College Admissions Essays Winning
Tuesday, May 5th, 2009While not the most important documents in your admissions file, good essays can be the difference between receiving the decision you want and the decision you dread. And, they may be most important at the extremely selective colleges and universities, where virtually all applicants display similarly impressive grade point averages, class rank, and standardized test scores.
Moderately selective colleges do not generally agonize over essays. For the most part, they just want to be sure that applicants can write pretty well and put together a few coherent thoughts. Highly selective colleges may be looking for something that sets an applicant apart from others with a similar level of high academic achievement.
Don’t use your essays to make excuses about your test scores, class rank, or decision to take home economics and keyboarding during your senior year. And, whatever you do, don’t promise to study harder in college than you did in high school. Save that one for your grandmother or someone else who might be impressed. An admissions committee will not be.
What a good essay can do, however, is give you a chance to talk to an admissions committee. Take advantage of it by:
1. Spend as much time, thought, and energy as it takes to ensure that your essays reflect your best work. Have them reviewed by at least two people who write well, and by your counselor.
2. Talking about yourself honestly. In fact, talking about an instance in which you learned from a mistake or by falling short of a goal may well make you both more likeable and more credible (especially if there is a “happy ending”).
3. Presenting your accomplishments without conceit.
4. Avoiding self-serving cliches about patriotism, family, God, or service to humanity.
A great essay will seldom offset mediocre academic performance. But, a poor essay can sink an otherwise fairly attractive candidate. In other words, follow the suggestions above, remember for whom you’re writing, and don’t take any big chances.
By: Daniel Z. Kane