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 fear writing time. This article on how to write a college essay is a basic guide and everything you need to write an amazing college essay.
In the admissions process, US colleges and universities generally always want applicants to write a well-composed essay while seeking admission to their preferred school.
However, there are three criteria that Universities generally use to determine which students to accept and which to reject.
Previous coursework (GPA), Standardized test scores (SAT and ACT), and Admission/Entrance essays.
With all assurance, this article will guide you perfectly on how to write a great college essay without stress. And stand the chance to gain admission into your desired school at ease.
Table of Contents
What is a College Essay?
According to Wikipedia, a College essay, sometimes also called the statement of purpose is an essay written by an applicant, often for the purpose of being offered admission.
This is a way of testing applicants’ capabilities in writing and also to use of words.
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Why Do Colleges Ask For an Essay?
There are a couple of reasons that colleges ask applicants to submit an essay, but the basic idea is that it gives them more information about you, especially who you are beyond grades and test scores.
The most important role of the essay is to give admissions committees a sense of your personality and what kind of addition you’d be to their school’s community.
Are you inquisitive? Ambitious? Caring? These kinds of qualities will have a profound impact on your college experience, but they’re hard to determine based on a high school transcript.
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A secondary purpose of the essay is to serve as a writing sample and help colleges see that you have the skills needed to succeed in college classes.
The personal statement is your best chance to show off your writing, so take the time to craft a piece you’re really proud of.
For some students, the essay is also a chance to explain the factors affecting their high school records. Did your grades drop sophomore year because you were dealing with a family emergency?
Did you miss out on extracurriculars in your junior year because of an extended medical absence?
Colleges want to know if you struggled with a serious issue that affected your high school record, so make sure to indicate any relevant circumstances on your application.
Many colleges ask you to write an essay or paragraph about why you’re applying to their school specifically.
In asking these questions, admissions officers are trying to determine if you’re genuinely excited about the school and whether you’re likely to attend if accepted.
How Long Should a College Essay Be?
The exact word limit for the Common App essay has varied somewhat over the years, but the current range is 250-650 words. You must stay within this length; in fact, the online application won’t allow you to submit fewer than 250 words or more than 650.
“While we won’t as a rule stop reading after 650 words, we cannot promise that an overly wordy essay will hold our attention for as long as you’d hoped it would,” the Common App website states.
The word count is much shorter for institution-specific supplemental essays.
What Should be in a College Essay?
The essence of writing a college admission essay is to create room for you to tell the admission committee about yourself.
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:
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College Essays Sample Questions
Getting how to write a college essay, 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:
Tips for College Admissions Essays 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, it is the best practice on how to write a college essay:
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Simple steps on How to Write a College Admission Essay
Although not every school in the US requires you to write a college admission essay as part of their application, the Common Application has traditionally required you to submit a blanket personal statement.
That policy changed recently, and the essay is now optional for some schools. Below are steps on how to write a college essay, I would explain all steps.
1. Analyze the essay prompt
The most important step in writing an essay or research paper is to fully comprehend the essay question.
An essay can be wonderfully articulated and thought out, but will still result in a poor grade if it doesn’t adequately answer the prompt provided. Break the prompt down into two parts.
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Once these questions have been answered, you can begin constructing your essay.
2. Create a thesis statement
Start your essay with a thesis statement that will guide your entire paper. Based on the prompt, what do you want to argue in your essay? Your thesis statement should be concise, but incorporate all the main points you’d like to address in your paper.
Continually refer to your thesis statement when writing your essay and make sure to never stray from your main points. A good thesis statement can be the difference between an A and a B.
3. Make an outline
Use an outline to plan out your essay/research paper before writing it. Working from your thesis statement, plot out how you want your paper to flow and what information you want to include. This will make writing the full draft of your paper much ease.
4. Begin with the body, not the introduction
Don’t start with the introduction. The introduction is where some students struggle the most, so to avoid getting bogged down, create the introduction later.
This will allow you to fully form your thoughts and ideas and come back and integrate the main ideas into your introduction.
5. Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence
Begin each paragraph with a topic sentence, which expresses the main idea of the paragraph. Each paragraph should contain quotes or contextual information to defend your topic sentence and thesis statement.
6. Use credible sources
Quotes and contextual information are important for establishing credibility and supporting your argument, so make sure that the quotes and information are coming from credible scholarly sources.
Examples of scholarly sources include academic journals, peer-reviewed articles, textbooks, books by accredited authors, and NPR articles.
7. Don’t fake it
Teachers aren’t dumb. They know when you don’t fully understand the essay topic and when you’re rambling to make it longer. Don’t use fluff to bulk up your essay. Instead, make sure that every sentence adds substance to your work.
If it isn’t absolutely necessary, cut it out. Most teachers would rather have a well-written essay that doesn’t quite meet the length requirement than a paper that meets the requirement but is 80 percent fluff.
8. Proofread, then proofread again
Reviewing is critical to composing a great essay. Some teachers won’t even finish reading essays if they’re not grammatically sound or riddled with spelling errors.
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Therefore, here are a few ways to make your essay/research paper more academically acceptable and better overall.
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