After what feels like an endless summer, it’s finally time to go back to school!
Whether your rising senior is returning to school in person or virtually, one thing all seniors have in common are the college application essays (the Common App essay + the shorter supplemental essays).
As a reminder, at this point in the process, your teen wants to confirm a final list of colleges and organize the list of essays for each school. If your teen has not completed these first few organizational steps, don’t panic. Help your teen set a goal to finish this list as soon as possible.
If your teen has started writing the college admission essays, you can help by passing along these guidelines to create a more effective, memorable piece of writing for the colleges.
With thousands of other applicants, your teen wants to set himself/herself apart from the crowd and leave an impression on admissions officers and ultimately, acceptance!
Here are five ways your teen can guarantee their college application essay will be memorable to readers.
The best college admission essays:
- Allow the reader (the college admissions people) to relate to the writing. The way to do this is strive for a personable, yet academic tone (more details on how to do this in future posts!).
- Provide an easy to understand reading experience and leave readers wanting to know more about you. One trick is to take a step back from each paragraph, and ask “What exactly is the point of these sentences? What message am I sending?”
- Clearly fit with the rest of the application by enhancing the characteristics already stated (commitment, love for math or English, values physical fitness) in the application.
- Use a genuine, authentic voice (avoid sounding artificially intellectual!). Put away the thesaurus. We often say to students when reviewing an essay, “Do you really talk like this?
- Demonstrate how you will enhance and fit in with the college community. Your teen wants to reinforce the most mature and intellectually curious traits so that the colleges say, “Yes! We want this senior at our school!”
Most importantly, your teen’s essay should be a reflection of his/her best character traits and should never come across as forced.
At Total Writing Enrichment, our focus is helping your teen produce a one-of-a-kind essay that will elevate the application from the crowd in the best possible way.
If you want to remove the stress of helping your teen with the college essays on their own, it is not too late to add your teen to our College Admissions Essay Writing program roster.
If you are interested in learning more tips and tricks about the college application essay, be sure to sign up for our email list by scrolling to the bottom of this page and entering your information. You can also visit our Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn for more content including videos and more in-depth looks at tips from our blog posts.
Good luck with the start of your school year whether it is online or in person, or enjoy the last few weeks of your summer!
Moira ♥
*Moira Ritter is a junior at Georgetown University and looks forward to contributing her writing skills to Total Writing Enrichment this summer!
