selecting a topic is to write a great introduction to it. When you are outlining your essay, ask significant questions like what do I want to talk about?
What are some challenges I faced in school that has a great impact on my life? Do I Know what I want to become in the future? What interesting facts about me do I want this college to know?
Once you have answered these questions, proceed to draft which comes first and which comes later in the body of your essay. Now, you need to start writing. However, you must have it at the back of your mind that the college admission committee spends little time reviewing your answer.
The only way to sustain their interest is by writing a compelling introduction. Journalists will tell you, it is not easy sustaining the interest of your reader on a 1000 words article. Yet, it is possible.
Relax, get your writing piece and scribble down an amazing introduction. Remember, it must align with your topic and story.
How to Write a good Personal statement Body of Essay
The next big thing to write in a college application essay is the body of your essay. These consist of three to four paragraphs exhaustively discussing a point. First, listen to your inner voice. It is your story and only you can tell it better.
So, you must impress your college admission officer. Let your college admission officer see an endearing, smart and ambitious teenager. Show your determination and mastery of the topic you choose to write about.
However, it should answer all the college questions. Try re-writing some of your sentences now to create mental imagery to admiration of your college officer.
How to write a College admission Essay Conclusion
This is the summary paragraph. Try summarizing your 650 words or more in less than five sentences. The practical thing to do is talk about the big idea and how your experience has greatly impacted or influenced your choice of college and career path.
Writing about “Why this College?”
One of the questions you will answer in your college essay is “why This College?” Well, you have narrated an awesome captivating experience and how it affected your life, now you must convince your college admission officer that your choice of college is right for you.
A practical way to answer these questions is to talk about the relationship between your experience and the institution. To come up with a good college application essay, answer why this college by fixing the nexus between your story and your understanding of what makes the institution different and peculiar to your case.
Furthermore, proof beyond all reasonable doubt you are a good fit at this school. What makes you think you can cope with this institution. Finally, state how the college is best and a good fit for you. Simply, state what they offer and what you want.
Proof that you understand what makes this college different and special. Evidence that you’ll be a good fit at this school. Evidence that this college will, in turn, be a good fit for you.
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College Essays Sample Questions
From the foregoing, you should be conversant with the fact that college application essays are simply you telling your own experience while consciously answering some questions.
Basically, questions differ from college so, don’t submit the same essay for different colleges. Below are popular questions colleges seek answers to while reading your college essay:
- Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
- Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve.
- Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others. The topic of your choice. …
- Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?
- Share an essay on any topic of your choice.
- Why do you want to attend this school?
Killer College Application Essays
This article posits that college essay objectives may be the same, but, questions may differ from one institution to the other. It is important you research accepted essays for each institution to get a clearer path of what to do in yours.
However, below is a list of schools and some amazing killer college admission essays loved by the college admission officers to aid you to write an amazing piece:
Conclusion
College essays are usually admission requirements to get into college. So many students panic when it comes to fulfilling this obligation. However, there is absolutely, nothing to e scared about writing a college admisssion essay.
It is a creative moment and an opportunity to tell your story. You shouldn’t be tensed about telling your story. It is an intriguing and exciting thing to do. However, outlining your essay may be a herculean task especially, if you find writing tiring and worrisome.
This should not be a problem anyways, you don’t have to be a pro writer to write an amazing piece for college admissions. Hence, this article is written to guide you and aid you enjoy the moment.
To write a killer college essay, follow the simple steps on how to write a college application essay. This will make it easy, fun and an exciting moment for you. Just be expressive and abide by the rules.
References
- topuniversities.com- How to write a great college application essay
- bid4papers.com- College essay guideline
- collegexpress.com– College application essay guide
- princetonreview.com– College essay advise
