College Admissions Essay Basics

At many competitive colleges, the college admissions essay is a very important part of the application process. The college admissions essay gives the admissions committee a chance to know the applicant a little better and get insight that may not be available elsewhere on the application.

Yet understandably, high school students frequently have a lot of questions about the college admissions essay. How should I get started? What should I write about? What are colleges looking for? In what format or style should I write?

We've got resources to help you answer all of those questions and to guide you through the process of putting together a great college admissions essay.

Here are the basic steps you should take:

1. Be Prepared. Before you start the essay-writing process, learn everything you can about the college admissions essay. Read through all the information we've compiled here, even if you haven't gotten to that stage of the process yet. In particular, carefully look through some online sample essays or buy a book such as 100 Successful College Application Essays.

2. If possible, meet with someone. Schedule a meeting with your guidance counselor, if you have one, to talk about what essays you'll need to write and how to approach them strategically. If you don't have a counselor, or he or she is unlikely to help with the essays, you should look at some college applications (including the common application) to give yourself an idea of what you're up against. If you're thinking about hiring an outside admissions consultant or essay assistant, the time to do so is right away, so that you can also get help with the brainstorming process.

3. Find a Topic. This is arguably the most important part of the essay-writing process. Your topic selection will say a lot about what's important to you, and will determine how meaningful, interesting, impressive, and intimate your essay can be.

4. Think about essay planning and structure. Once you've got a topic, you need to decide how you're going to set up your college essay. Some of this may come as you write, but it makes sense to have a plan before you start writing.

5. Write your first draft. Once you're all ready to write and understand how you're going to approach your college admissions essay, the next step is to actually write. Let your creativity run the show, but don't forget about the basic principles of good writing. Put a draft down on paper and see how you do. If you're happy with it, and you have time to spare, you should probably put your college admissions essay in a drawer for a while and forget about it. This will help you have a fresh perspective when you're ready to revise and edit.

6. Revise and edit. However good your first draft may have been, it should get a lot better with some serious revision. Pay attention to grammar, usage, and punctuation, of course, but don't forget to look at the content and other, more substantive, issues. If anything in your college admissions essay doesn't strike you as great, work on it until it is!

7. Get help! Whether or not you're going to use a guidance counselor or outside counseling service, you should get someone to look over your essays--preferably someone who's a great writer and has some experience with the admissions process.