Seven Ways To Make Your College Essay Stand Out

Seven Ways To Make Your College Essay Stand Out George did more than 30 drafts, spending a summer writing whenever he wasn’t working at his job or hiking outdoors. It was one of the hardest things he’d ever done, and it made him miserable. With any luck, he’ll avoid following in his dad’s footsteps (I’m a writer) and go on to earn an honest living. This is a personal decision for you to make on your own. It might help the admissions team to understand you holistically or explain a gap in performance. There is no requirement to disclose your disability anywhere in the college application. In fact, usually the essay is the only way you would be able to disclose your disability. The college essay is often the most difficult part of preparing your application. To help you get off to a good start, we’ve put together the following tips and hints. These are comments from our admissions staff who actually read your essays and evaluate them in the admission process. We can’t guarantee results, but this advice might help you get started. The coronavirus has upended the lives of many students, so it's natural that some high school juniors plan to write about this topic in their college essays. Although that's not necessarily a terrible idea, keep in mind that this could be a common topic, so you'll have to make your essay unique for it to stand out to admission officers. As a former high school teacher, I have worked with hundreds of students on their college essays. Later, as a private college essay consultant, I worked with students and parents at some top private schools before I became an admissions counselor for a small liberal arts college. The Common Application, which is accepted by nearly 800 colleges and universities, is a single-serving college application that allows you to create one admissions package for submission to multiple schools. My contribution is understanding the college context and showing students how to write essays that will engage and intrigue admissions officers. While it’s important to put considerable effort into all college application components, essays are often the finishing touch and should be treated with great care and consideration. Essay writingis an important part of the college application process. Using the Common Application, you will have to write one major essay, and possibly write a series of smaller essays for each school on their Supplement Forms . However, teacher recommendations and extracurricular activities rank below the college essay . Therefore, it is extremely important to submit a well-written college entrance essay. Twenty-six percent of college admission offices consider the college entrance exam is of “considerable importance” in the admission process . Some colleges weigh essays higher than other parts of the application. However, the essay is not the most important part of your application when you are applying for college. Your overall Grade Point Average , college preparation, test results, and the strength of the high school curriculum all outweigh the essay . Maybe he’ll advise students on their college essays, grow rich, and support me in my dotage. Every year dozens of College Essay Mentor students are accepted to elite schools, including the Ivy League, Stanford, and MIT. This year's early admissions include Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford, as well as UChicago and CalTech. I attribute most of my students' success to their academic prowess and non-academic endeavors. There is no definitive answer to disclosing your disability in your college essay. It is a personal decision that will depend on your own disability and how it has affected your life. You may decide that it will not benefit you in anyway to disclose before you are accepted to the university or college. You should discuss the pros and cons of disclosing your disability with your family, friends, and school counselors to decide the right decision for you. The importance of college essays has increased in the past few years.