3 Keys To Successful College Admission Essays

3 Keys To Successful College Admission Essays Next you will compile a list of your personal life experiences. You need a strategy to get all of that into an essay and still tell a compelling story. You will have to pull out all the stops to make it happen. Finish by making a decision, tell the reader what the answer is. Start with something other than the cliche 'to conclude' or ‘ultimately.’ Teachers are tired of hearing those words, and often, they can be left out. Go with ‘ultimately’ however if you feel like your conclusion is incomplete without this transitional phrase. Anything you can think of should be added to the list as long as it meets the three criteria we mentioned earlier. These will become the first morsels of truth you will include in your essay. and constantly refer to it and use the keywords to show the reader/examiner/your teacher that you are addressing the question. Having a clear idea of the question is SO important to remain organized as you do your research. Here are some practical guidelines you can use to make sure that the essay you create delivers the exact message you want them to receive. DON’T use the personal statement essay to repeat your resume. The last step is editing and proofreading your finished essay. Try to identify what the tone of your essay is going to be based on your ideas. College essay questions often suggest one or two main ideas or topics of focus. So go back to your screen, accept that the first draft is going to be DARN AWFUL, and challenge yourself to write that first sentence -- then another -- and another. The tendency toward perfectionism is the enemy of all progress. The biggest mistake I ever made was repeatedly re-reading everything I wrote, going back to edit, realizing I hated my writing, and then getting in the way of any progress I was making. I wrote an essay of 1550 words and it was barely 4.5 pages . So make sure you know the content and collect your notes -- do whatever you need to prepare. This includes collecting your stationery and paper etc, so that before you know everything you want to write about. If you can, save a nice interesting fact to hit the reader with in the conclusion. This is your chance to essentially say 'so basically I was right and the previous paragraphs are the proof of it'. Once your topic sentence is written, it's time to turn your notes into sentences to supporting the claim made in your topic sentence. The majority of your body paragraph should be backing up your paragraph’s point with evidence, facts and quotes. At the end of your paragraph, relate back to the question (don't forget your key-words) and make a judgment about this individual point in reference to your thesis. You’ve already determined what your three major points are and which notes/facts should support which points. Facts you’ve researched that don’t quite fit with your argument should be kept in another section -- that will be for your counter-argument. Trust me -- you will get brownie points for addressing these points later in your essay. These can vary from personal to trivial, but all seek to challenge you and spark your creativity and insight. I'm an 18-year-old aspiring writer/poet in Upper Sixth in England. My interests range from sports to fashion but most of all literature. I have occasionally bright hair and an obnoxiously cheery personality. Okay -- that’s a bit of an extreme example, but the reasoning holds true. Before you start writing like a determined maniac, you need to also have an outline first -- otherwise, you could end up scrapping most or all of what you wrote in the first place.