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Writing Admission Essays

Your college admissions essay is a chance for you to explain yourself and to showcase your personality, talents, goals and spirit to the admission committee. It is a chance to show that you can think about things and that you can write clearly about your thoughts. A great admissions essay should present a vivid, personal, and compelling view of you to the admission staff, it should round out the rest of your application and be the thing that will help you stand out from other applicants. Your admissions essay is one of the only parts of your application over which you have complete control, so it is important to take the time to do a good job on it.

To begin, first collect and organize potential ideas for your essay's focus. Your essay should prove a single point. The reader should be able to find your main idea and follow it from beginning to end. It is a good idea to have someone else read your introduction to see if the point you are addressing is clear. Once you have established a clear thesis, develop your main ideas throughout the body of the text using vivid and specific facts, events, examples and quotes. Bring something new to the table. Remember, it is not always a good idea to tell the admission board what you think they want to hear. Also, don't include information that is found elsewhere in the application. You don't want your essay to sound like an autobiography. Remember, it isn't about telling the committee what you have done, they should be able to pick that up from your list of activities, instead your essay should be about showing them who you are.

Be concise in your language, and try to avoid clichés or predictable writing. When you are finished, don't forget to proofread. Typos and spelling and grammatical errors can be interpreted as carelessness or just bad writing. Also, have someone else read your essay and give you feedback so that you can make any final improvements and correct any errors you may have missed, but remember, no one can speak for you, your own words and ideas are your best bet.