Writing A College Essay

Writing A College Essay The resulting essay will not reflect you and thus will not accomplish its goal, no matter how “good” it seems to be. DON’T be pretentious or overly formal â€"this is not the time to play the role of Albert Einstein or Mother Teresa if that’s not who you are. Resist the temptation to portray yourself as a saint with a 4.0â€"you’re better off presenting the real you. The “Why this college” or “Why us” prompts are fairly common. Agree that it’s better not to right about Covid19 in the main essay…. Do whatever you can to steer clear of coronavirus as your main topic or focus of your essay. I simply don’t believe it will serve you as well as almost any other topic at this point. DO be yourself â€" your essay should sound as if it could have been written by no one else. We remain dedicated to serving you during these challenging times of COVID-19. You can also include traditions, extracurricular activities, and the campus itself. Prestige and rankings are another topic to avoid. Yes, Yale is very prestigious and consistently ranks among the top three universities in U.S. Your familial connections may also factor in, but they shouldn’t be your sole reason for applying. Finally, if you can find pretty much all the reasons you give through a cursory look at the website or brochure, that’s a sign that it’s time to dive a little deeper. This simple framework can help you share your personal stories in your essay, and then also examine, explore and share how they shaped you and what you care about . For lots more information on applying to college, see the links on the next page. Even if you didn’t visit, you can still establish a strong connection to the school. In that case, you might share a story about why you’re interested in studying a certain program that you can only find there â€" grounding it in an anecdote from your past â€" or a professor you want to study with. You don’t have to solely focus on academics, although you should make them a main point of your essay. Of course, you can mention COVID and the pandemic as part of the background of your essay. As far as your main personal statement or Common Application essay topic, try to brainstorm beyond the pandemic as much as possible. I also want to flag the idea that finding the positive in your COVID-19 experience, or that you are actually enjoying this time, would not be enough of a “spin” to justify COVID as a topic. If you can avoid it, I would strongly advise you find almost any other topic to write about than the Coronavirus. Risa C. Doherty is a copy editor and education and parenting writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Working Mother and Boston Parents Paper, among others. In a 2007 Boston magazine article, Harry Lewis, former dean of Harvard College, drew a parallel between professional essay editing and hiring an imposter to sit for the SAT. “All this scribbling has almost nothing to do with whether the student gets in,” he wrote. Finally, when you think you are finished with your essay, dare to make it great! Doing so will force you to examine every word, thought and article of punctuation. Even if you are not able to reduce by 10%, making an honest attempt at it will make your essay better. Don’t worry about the word count until you have developed a complete draft. Word and character counts can be paralyzing if you allow them to dictate your approach to an essay topic. Then, take a step back in order to gain perspective. As you begin to edit and refine the idea, challenge your word choices.