Jan 08, · blogger.com confidently, but not arrogantly. Keep a confident tone even if—especially if—you’re not feeling that way. Be on the lookout for words and phrases like “maybe,” “sort of,” and “I think” that might undercut that tone. At the same time, though, make sure to follow application guidelines about format and length Sample College Application Essay 1. Read this example of a college application essay. Analyze how it could be improved, and then compare your suggestions with ours. Read article. Sample College Application Essay 2. Read and evaluate this sample essay. Analyze its subject, tone and structure as well as the writer’s style Do assure your audience that you care about them and their time by writing a clear, organized, and concise essay. Do address any information about yourself and your application that needs to be explained (for example, weak grades or unusual coursework for your program). Include that information in your essay, and be straightforward about blogger.comted Reading Time: 8 mins
How to Write a College Application Essay - College Board Blog
This handout will help you write and revise the personal statement required by many graduate programs, internships, and special academic programs. Because the application essay can have a critical effect upon your progress toward a career, you should spend significantly more time, thought, and effort on it than its typically brief length would suggest. It should reflect how you arrived at your professional goals, why the program is ideal for you, and what you bring to the program.
You know most of the things you need to say already. Read the instructions carefully. One of the basic tasks of the application essay is to follow the directions. Make sure you how to write a good application essay how to do page and word limits exactly—err on the side of shortness, not length.
The essay may take two forms:. This is a hard essay to write. You may want to start by just getting something—anything—on paper. Try freewriting. Think about the questions we asked above and the prompt for the essay, and then write for 15 or 30 minutes without stopping.
What do you want your audience to know after reading your essay? What do you want them to feel? Just get out the ideas you have. For help getting started, see our handout on brainstorming. Find the most relevant, memorable, concrete statements and focus in on them. Find what is specific to you about the ideas that generated those platitudes and express them more directly.
Just make sure that you replace the generalizations with examples as you revise. A hint: you may find yourself writing a good, specific sentence right after a general, meaningless one.
If you spot that, try to use the second sentence and delete the first. Applications that have several short-answer essays require even more detail. Your readers may have thousands of essays to read, many or most of which will come from qualified applicants. You are number 49, and your reader is tired, bored, and thinking about lunch. How are you going to catch and keep her attention? For more tips, see our handout on audience. The voice you use and the style in which you write can intrigue your audience, how to write a good application essay how to do.
The voice you use in your essay should be yours. The narrative should reflect your perspective, experiences, thoughts, and emotions. Focusing on events or ideas may give your audience an indirect idea of how these things became important in forming your outlook, but many others have had equally compelling experiences. By simply talking about those events in your own voice, you put the emphasis on you rather than the event or idea.
Look at this anecdote:. During the night shift at Wirth Memorial Hospital, a man walked into the Emergency Room wearing a monkey costume and holding his head. He seemed confused and was moaning in pain. One of the nurses ascertained that he had been swinging from tree branches in a local park and had hit his head when he fell out of a tree.
This tragic tale signified the moment at which I realized psychiatry was the only career path I could take. An interesting tale, yes, but what does it tell you about the narrator? The following example takes the same anecdote and recasts it to make the narrator more of a presence in the story:.
I was working in the Emergency Room at Wirth Memorial Hospital one night when how to write a good application essay how to do man walked in wearing a monkey costume and holding his head, how to write a good application essay how to do.
I could tell he was confused and in pain. After a nurse asked him a few questions, I listened in surprise as he explained that he had been a monkey all of his life and knew that it was time to live with his brothers in the trees. Like many other patients I would see that year, this man suffered from an illness that only a combination of psychological and medical care would effectively treat. I realized then that I wanted to be able to help people by using that particular combination of skills only a psychiatrist develops.
The voice you use should be approachable as well as intelligent. Note: If you are having trouble forming clear sentences without all the prepositions and nouns, take a look at our handout on style.
You may want to create an impression of expertise in the field by using specialized or technical language. But beware of this unless you really know what you are doing—a mistake will look twice as ignorant as not knowing the terms in the first place. Keep in mind that this is a personal statement. Would you think you were learning a lot about a person whose personal statement sounded like a journal article?
Would you want to spend hours in a lab or on a committee with someone who shuns plain language? Just use an honest voice and represent yourself as naturally as possible.
A well-written, dramatic essay is much more memorable than one that fails to make an emotional impact on the reader. BUT be careful not to let your drama turn into melodrama. You want your reader to see your choices motivated by passion and drive, not hyperbole and a lack of reality. Many guides to writing application essays encourage you to take a risk, either by saying something off-beat or daring or by using a unique writing style.
When done well, this strategy can work—your goal is to stand out from the rest of the applicants and taking a risk with your essay will help you do that. An essay that impresses your reader with your ability to think and how to write a good application essay how to do yourself in original ways and shows you really care about what you are saying is better than one that shows hesitancy, lack of imagination, or lack of interest.
But be warned: this strategy is a risk. Do not alienate your readers, how to write a good application essay how to do. One student applying to an art program described the person he did not want to be, contrasting it with the person he thought he was and would develop into if accepted. Another person wrote an essay about her grandmother without directly linking her narrative to the fact that she was applying for medical school.
Assess your credentials and your likelihood of getting into the program before you choose to take a risk.
If you have little chance of getting in, try something daring. If you are almost certainly guaranteed a spot, you have more flexibility. In any case, make sure that you answer the essay question in some identifiable way. Get several people to read it and write their comments down. It is worthwhile to seek out someone in the field, perhaps a professor who has read such essays before. Give it to a friend, your mom, or a neighbor. The key is to get more than one point of view, and then compare these with your own.
Remember, you are the one best equipped to judge how accurately you are representing yourself. For tips on putting this advice to good use, see our handout on getting feedback. Put it away. Get it out and revise it again you can see why we said to start right away—this process may take time. Get someone to read it again. Revise it again. When you think it is totally finished, you are ready to proofread and format the essay.
Check every sentence and punctuation mark. You cannot afford a careless error in this essay. If you are not comfortable with your proofreading skills, check out our handout on editing and proofreading. If you find that your essay is too long, do not reformat it extensively to make it fit. Making readers deal with a nine-point font and quarter-inch margins will only irritate them.
Figure out what material you can cut and cut it. For strategies for meeting word limits, see our handout on writing concisely. Many of them would be flattered that you asked their advice, and they will have useful suggestions that others might not have.
Also keep in mind that many colleges and professional programs offer websites addressing the personal statement. If your schedule and ours permit, we invite you to come to the Writing Center.
Be aware that during busy times in the semester, we limit students to a total of two visits to discuss application essays and personal statements two visits per student, how to write a good application essay how to do, not per essay ; we do this so that students working on papers for courses will have a better chance of being seen. Make an appointment or submit your essay to our online writing center note that we cannot guarantee that an online tutor will help you in time.
For information on other aspects of the application process, you can consult the resources at University Career Services. We consulted these works while writing this handout. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial, how to write a good application essay how to do.
We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback. Asher, Donald. Graduate Admissions Essays: Write Your Way Into the Graduate School of Your Choice4th ed. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press. Curry, Boykin, Emily Angel Baer, and Brian Kasbar. New York: Ballantine Books. Stelzer, Richard.
How to write your college application essay
, time: 11:38Application Essays – The Writing Center • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Write an essay within 50 words under or over the word limit. If no length is suggested, aim for words for the main essay and words for smaller ones. Make sure every sentence in your essay adds to what you are telling the admissions officers about yourself. Do Sample College Application Essay 1. Read this example of a college application essay. Analyze how it could be improved, and then compare your suggestions with ours. Read article. Sample College Application Essay 2. Read and evaluate this sample essay. Analyze its subject, tone and structure as well as the writer’s style Jan 08, · blogger.com confidently, but not arrogantly. Keep a confident tone even if—especially if—you’re not feeling that way. Be on the lookout for words and phrases like “maybe,” “sort of,” and “I think” that might undercut that tone. At the same time, though, make sure to follow application guidelines about format and length
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