College Essay Consultant

College Essay Consultant While we can’t write your essay for you, the following essay tips should be helpful in developing a personal statement that becomes the glue for a thematically cohesive application. If the prompt of the essay was “Who is the most influential person in your life and why? ” don’t start the essay with “The most influential person in my life is…” It’s dull and the admissions office created the prompt, so it’s telling them the info they already know. Craig is a college admissions coach and founder of CollegeMeister. He previously held university admissions and high school college and career counseling positions in Baltimore, West Palm Beach, and Rio de Janeiro. College counselors weighing in on the college review website Unigo indicated that, depending on the school, up to four people could read a single essay. For the application season, the Common Application announced that their 600-plus member schools, which include many private and public universities, need not require essays . Jager-Hyman notes that every writer has an editor, and editors can help select topics, tell students where the essay is lacking and help them organize their thoughts. In this competitive climate, many students think their essay must reflect an earth-shattering achievement, like curing cancer or ending world starvation, but that’s not its purpose. Inside Higher Ed, a popular website monitoring issues in higher education, estimated that 20 percent of members will eliminate the essay requirement. You can write an excellent essay, but if you don’t focus on answering the question that the college is asking, you will likely not be admitted to the school. Spellcheck won’t catch every spelling or grammatical error! Take the time to read over all your essays carefully and keep an eye out for things like “out” when you meant to say “our” and other common typos. The genius for your essay rests within you, not an essay someone else has written. You need to craft a statement that speaks to who you are as a person. As you can see, the risk-reward element with the essay is very high, especially if you aspire to highly selective colleges and universities. Have a parent or counselor read over the essay, too, to catch any errors you might have missed. Spelling and grammar errors can take away from an otherwise stellar essay â€" so be mindful. When developing a topic that reveals something new, find a way to frame the story or idea that shows a slice of your life or the event. Be descriptive and give details that appeal to the senses â€" taste, touch, smell, etc. When writing about a meaningful experience or event, you don’t have to give a long timeline of events. Do write in your own language and remember to show rather than tell. Resist the temptation to buy the “best college essays” book. It will only contribute to the “paralysis by analysis” you might be experiencing. admissions counselor only has a few min to read your essay and his or her attention is the key here. most college essay are very much the same so if you can make your essay stand out, you must delivery a great college essay that the counselor will remember and share with other counselors. a great college essay must use personal experiences to delivery a big message focused on passion of learning, motivation for excellences, and personal value in contributing to community as a whole. College application essays are a special literary genre, but they are of course personal. Instead, give the reader the piece of the puzzle that conveys your message. Admissions writing truly requires a new set of skills which most high school applicants don’t frequently get to practice or cultivate. However, avoiding some of these pitfalls will help you as you refine your CommonApp, supplemental and scholarship essays. Your admissions essay must be fundamentally reader-friendly. It should not read like a dense PhD dissertation OR an informal e-mail to your best friend; it should strike a balance between the two. It’s also not a place to reiterate one’s résumé or explain away a bad semester (there’s a section in the application for that). Colleges want to “hear specifically what you learned from an experience” â€" not clichés. Still, Jager-Hyman says that some parents who get their hands on their kids’ essays go too far and change the tone or tenor. Some essays she read were “too stiff, too adult and too formal,” â€" not the student’s work.