How to Focus your Essay

College Admissions Essays

How to Give Them More Punch: FOCUS!

A common challenge in writing these college admissions essays is making sure they go deep enough. That doesn’t mean you have to talk about the meaning of life, and allude to Shakespeare, Greek myths and Kafka, and try to sound profound. It usually just means that you need to explore what you are writing about more thoroughly. Here’s my advice: If your writing is too general, and your points and ideas are spread out all over the place, chances are they are shallow in nature. Picture a pool of water. The more spread out and wide it is, the shallower it gets. If you shore it up and make it smaller in total width, it gets deeper.

 

So how do you shore up your ideas and points in your essays? The best way is to get specific–which is, the opposite of general. Simple, right? If you can focus your topic (and main point you are going to make in your essay) from the beginning, the easier it will be to develop depth in what you have to say about it. (Read more about the power of “mundane topics” HERE.) When brainstorming topic ideas, it’s okay to start with broad ideas, but make sure to drill down before you start writing.

Here’s an example. Just last week, I helped a student brainstorm ideas for his personal statement for the Common App. It went like this:

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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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Essay Rocket Fuel: The Anecdote

College Admissions Essays

How to Write an Anecdote

For Your College Application Essay, Personal Statement or other Essays

If you can write an anecdote, you can write a powerful essay.

But a lot of students don’t know what an anecdote is, let alone how to write one.

It’s really just a weird word for a little story or animated description of something that happened.

Usually they are very short.

If done well, they make excellent introductions for all essays since they grab the reader’s attention.

In essays, an anecdote is an example of a point you want to make that uses a little story or animated description.

Example: You want to make the point in your essay that you are a creative person.

So you write an anecdote to illustrate your point: You could describe something creative that you made, or you could describe yourself making something interesting.

Like this:

During a walk near my home, I found a long stick that looked like the letter “Y.” I smoothed the surface with sandpaper and covered it with blueberry blue paint I found in the garage, then wrapped it with twine and colored yarn. From my junk drawer, I tied seashells, a couple old keys and a bent fork to the ends and hung it in my room.

“What’s that?” my little sister asked.

“Art,” I said, even though I wasn’t even sure what I had made.

(Then background your interest in art, how you think about it, why you value it, how it has affected you, changed you, and what your plans are for it in the future…)

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How to Answer the Most Common Supplement Question: Why College X?

Most of you will write one or two “core” essays for your college applications.

These essays will focus on revealing who you are and why you are unique.

But you will also write numerous supplemental (shorter) essays.

The good news is that many of these “supps” ask similar questions. So if you are smart, you will find ways to re-use parts of your answers and streamline the process.

At the same time, you also will hone, sharpen and improve your answers.

Here are some examples of typical sup questions that are looking for similar answers:

  • Why do you want to go to OUR UNIVERSITY?
  • Why are you a “good match” for OUR UNIVERSITY?
  • What is it that you like the best about OUR UNIVERSITY?
  • How will you contribute to OUR UNIVERSITY?

Basically, there are two parts to these prompts. One: Why YOU? Two: Why COLLEGE X? Your job is show how and why they fit together. Here is a short guide on how  to do this:

ONE: State your main goal for your education at your target schools. To be an engineer? To get a liberal arts education? To play waterpolo? To become a filmmaker? To earn a pre-med degree? To figure out what you want to do in the future?

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Jumpstart Your Personal Statement! All You Need is a Juicy Problem!

College Admissions Essays:

How to Start Your Core College Application Essay

 

If you are writing a college admissions essay that responds to a prompt that asks you to tell about yourself, or about “a time,” or describe a quality, background, interest, identity, talent, characteristic, experience or accomplishment (such as The Common App prompts or Prompt #2 for the UC app.), then your essay is also known as a personal statement.

The most effective personal statements are written as narrative essays, meaning they relate an experience using a story-telling style.

To share an incident or moment from your past, you only need two components to make a story: a character and a conflict.

So one magic way to create a personal narrative is to search your recent past for a conflict. (You are the “character.”)

Thinking back to English class, remember that conflicts can come from many different places—from within yourself (internal: you have a personal issue or hang-up that caused you pain or trouble) to outside yourself (external: something happened to you.)

To put it simply, a conflict is a problem.

Problems come in all shapes and sizes.

They do not need to be traumas or a crises, although those can work, too.

(HINT: Basic, everyday problems work best! Check out this post about “mundane” topics.)

Here are other words for a conflict or problem: challenge, failure, obstacle, mistake, hang-up, issue, a change, dilemma, fears, obsessions, etc.

Examples of conflicts or problems: you are shy, competitive, stubborn, were bullied, are obsessed with Twilight, didn’t make the team, got injured, have big feet, frizzy red hair, smile too much, someone quit at your work, don’t have own car, can’t spell, adhd, ocd, don’t eat meat, perfectionist, slob, lazy, drunk driving, have a mean grandparent, no money, etc…

Man, there are a lot of problems out there! But for the purposes of writing these dreaded essays, that’s a good thing for once!

Once you remember a juicy problem, follow these steps:

1. Describe the time you had a problem or describe a strong example of your problem.

(Include what happened and how it made you feel. Try to start at the moment it hit, or happened for the best impact!  Include the 5Ws—who, what, when, where and why! Stick to one or two paragraphs.)

These mini-stories are also called anecdotes, and you can learn more by reading my post on how to write an anecdote.

RELATED: My Video Tutorial on How to Write an Anecdote: Part One

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Lessons from another season of college application essays…

I haven’t posted anything in recent weeks. My role as a college essay tutor wraps up in January and February.

But if you are still working on an essay or personal statement, I would read through this blog for ideas and inspiration!

This spring, I have also been in the thick of the college admissions craze because my son is a high school senior. And boy what a ride it has been.

One of the hardest parts is the waiting–and I know some of you are STILL waiting to hear from prospective colleges and universities. Hang in there!!

And then there are the rejections. My son certainly had his share, and it didn’t help that they were the first schools to report. And one was his top pick. But he cast a wide net, and now has three great options to pick from, which is the next challenge. So, it all works out! And it will work out for you, too!

We went through this with my daughter, too, two years ago, and she landed in a fabulous little liberal arts college in the south and loves it. (She’s going to study in India next semester for her study abroad!)

I’m not a college counselor, but I can share with you a couple tips that I wish I had known, or paid closer attention to, for my own kids’ college quest. I can’t say we have regrets, but we certainly learned some things as we went along. In case they resonate with you, here they are (in no particular order of importance.):

  • Try as hard as you can to tune out others students and parents who talk up certain schools, especially the “prestigious” ones, and focus on what will be the best fit for you. Remember, you are the one who will go there, not them!
  • Don’t let yourself get overwhelmed with all you have to do. Just keep up with the various steps, and it all works out. None of it is really that difficult. Stay open to learning about the different schools, and when you are in the area of a college or university (even if you don’t necessarily want to go there) your sophomore or junior year, drop by and check it out! Your opinions about colleges will change a lot in just a year or so.

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Wordle Your College Essay!

Wordle Your College Essay!

Wordle: college essasy

I heard of Wordling from a gardening friend over at a totally unrelated blog, called Lost in the Landscape. (Believe it or not, I do other things than read college essays!) Wordling is a program where you can drop in some text and it creates a colorful collage of random words in unusual fonts, and it also makes the words you use the most the most prominent. The idea is that you can get a visual sense of what you emphasized in your writing. (Above is a Wordle of this post! Click the image to enlarge.)

So, guess what I thought would be fun to Wordle? You got it (see, that’s why you are on your way to college!!)–college admissions essays!  In my previous post, I told you my son just finished submitting all his applications. So I Wordled one of his two essays (for the University of California application–basically personal statements about 500 words each).  Then I dug out one of my daughter’s recent college essays. I bet you will be able to see that they are very different in their interests:

My son’s Wordle (click on it to make larger)

Wordle: Caden Essay

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Before You Push the Button

College Admissions Essay

 

College Admissions Essays:

 How To Fine Edit Your College Application Essay

You are finally finished with your essay. It’s time to copy it into the online application and send it off. You’ve worked hard. Why not make sure it’s fabulous? Follow this checklist to double check that it’s as good as it should be:

  • Read your prompt (the question) one more time. Often a prompt will ask you to answer more than one question, or address several points. Make sure you address or answer them all!
  • Did you make your point? (Yes, that’s the same thing as your “main point.”) You should be able to state it in a sentence or two. And it should be stated somewhere in your essay as well. If you can’t do this, chances are your essay is too broad, and too broad means boring.
  • Do you prove the (main) point you are making in your essay? Did you provide examples as “evidence”?
  • When you give examples in your essay, or describe something, are you specific? Use details!

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Lady Gaga as a Topic?

College Application Essays

How Far Out Should You Go?

Interesting post on the New York Times’ blog on college admissions, called The Choice.

The article was about whether to include your random interests–ranging from an obsession with Lady Gaga to riding 100 bus routes in Seattle to a collection of old National Geographic mags–in your college applications.

The post quotes college counselors advising students to include their “hidden extracurriculars”  in the “interests” section, as though that’s really radical. Depending on the interest, I believe it could work best as an essay topic.

In my opinion, what you care about, and spend your time pursuing, tells more about you than recounting your mission trip to Costa Rica or the time you won the big cross country race.

If you write an essay about an offbeat topic (a passion, an obsession, a hobby…), chances are you not only will reveal a telling piece of your personality, but also show the reader how you think and what you value.

WARNING: Do not simply try to be cute, odd or quirky. Not matter how offbeat your topic, make sure your points remain serious and thoughtful. Show restraint.

Check out these 5 Top Tips on Finding Topics.

(Personally, I would avoid a sensational topic such as Lady Gaga, since she is distractingly bizarre and it would be hard to keep your focus on serious issues.)

Check out this post to find my super helpful brainstorm guide on finding topics for your college application essays! Good luck!

 

If you just found my blog and need help on your college application essay…

Use the “Find Help By Topic” index (over to the top right) to find the posts that will help you the most. Some are about finding topics (Do you know the secret of using a “mundane” topic, yet?). Others have great writing advice for once you start your rough draft (The Ladder of Abstraction can help you structure your personal narrative!). A few are about polishing your essay. And there are many more in between.

If you have the time, I would actually recommend starting at the very end of this blog and scroll and skim through them, the older posts. Some of my best stuff is way down there.

Don’t want to pressure you, but the clock is ticking!!