A Parents Guide To The College Admission Essay

A Parents Guide To The College Admission Essay Unlike essays for your English class, the most important aspect of your personal statement is you. Whichever prompt you choose, college admission officers want you to tell a story that reveals your character, personality, and how you think. Easily avoidable mistakes, like not checking that the entire essay is copied into the application, can harm your application prospects. When an admissions officer doesn't get the whole story or notices a sloppy mistake, it changes how schools perceive you. Sometimes students neglect to copy over their entire essay into an application and only submit a portion of their work. When Warren was asked about haphazard mistakes students make, he recounted one college essay example. When you're finished writing your admissions essay, it's important to proofread your material. Running your essay through spell check is important, and having someone you trust read your essay to catch other small mistakes is even better. Admissions officers generally won't dock minor mistakes in punctuation, but grammatical errors always look sloppy. When you start reading through past admission essays, one of the first things you will notice is that nearly all of them tell a story. The best ones tell a specific story about an incident or moment in time that provides an insight into who the author is and how they view the world. I encourage kids to think about writing their essay as though they’re describing a snapshot in time. They need to think about those snapshots that have defined them. Another way to think about an essay topic is to think about those small moments that might even seem mundane on the surface, but that have had a big impact on their life. Describe a moment where it may seem that nothing exciting was happening to an outside observer, but that meant a great deal to the student. The idea behind the essay is for colleges to be able to learn something about the student that they couldn’t have learned through the rest of the application. Some universities will give you specific prompts to answer. Others will ask you to tell your story and how it led you to university. No matter what the university asks you to write in your submission, remember that admissions officials are not simply looking for your ability to use big, frilly words. In your essay, remember to be yourself and speak in your voice. Know that many top-tier admissions essays have gone through 7-10 drafts before you have had a chance to read them. The Common Application essay prompts are often left a little vague on purpose to give you flexibility and encourage you to be creative. So, it’s important for your essay to show off your unique voice and personality. Find a good envelope and leave it for them to read on their own time and terms. Then, to reiterate, wine and a walkâ€"very important. The Common App essay requires you write between 250 and 650 words. Hitting the maximum is great, but make sure not to settle at the minimum. For all college admission essays, it’s best to come as close to the maximum as you can, as long as you’re not filling space with meaningless sentences. For the Common App, I would recommend a bare minimum of 500 words, about 75 percent of the maximum. We are trusted as a national leader in college and career readiness, providing high-quality assessments grounded in nearly 60 years of research. While millions of individuals take the ACT test each year, that’s just one aspect of our work. From elementary school through career, ACT offers individuals a uniquely integrated set of solutions designed to provide personalized insights throughout their life. Start early.Make a list of the number of essays you need to write and their deadlines. Give yourself plenty of time to think through the topics and brainstorm writing points. I imagine life there will be four years of running out of clean white space. ACT is a mission-driven, non-profit organization dedicated to helping people achieve education and workplace success. Is there a way to find out what essay questions colleges are asking before you start the application process? Would it relieve some of your stress, or help you focus your search on fewer colleges, if you knew what essays you'll have to write? Not only will that commitment result in a better-written, more personalized college essay, but it could also change the student’s perception of the value and function of writing.