Tips for writing effective college application essays

September 12, 2018 By Ariel
Get Ready for Your College Application (College Advice)   

It’s hard to believe, but it’s almost that time of year for juniors to begin college applications!  Here are 5 tips for how to write effective college application essays. 

1. Avoid clichés. 

College application essays are meant to help application reviewers determine who you are.  Avoid trite stories and meaningless clichés.  Try to write your essays in thoughtful ways, reviewers will see right through unsubstantial essays.     

2. Make it personal. 

Along with the last tip, make your college application essays about something that is special to you.  Copying and pasting someone else’s story from the web is both plagiarism and utterly unhelpful.  Think about the questions, and answer them in ways that give reviewers insights into the true you.  Also, writing about something you care deeply about will make this process much more enjoyable.  

3. Answer the question. 

I have seen several college application essays that are quite well-written, but neglect to answer the actual prompt.  Keep your applications concise and to the point: an application reviewer does not want to hear your random ramblings.       

4. Keep the school in mind. 

Part of applying to colleges is for them to get to know you as a student, but the other part is about you getting to know the college.  When writing your application essays, keep in mind what excites you most about that specific school.  Take a look at the university’s values and student life opportunities.  Figure out what you like most about the college and reflect this in your essay.  Colleges will appreciate the research you’ve done about them.

5. Edit, edit, edit! 

Whenever I review college application essays I get quite annoyed to find basic grammatical mistakes and typos.  Please, please edit your work.  Even better, have multiple people edit your work multiple times.  Careless mistakes make reviewers think that you don’t care enough about their college. 

I hope you’ve found these tips helpful!  If you’re completely stumped, please reach out to any of us Inizian tutors and we’d be glad to help.