How to Write a Great College Essay, Step-by-Step. Step 1: Get Organized. The first step in how to write a college essay is figuring out what you actually need to do. Although many schools are now on Step 2: Brainstorm. Step 3: Narrow Down Your List. Step 4: Figure Out Your Approach. Step 5 · Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a College Application Essay. 1. Explore essay prompts and select a topic. 2. Start your college essay outline before jumping in. 3. Write the essay and leave time for multiple drafts. 4. Edit and proofread your essay. 5. Submit your essay What Students Say About the 5 Steps to Writing College Essays. Kudos. “After learning to integrate the five steps of the BEING Compass into my personal statement, I was able to connect more deeply with my story and share from a personal level and then tell about how I overcame my challenges in a way that truly revealed my inner strengths.”
How to Write a College Essay Step-by-Step
First, what is the college essay i. This is your main essay. Your application centerpiece. The essay is a chance for the student to share who they are now and what they will bring to our campus communities. Basically, college admission officers are looking for three takeaways in your college essay:. Will this person contribute something of value to our campus?
Below are the five exercises I have every student complete before I meet with them:. Essence Objects Exercise : 12 min. Values Exercise : 4 min. Everything I Want Colleges to Know About Me Exercise : 20 min. The Feelings and Needs Exercise : min. I recommend recording all the content from your exercises in one document to keep things neat. At the start of the essay process, I ask students two questions:. On the weak end of the spectrum would be things like getting a bad grade or not making X sports team.
On the strong end of the spectrum would be things like escaping war. Being extremely shy but being responsible for translating for your family might be around a 3 or 4 out of But, for the sake of this blog post, steps to writing a college essay, answer those first two questions with a gut-level response.
Heads-up: Some students who have faced challenges find after reading that they prefer Montage Structure to Narrative Structure. Or vice versa. A montage is, simply put, a series of moments or story events connected by a common thematic thread. Or remember the opening to the Pixar movie Up? One purpose is to communicate a lot of information fast, steps to writing a college essay. Another is to allow you to share a lot of different kinds of information, as the example essay below shows.
Narrative Structure vs. Montage Structure explained in two sentences:, steps to writing a college essay. In Narrative Structure, story events connect chronologically. In Montage Structure, story events connect thematically. Imagine that each different part of you is a bead and that a select few will show up in your essay. The theme of your essay is the thread that connects your beads.
You can find a thread in many, many different ways. For example, are there 5 T-shirts you collected, or 5 homes or identities, or 5 entries in your Happiness Spreadsheet. And to clarify, your essay may end up using only 4 of the 5 things. Or maybe 8. But 5 is a nice number to aim for initially. Note the huge range of possible essay threads.
Sports have had a powerful influence on me, from my understanding of history, to numbers, to my relationships, extracurricular activities, and even my career choice. Crassulaceae plants, which can reproduce via stem or leaf fragments, are a great analogy for not only how I make art, but how I choose to live each day.
Binary star systems steps to writing a college essay a metaphor for my relationship with my parents. The number 12 has influenced so much in my life, from my relationship to sports, to how I write, to my self-esteem. All of these threads stemmed from the brainstorming exercises in this post. To frame how to think about possible topics A boring personal statement chooses a common topic, makes common steps to writing a college essay, and uses common language.
A stand-out personal statement chooses an un common topic, makes un common connections, and uses un common language. Be honest. But consider this: The more common your topic is the more un common your connections need to be if you want to stand out. How do you figure out what to say? By making uncommon connections. Use the Values Exercise for ideas. Hands-on work?
Probably yes to all three. Why do this? An essay on how cooking allowed the author to become more accountable or socially aware would be less common. One thing that author discusses is activism. A stand-out essay would go further, demonstrating, say, how a sense of humor supports activism. In fact, the great essay examples throughout this book sometimes make use of common connections. Also note that a somewhat-common lesson e. The Values Exercise. Go to www.
Once you do, a huge list will appear containing knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for your career. This is one of my favorite resources for this exercise. Go to a college's website and click on a major or group of majors that interest you. Students are often surprised to discover how broadly major-related skills can apply.
Ask 3 people in this profession what unexpected qualities, values, or skills prepared them for their careers. What do I mean? So it makes it much more difficult to stand out. How do you stand out? A cliché is all in how you tell the story. So, if you do choose a common topic, work to make uncommon connections i. Or explore a different topic. You are infinitely complex and imaginative. My laptop is like a passport.
It is plastered with stickers all over the outside, inside, and bottom. Let me take you on a quick tour:. Art has been a constant for me for as long as I can remember. Today my primary engagement with art is through design. Design means more to me than just branding and marketing; it gives me the opportunity to experiment with texture, perspective, and contrast, helping me refine my professional style. A rectangular black and red sticker displaying the theme of the TEDxYouth Austin event.
TED gives me the opportunity to help other youth understand new perspectives, by exposing them to the diversity of Austin where culture is created, not just consumed. Poop emojimiddle right. He brings out my goofy side, but also helps me think rationally when I am overwhelmed, steps to writing a college essay. Bought in seventh grade and transferred from my old laptop, this sticker is torn but persevering with layers of tape.
This is the logo of a startup incubator where I launched my first company, Threading Twine. I learned that business can provide others access to fundamental human needs, such as economic empowerment of minorities and education. In my career, I hope to be a corporate advocate for the empowerment of women, creating large-scale impact and deconstructing institutional boundaries that obstruct women steps to writing a college essay working in high-level positions.
Although I attempt to love all my stickers equally hahathis is one of my favorites. I always want my association with work to be positive. When my computer dies hopefully not for another few yearsit will be like my passport expiring. My next set of stickers will reveal my next set of aspirations. They hold the key to future paths I will navigate, steps to writing a college essay, knowledge I will gain, and connections I will make. Cool, huh? Notice how each bullet point discusses a value or values, connected to different experiences via her thread, and sets up the insights she could explore.
She found this thread essentially by using The Five Things Exercise in conjunction with the other brainstorming exercises. Ex: spent weekend designing websites, graphics for my companies. Go backcomplete the exercises, and then Case study: How to find a theme for your personal statement aka steps to writing a college essay thread that connects the beads of your bracelet.
Just last week, my shoelace got caught in an escalator and I tripped about 20 people. I have misophonia--sometimes I even have to eat dinner in a different room from my family. I collect funky socks--at this point, I have socks with tacos, snowmen, Santa, and even animals wearing glasses.
How to Write a College Essay from START to FINISH
, time: 7:48How to Write a Great College Essay, Step-by-Step
What Students Say About the 5 Steps to Writing College Essays. Kudos. “After learning to integrate the five steps of the BEING Compass into my personal statement, I was able to connect more deeply with my story and share from a personal level and then tell about how I overcame my challenges in a way that truly revealed my inner strengths.” · Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a College Application Essay. 1. Explore essay prompts and select a topic. 2. Start your college essay outline before jumping in. 3. Write the essay and leave time for multiple drafts. 4. Edit and proofread your essay. 5. Submit your essay · Four More Ways to Find a Thematic Thread for Your Personal Statement. 2. The “Five Things” Exercise. (Special thanks to my colleague Dori Middlebrook for this one.) Similar to the exercise above, you identify the thread Step 1: Write down five similar things that are meaningful to you in
No comments:
Post a Comment