Hello, everyone! As a high school senior who has finished the college application process, today I will be sharing (technical) advice on writing college essays! These are tips that I have picked up along the way and have enhanced my stories
Make A Structured Plan
To perfect your ideas, you must write them out. Create an outline using bullet points (for each paragraph) and trash write everything! To trash write means to write as ideas come to mind. It is similar to stream of conscious writing. Don’t edit or try to sound sophisticated, the purpose of this is to just have a rough draft. Afterwards, you should revise paragraph by paragraph over and over again. It’s helpful to have someone else read over it too.
Show Don’t Tell
Instead of telling, “I love soccer,” your essay will sound stronger if you SHOW that you love soccer. For example, “Everyday, I woke up at 5a.m to get ready for soccer practice.” This demonstrates that you love soccer because it shows how dedicated you are to the sport (and obviously if you’re waking up that early for an extracurricular activity, you love it).
Avoid Cliche Phrases
This is probably one of the most important tips. Don’t write things like “for as long as I can remember,” “before I knew it,” “little did I know,” “I just knew/felt it,” “I had no words,” and so much more. This is overdone by millions of students and you want to make sure you’re setting yourself apart from the rest of the applicant pool!
Don’t Write “I believe”
Unless it’s crucial to your story, avoid statements like “I believe it is important to help people.” Since this is your essay, the reader will know that it is what you believe, so just cut those two words out completely to take advantage of the word count.
These tips can be used for college AND scholarship essays so make sure to take advantage of them! There are so many more, but I hope this provided an overview of how essay writing is like! Contact me if you have any questions!
Best wishes, Sissy Arenas
Instagram: @sissyaarenas
