When writing college admission essays, the most important thing is for you to let your personality shine through. As the blogCollege Preparation Suite 101 mentions in the following excerpt, your admission essay is more than just an essay, but it is your way of introducing yourself and setting yourself apart from other applicants:

Colleges use statements of purpose or admission essays tounderstand the applicant. Writing a powerful admission essay is essential to stand out among the competition.

As more and more students apply for admission to multiple colleges using the Internet and common applications, colleges are inundated with more applications than ever before. Some colleges see as many as twenty-thousand applicants for as few as two-thousand seats. Although grades and SAT scores help colleges to sort students in a general manner, the college admissions essay, sometimes called apersonal statement, is critical in admissions decisions.

As mentioned, the admission essay is often referred to as a personal statement because your goal is to give the reader an idea of what your personality, ideals, goals, and character traits are.

How your topic can convey your personality

Your choice of topic is extremely important if you want to convey certain personality or character traits through your essay. As mentioned in the following passage, your topic can be guided by the questions and guidelines of the school that you are applying to:

Admission essay topics are specifically designed to reveal aspects of the applicant’s character or experience to differentiate her from the masses. The topics are often very general in nature, but College Board reveals some trends that recur in application essay topics, including “you” questions and “creative” questions. “You” questions tend to focus on the applicant and their personal experience in a standard essay format, while “creative” questions invite the applicant to tell a specific story that reflects their experience using a narrative essay.Knowing the general idea of the essay question is important in developing a strategy to answer the question.

Sharing personal experiences

Here are some advice from a college blog on sharing your personal experiences:

It is very important to be really focused on the topic of the essay and not include all the incidents of your life in the essay. It will unnecessarily lengthen the essay and confuse the reader. So, it is very important to write your essay in a way that it will leave a long lasting impression on the reader.

The important thing here is that you stay on track with the essay topic and avoid getting carried away. Your goal is to share your personal experiences, but not to the extent that you share unnecessary or unrelated experiences that will just work against the quality of your essay. Instead of enumerating experiences or simply telling about the things you have experienced, show them through narratives, illustrations, and descriptions.

Just remember this tip:

It is very important to be really focused on the topic of the essay and not include all the incidents of your life in the essay. It will unnecessarily lengthen the essay and confuse the reader. So, it is very important to write your essay in a way that it will leave a long lasting impression on the reader.

Remember, the purpose of your college admission essay is to share why you make a good addition to the university or academic institution because of who you are, what you have done, and what your future plans are. You want to show the admissions committee that you, with your unique personality and individual flair, will enrich the college and help make it a better place.

When writing your admission essay for college, perhaps the most important thing to keep in mind is your goal. Ultimately, the goal of your college essay is to impress the admissions committee and get them to accept your application to their college or university. Here’s what an admissions dean has to say about the importance of your college essay when trying to impress the admissions committee. Here’s an excerpt from the The Choice blog of the New York Times:

Prospective students will often ask me if a good essay will really get them accepted. The truth is that while no essay will make an unqualified student acceptable, a good essay can help a qualified applicant stand out from the competition. A good essay just might be what turns a “maybe” into a “yes.”

As you can see, there are a lot of college applicants who have good grades and credentials, but these are not enough to guarantee their admission. Your admission essay will still hold weight in your application package. This is simply because admissions officers aren’t necessarily looking for people with amazing grades, but they are looking for those who can enrich the school environment and improve the educational atmosphere.

More admission essay tips

Perhaps the best way to impress the admissions committee is to get to know the school that you are applying to. Try to get an idea of the school’s educational beliefs and their educational model. Aside from simply visiting the website of the college, you may want to actually visit the college and take a tour of the campus so that you can get an idea of what it is like there. This venture may even help you find more reasons for wanting to attend the school. This will give you an idea on how to approach writing your essay, considering the fact that the admissions committee probably shares these same beliefs and frame of mind. Here are additional pieces of advice:

# Write about yourself. A great history paper on the Civil War might be very well written, but it doesn’t tell me anything about the writer. Regardless of the topic, make sure you shine through your essay.
# Use your own voice. I can tell the difference between the voice of a 40-year-old and a high school senior.
# Focus on one aspect of yourself. If you try to cover too many topics in your essay, you’ll end up with a resume of activities and attributes that doesn’t tell me as much about you as an in-depth look at one project or passion.

This simply means that your entrance essay should be all about you, your personality, and why you have what it takes to succeed in the school you’re applying to. In the end, if you want to impress the admissions committee, the best thing you can do is be yourself and let your unique personality shine through in your essay.

Reminders

Make sure that the topic you’ll use for the essay will appeal to your readers. Another college blog has this to say about making a good essay:

What you think is a good essay really may not be a good essay at all. Remember that college application essay readers look at thousand of essays….Also, application essays are not the same kind of essay that your English teacher assigns and grades. You may get all A’s on your essay in English class and still miss what the college application essay demands.

This means that even if you poured in your best effort into writing your application essay, it shouldn’t stop there. Take time to edit your essay carefully. Look not only for technical errors but also for issues on writing style, clarity, and coherence. Have another person critique your essay for content and significance to your application to college.

The task of writing an admission essay can be quite daunting. Not only do you have to come up with an exceptional essay, but you also have to deal with the pressure of knowing that your college dreams hinge upon the success of your admission essay. If you are having a difficult time with your essay, then the best thing that you can do is to seek out help from those around you. Here’s what the Pier 55 blog has to say about getting help from friends and relatives:

Have friends or family members read the essay through. Be open to criticism. Ask them to honestly tell you which parts should be excised and which need further elaboration.

This is no time to be hyper-sensitive to what your friends and relatives have to say. Try to take their criticisms positively, because, ultimately, your friends and family only want the best for you and that means helping you get the best chances of entering into and succeeding in college. Here’s another tip from Pier 55:

…have someone edit/proofread your essay. If you don’t know a professional editor, you can always ask a teacher to help you out they would only be too glad to help you succeed.

Get help from the professionals, such as editors and teachers. If you decide to get help from a teacher, you may want to approach those who excel in English, such as your English or literature teacher. This will give you a great edge, because many teachers have gone through the admission essay writing process themselves, and they know what colleges and universities are looking for.

Getting help online

Aside from approaching friends, family, editors, and teachers, the next best place to seek admission essay help is from the Internet. There are literally thousands of websites on essay writing, admission essay writing, and college application processes and these sites offer loads of help. For example, Pier 55 provides a great guide on writing college admission essays. Here are some excerpts:

Step one: Brainstorm. To stimulate your creative juices, try elaborating on these thoughts and write all your ideas down on a sheet of paper (or type away on your computer, if you feel more comfortable with it). […]
Step two: Choose a topic. Some universities give a prod, such as, “Name a person, living or dead, who has been the greatest influence on your life, and explain why.” Others give you a free hand, such as Yale University’s “In the past, candidates have used this space in a great variety of ways. There is no ‘correct’ way to respond to this essay request” and when you come across an instruction like this, then it’s time to buckle up and do some serious planning on which topic to home in on. […] Step three: Write the essay. You can choose to first write down all your thoughts in a free-flowing style, such as when you’re writing on your journal, and edit for cohesiveness later. You can use an anecdote in the opening paragraph to catch the reader’s attention. The first few sentences should be interesting enough, butrefrain from cliches and quotations.

Admission essay tips

It’s always important to start with the basics by getting all the help you can from the actual school that you are applying to. Aside from knowing the instructions and requirements, and finding samples, you should also read as much as you can about the school that you are applying to. Get to know the school, what they look for in students, what programs they specialize in, as well as what their educational beliefs and what their atmosphere is like. This will aid greatly in choosing topics, as well as tailoring your essay to the school that you are applying to.

Here’s another piece of advice when writing your application essay for college:

Admission Officers are on the prowl to find unique personalities that will blend with the school’s standards and environment. They are after the authentic person behind the numbers and statistics i.e. grades. Another thing that the students have to remember in writing College Application Essay is to be original and individual. This means that their writing should reflect the unique individual creature that they truly are.

Just remember, there are tons of help out there, so the last thing you should do is try to take on this daunting task alone. If you are in need of help, go out there and get it, otherwise, you may just end up making some crucial mistakes that may result in the college of your dreams rejecting your application.

Writing a creative admission essay is one of the ways to ensure that your essay is unique, powerful, and interesting enough to get your application accepted. Here’s what the Spark Notes blog has to say about creativity in essays:

Essays are usually a tool used to gauge something about you, for example, your skill at writing, your ideals and personality, or your ability to repeat some things about Charlemagne before forgetting them forever.

You might assume that if you’re writing about your ideals and personality, there are no right or wrong answers, and that’s probably true. But there are awesome and far-less-awesome answers.Sometimes, despite seeming absolutely insane, an unexpected approach winds up surprising and delighting the people who read these things.

In the first part of this excerpt, you can find some helpful information about the objectives of an essay. When writing your college admission essay, it’s important to keep your eye on your goal, which is to introduce yourself to the admissions committee and let them know why you make a good fit for their school. In the second part of the excerpt, however, Spark Notes gives advice that doesn’t necessarily work when it comes to college application essays. Being creative isn’t about writing something with an unexpected approach, but it’s more about putting thought into how you translate your personality into an excellent essay.

Get your creative juices flowing

If you need some help getting your creative juices flowing, then you should heed this advice from another blog, which states:

Whether you are writing an essay, speech, or developing personal goals, the following three-step process can be applied:

1. Idea Collection: Use various brainstorming techniques to gather your thoughts on a specific topic.
2. Idea Mapping: Create Mind Maps that organize your thoughts structurally.
3. Conversion to Linear Form: When writing or speaking, ideas must be presented one word after another. The challenge is to present the material in a way that the associations and structure of the material are not lost.

Basically, the blog breaks down the creative writing process into three steps, but we all know that it can be a lot harder than 1, 2, 3, to write an exceptional paper. Still, this gives a great foundation from which to work on. When preparing to write your essay, brainstorm on the various topics that you want to talk about. Write down practically any relevant issue that comes to mind. Then try to organize your thoughts into something with a sequence and a structure. This second stage is basically like making an outline. Finally, you have to turn your ideas and your outline into a full-fledged essay.

Being creative in your essay

The best way to show your creativity is to let your personality and your character spill onto the pages of your admission essay. Just be yourself, because everyone has their own creative streak that makes them unique. Here are some good pieces of advice:

The first thing an applicant has to remember is that Admission officers want the essay to be personal and imaginative. The next thing they have to take note of is how to write something personal without making it appear as a lifeless paper. The trick for this is to make the tone of the essay a conversational one. Since one is talking about his life, narrate it in a light humorous tone as though one is talking to another person like a friend. In this way, one will definitely get the focus and the hearts of the admission officers. People should freely express themselves.

In the end, the best topics are those that you can tell with your own personal flair. A topic that you can use as a vessel to get across your ultimate message: that you are a person who is ready, willing, and able to be a student in the school you are applying to.