How to Land in the “Yes” Pile

college application essay

Photo by n0nick

College Application Essays

Five Places to Start

After helping students discover their own unique topics over the last five or so years, I can spot a great topic the minute a student mentions one.

And I suspect it’s no different for the college  admissions people who read zillions of these.

Like most written pieces, you know after the first sentence or two if it’s going to be engaging or a drag (boring, trying to hard to impress, too general).

I can almost hear their conversations as they decide which essay to neatly stack in the “Yes” pile and those to toss over into the growing “No” pile:

“What do you think about the kid who got stuck in the tree?”

“Loved him!”

“How about the guy who went to Italy and took a class over summer studying architecture.”

“Lucky him. But I didn’t really get any feel about what he’s all about. Pass.”

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