Nervous About College Essay Writing?

Nervous About College Essay Writing? Patrick O’Connor’s new college guide, College is Yours 2.0, offers a better way to apply to college. It’s available now through Amazon.com, and discounts are available for school group purchases. You did your homework and know that Reed College offers a rigorous environment for intellectually serious, self-directed students. Instead of letter grades, students receive qualitative evaluations from their professors. All courses are taught by professors, never TAs, and research opportunities for undergraduates abound. Make sure to use the short essay questions to talk about things we do not yet know about you. Writing about the same or a similar topic in one of your supplemental essays as your longer personal statement is a missed opportunity to tell us something new about you. It’s little surprise that an insanely high number of Reed graduates go on to earn PhDs in their respective fields. If you can’t come up with a sincere answer to any of these questions, you might want to rethink why a given school is even on your college list in the first place. So, where does one find this type of substantive information? On your visit to Brown, you made sure to try the famous pumpkin pancakes at Louis Family Restaurant. Hope you found them to be delicious but if you feel inclined to write about the experience, do so on Yelp, not as part of your “Why Us? Heaping generic praise on your school is not going to sway anyone. If you’re going to shower a college with flattery, make it as specific and genuine as you possibly can. Don’t worryâ€"the task before you may be challenging, but it’s hardly nuclear physics. In some cases though, the school may emphasize the supplemental essay as a top priority. That’s the case at St. John’s College, which has campuses in Maryland and New Mexico, says Benjamin Baum, vice president of enrollment for the St. John’s system. “It’s more about the voice than anything else,” Inzer says, noting an essay that is too clinical can mute a student’s personality. Experts say the essay should give the school a sample of his or her personality. Every early draft of a why school essay shares the same pernicious flaw â€" blanket statements made without evidence or context . Watch the following bland comment transform into a great point â€" through action. We recommend utilizing the top college guidebooks, a real-life or virtual tour of campus, a chat with a university rep, or some good old-fashioned Googling to gather what you need. In a competitive environment with more losers than winners (think of Stanford’s 5% or Columbia’s 7% admission rates), blending in with the pack isn’t going to add value to your candidacy. But you won’t fool the experts, who have to read literally THOUSANDS of these things. They know their own programs, and if you think you can generalize your way around campus â€" sorry, no. You don’t want to address your weaknesses, unless it’s a challenge you’ve overcome that reveals something powerful about your character. The diversity of Washington’s schools and its communities is profoundly interesting â€" but use it as a backdrop to write about you. Richardson says that the appeal of an essay on an atypical topic such as origami showed that the writer was willing to take risks. The supplement is a short response but can still give us valuable insights into who you are, what you care about, and what you strive to be. Each year, our admissions staff puts a great deal of thought and effort into determining which questions to include in our writing supplement. The essay is the place to make a great first impression on the reader. They’ll be looking at that before the test scores.