How To Write A College Essay Step

How To Write A College Essay Step The admissions officers reads as 1 out of 1000’s and possibly even 10,000 or more. Your English teacher reads your essay to assign one grade out of many. The admissions officer reads to determine if they should offer you one spot out of probably relatively very few. Many applicants will have high GPA’s and SAT scores, volunteer in a local organization, or be the president of a club or captain of a sports team. Admissions officers are looking for something, anything, to distinguish your essay from the pile. The personal statement is not the place for long lists or catalogs of achievement. Dr. Allen Grove is an Alfred University English professor and a college admissions expert with 20 years of experience helping students transition to college. Connect with our featured colleges to find schools that both match your interests and are looking for students like you. While not everyone who does MUN makes it their main activity, many invest a considerable amount of their time and energy into it. Model United Nations is a large part of their personal growth as a high school student, and they can leverage their MUN experience to get into college. It takes more than good grades and strong test scores to get into competitive colleges like Harvard, Yale, or Princeton. High school students today have to stand out by excelling in their extracurricular activities. At any point in time during your college education, you’ll probably have one or more papers to write for your classes. Colleges would be irresponsible to offer you a place in their program if you do not have the basic skills needed to succeed. Keep in mind that every college is different and individual admission officers may be influenced by different factors. With that said, the Essay is dying a quick death. Your essays are necessarily a reflection of your mind, and the admissions officers want to know that you have the “soft skills” to excel in their program. You can’t make it in college if you can’t write. Many applicants attempt to do too much with their essays and then struggle to edit them down to 650 words. Realize the purpose of the personal statement is not to tell your life story or to give an exhaustive overview of all of your accomplishments. Let your list of extracurricular activities, academic record, letters of recommendation, and supplemental essays and materials show your range of accomplishments. Asking someone who is slightly more removed from the application process may be the wisest route to go. While parents mean well, any constructive feedback may be misinterpreted, creating conflict at what can already be a stressful time. Teachers, guidance counselors, even friends are viable candidates when looking for a second opinion on your writing. If you pair good college choices with good applications and essays, you’re likely to be happy with your results. I recommend that students try to find an adult other than their parents to help with essay editing. Parents are blinded by love and perhaps perfection. Each student needs to be able to claim authentic ownership of their essays. Mom and Dad may be great help during the brainstorming process of generating essay topics. Many do this through sports, science, or the arts, but others join activities such as speech and debate, mock trial, and Model United Nations. I do not believe that parents make good essay editors because they are not admissions officers. They do not know what admissions officers are looking for. For the same reason, I do not think English teachers make great admissions essay readers. Your English teacher reads your essay as 1 out of 30. The essay needs to be a reflection of the student’s creativity, writing ability and personality; not the parent. While it is okay to have a parent proof an essay, they are not always the best option. Parents may know other details about the student that they should include in the essay. Parents are also a great second pair of eyes for grammar and spelling errors. I would still suggest that a English professional still read over the essay for expert editing purposes. However, parents should not try to change the voice of the student, which can be difficult to refrain from.