Top 5 Tips to Write a College Essay that Stands Out
The college essay is one of the most important pieces of your college application, if not the most important. College essays give admission officers a chance to know the real you behind all the quantitative accomplishments—test scores, transcripts, extracurricular activities, etc. The college essay is a place where you tell a personal narrative that is mentioned nowhere else in your application. An unforgettable college essay can be the cherry on top that makes you stand out from other applicants and becomes the decisive factor that earns you an offer letter. In this post, we will cover the top 5 tips to help you write a compelling and memorable college essay.
Before we jump into the tips, let’s take a look at the essay prompts listed on the Common App for the 2024-2025 school year:
- Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
- The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
- Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?
- Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?
- Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.
- Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?
- Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you’ve already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.
These essay prompts cover many aspects of students’ lives, and the last prompt allows you to choose your own topic beyond the given options. Your college essay can literally be about anything, which probably makes it even harder for you to come up with a topic and decide what to include or leave out. So, why do all colleges require a personal essay in every student’s application? The answer is that the college essay provides admission committees with many layers of valuable information about prospective students. It shows your characteristics and personality, your ability to reflect on yourself, your attention to detail in your writing, and how you will be a positive addition to the school community. Follow the tips below to start crafting your college essay and leave a compelling impression on the admission committees.
Tip #1: Choose One Event That Shows Your Characteristics
Choosing a single event to narrate your personal story is key to a memorable college essay. Although it may be tempting to include several events to show different aspects of you, multiple events make your writing lose focus and lack in-depth elaboration. The event you choose should have personal significance, something that made you grow, taught you a lesson, or changed your perceptions. As you unfold the story, your characteristic traits become clear to the readers. Admission officers want to know how you approached a situation or how an event shaped you, so they can understand the type of student you are. Avoid explicitly listing your characteristics; instead, use the story to exemplify your traits through your actions, reactions, and emotions. Ideally, the readers should feel the same way you felt when they read your story.
Essay Example: A Talent Boost Education student wrote about her experience when she decided to shave her long hair completely bald and donate it to a cancer foundation. She described the moment she was on the donation stage, holding her freshly cut hair in one hand and a volunteer’s hand in the other, completely bald in front of her family and friends. As you read her story, you can feel her bravery, independence, caring, and confidence.
Tip #2: Reflect on Your Experiences
A college essay is more than a personal anecdote; it is about personal reflection. Your ability to reflect on a past event demonstrates your critical thinking skills and self-awareness. While a well-told story is important to leave an unforgettable impression on admission officers, they care more about the personal insights you gain from that event. They want to know how you grew as a person and gained a better understanding of yourself. You can reflect by sharing your initial reactions, immediate feelings and thoughts, and the self-awareness you eventually had. Remember, you don’t have to go through a traumatic experience to show personal growth. Sometimes the best reflections and lessons learned come from experiences that may seem insignificant at first. Also, not all problems need to have a resolution, nor do all questions need to have an answer. Approach your reflection with the recognition of the dynamic nature of personal growth. The experience that shaped your personal development is just a step towards better self-understanding, and your reflection shows your willingness to face your imperfections and your ability to delve deep for self-improvement.
Essay Example: A Talent Boost Education student talked about her conversation with an elderly woman in a rural area during a trip. The student sat next to the woman on the porch of her house, facing an immense field of wildflowers during sunset. As she listened to the woman’s life story, she reflected on her relationship with her grandparents, who still lived in their rural hometown while she had moved to the city with her parents. As you read her essay, her reflections are woven through her conversation with the elderly woman, mixed with her childhood memories of her grandparents. It was about her mistaken sense of superiority and her redefinition of happiness and success in life.
Tip #3: Write in Your Authentic Voice
Write in your own voice and be authentic. Admission committees read hundreds and thousands of college essays every year. They are very familiar with the writing styles of high school students and can tell almost immediately if an essay is written by the student or someone else, or even worse, by AI like ChatGPT. I am not saying you should not use the resources available to you to craft your ideas—quite the opposite, you should use all of them. Ask your friends and family what is special about you, turn to ChatGPT to brainstorm topics, and have your teacher or an essay mentor provide feedback. However, you still need to be the person who writes the essay entirely. Write as if you are having a conversation with the admission officer. Although your essay should be well-written and polished, there is no need to use overly complex vocabulary. It doesn’t need to be overly formal either. Use a natural tone that reflects your personality. If you are not a humorous person, don’t try to use humor to impress. Present yourself in a genuine and sincere manner, and show your uniqueness in a way only you can.
Essay Example: A Talent Boost Education student wrote about his passion for drones and how he lost track of time while disassembling, improving, and testing them. The tone he used to share his story was unique to the perspectives of a high schooler—being creative with limited resources for drone upgrades, staying up all night to make time for his project, and finding secret spots to test his drones with friends.
Tip #4: Edit Your Draft
Using your own authentic voice is crucial, but that doesn’t mean your essay should be too colloquial or excessively casual. An essay that is poorly executed will lose its charm no matter how impressive your story is. No one can write a high-quality essay in one draft. Editing is key. A high-quality essay means logical structure, smooth transitions, insightful reflections, proper formatting, and zero grammatical mistakes. After your first draft, ask trusted individuals like your family, friends, teachers, and mentors to review it. You may receive various feedback, sometimes the feedback can be contradictory to each other, and that’s fine. Be selective and choose what makes sense for you. You may have three, five, or ten drafts; the number doesn’t matter. What’s important is that you present meticulous writing that shows your attitude and ability.
Tip #5: Avoid Repeated Information or Controversial Topics
The purpose of the college essay is to showcase aspects of you that are not shown elsewhere in your application. Do not waste space repeating your accomplishments or extracurricular activities. You don’t want to turn your essay into another activity list or a rundown of your high school events. You may have listed significant achievements that imply your personal traits in other parts of your application; the college essay is a good place to expand on these traits. The goal of your essay is to offer new insights and perspectives about yourself. Telling a new story exemplifying these traits that tie into your application will make your application a complete set.
Avoid talking about controversial topics related to politics, culture, and religion. You don’t know the background of the admission officers who will read your essay, and you don’t want to make them uncomfortable with something you write. Although admission officers strive to be objective and professional when reviewing college essays, it is still a human process, and people may have different opinions and preferences. That’s why sometimes you are admitted by a higher-ranking university but rejected by a lower-ranking one. It is tricky to address controversial issues with complete propriety and fairness. You also want to show your interpersonal sensitivity and emotional intelligence by considering your readers’ feelings.
Takeaway
The college essay is your chance to shine. A compelling college essay shows the unique you through a memorable personal anecdote. It leaves an impression on readers’ minds, touches their hearts, and sheds light on your humanity. Imagine if you were the person who will read thousands of college essays—would your essay make an unforgettable impression? Would your essay be the one that makes the reader smile with acknowledgment after reading? If yes, then you have told the best story of yourself. If you are still in the process of crafting or refining your essay and would like to have an experienced essay mentor provide constructive feedback, contact Talent Boost Education at info@TalentBoostEducation.com or visit talentboosteducation.com for more details.