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APPLICATION ESSAY
Students tend to stress most about the essay portion of the college application. To ease anxiety and help students as they apply, School of Creative and Performing Arts has incorporated writing college essays into the senior year English curriculum. In addition, the school counselors are often happy to review and critique student’s essays, if given ample notice. The San Diego library has more than 12 books on writing essays for college along with examples of successful essays. (Warning: it can be somewhat intimidating to read some of these published pieces.) Leave lots of time to write and re-write. If you procrastinate too long, it will be impossible to write thoughtfully. Follow these three steps for writing essays: |
1. BRAINSTORM.
Consider the following to help you think about yourself
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What three adjectives would your friends use to describe you?
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What would people be surprised to know about you?
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What is your favorite subject in school? When you were in elementary school, which was your favorite? What, if anything, has changed? Why?
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Who is your favorite teacher and why do you like him/her?
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What would people say about you behind your back?If you could not watch TV, play video games or read books for one week, how would you occupy your time?
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Do you like working on projects or having finished them?
2. ANSWER THE ESSAY QUESTION.
When you begin to answer the question, make sure to refer to yourself a lot. The readers don’t need facts, they need perspective on you. Try to work in information or opinions not found elsewhere in your application. Don’t restate awards or participation on sports teams unless you’re adding something new.
3. ASK FOR FEEDBACK FROM TEACHERS, CONSULTANTS, PARENTS, OR COUNSELORS; INCORPORATE APPLICABLE COMMENTS.
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A stylistic tip: Spend a lot of time on the first and last paragraphs, to entice the reader and leave a lasting impression.
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Make sure to convey how and why the experiences you write about have affected you. Again, the readers are most interested in understanding you better than they are in the topic itself.
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Grammar and spelling count!
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Make transitions smooth so readers don’t have to work too hard to follow your line of thinking.
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The University of California application includes three personal essay questions. Writing these essays can be very helpful, even if you do not plan to apply to any of the UC campuses, because the questions encourage you to consider strengths and weaknesses, personality traits and unique experiences that have helped shape you as a person. Once you have answered these questions, you can often adapt parts of them when working on applications for other schools. |
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