The purpose of a college Entrance
essay is to get an idea of who you are as a student,
what qualities you bring to the college. Then
also, to see what you can do with your writing,
are you ready for college-level work, can you
write a clear, concise, structured essay based
on the questions that are being asked? Time restricts
Admission officers to give just a few minutes
to each entrance essay. Therefore, the key factor
is your ability to be creative. College admission
officers are looking for originality and creativity,
and want to identify what makes a student tick.
Here are some general do's and don'ts that will
help you write an effective personal statement.
- Find a quiet spot away from everyday distractions.
- Brainstorm different approaches and ideas.
This activity is like priming the pump and will
put you in the mood to write. In the beginning,
experiment with writing rough drafts. Later
on you can polish one of these drafts or a combination
of these drafts into the document you want to
present to the admissions committee.
- Also, experiment with writing different beginnings
and conclusions. One effective approach in organizing
your essay is to refer back to your beginning
in the conclusion of your essay. For example,
if you began your introduction with the following
statement: "My mother taught me the value
of staying with a project to its completion.”
And a conclusion might be: "As I put the
finishing touches to my paper, I thought fondly
of my mother and reached for a cup of coffee
just as she would have done."
- Most schools provide you with writing prompt--directions
on what to write about. Make sure you follow
them. If you wander away from the topic, you
automatically show the graduate committee or
the admissions officers that you cannot follow
directions. That is not a piece of information
you want to reveal about yourself.
- If there is anything about your academic
record that would benefit from further explanation
(e.g., why you failed several undergraduate
classes, this is the place to provide that explanation).
You are allowed to explain yourself and even
compute your GPA in favorable ways in your essay.
For example, you might let the committee members
know in your essay that if you remove all of
your pre-med classes from your transcript (after
all, you're not a pre-med major any more, you
might say), then your GPA would be 3.30 rather
- Make sure you have somebody smarter than
you read your paper. This is very important,
as an objective eye will catch many things that
you have missed. It is also important that you
be willing to have your feelings hurt for the
sake of writing the best essay you possibly
can. Frequently first drafts are passionate
and self-aggrandizing. You need a smart friend
to edit out the drama.
- Your personal statement should not be
a puzzle that the reader has to solve. By
that I mean that your writing should be clear
and explicit. The word "explicit"
is important. At Essay Plus, we correct many
essays where the writer implies or suggests
the meaning rather than being direct and explicit.
This can be a problem, because the committee
neither has the time nor the patience to figure
out the implied meaning.
- Make sure your transitions are clear; there
is nothing worse for a reader than trying to
figure out how you got from paragraph two to
paragraph three. • Finally, try to fashion
your essay in a way that makes you stand out
from the crowd. Remember, in a crowded world
it's our uniqueness that is still our most valuable