Why the College Admission Essay Is Important and How You can Write a Good College Admission Essay
Well, as a student, you now want to secure a seat in a reputable college. In fact, you have, all through these years, been dreaming about getting admission to some illustrious college to enhance your further education.
What, do you think, is it that makes you eligible for college admission? Your academic competence? Your excellence in activities other than the curricular merit? The flawless letters of recommendation from your teachers? Certificates of your irreproachable conduct? Of course, all these factors do matter. However, the colleges would like to assess one more of your skills: your competence in creating an excellent CollegeAdmission Essay, an extremely important factor in deciding your merit for admission.
Any college worth its repute would like to know what kind of student it is admitting to its courses. Your essay for college admission enables the authorities concerned to measure various aspects of your attitude and potentials. It will mirror how you have approached the topic, how painstakingly you have researched, how well you have marshaled your thoughts, and how good you are at your skills of language. The college authorities will see whether your essay has an arresting introduction and whether your conclusion is comprehensive and your line of thinking rational as well as imaginative. In short, your College Admission Essay will be a reliable mirror of your personality and will help the authorities gain an insight into your aptitude to decide whether you fit into their system.
Many an eminent college has turned down the applications of many students as their essays have been sloppy in form and incoherent in content. So, it is extremely important that you carefully think before you ink your College Admission Essay.
How do you write an essay the college of your dream will not set aside? Writing any essay involves four indispensable steps:
- Thinking, which some pompously call brainstorming, about the topic,
- Putting down the ideas on paper and organizing them into a coherent whole,
- Writing the essay, and
- Editing it.
To begin the first step of thinking, you just have to read the assigned topic and get the ‘key phrase’. Suppose your College Admission Essay asks you to state your purpose of seeking admission, your key word will be ‘purpose’. Ask yourself why you chose your course and why you chose the college of your preference? What motivated you to pursue that specific discipline and that particular institution? Pin down the motivation and find out what that motivation is driving you toward. Articulate what situations and innate gifts propelled you toward the subject of your study. Delineate what you, your community, and your college will stand to gain, once you finish your course.
After jotting down your random thoughts, organize them. Prioritize your ideas. Decide which ideas you would like to keep as salient and which you would like to subordinate. Form them into crude paragraphs.
Now, here comes the real writing! First, you need to construct an introduction to your College Admission Essay. As you know, a job well-begun is a job almost done. Let your imagination come into full play at this stage. It will be worthwhile to begin with a quotation. Needless to say, the quote must be relevant, and in accord with the tone and tenor of your essay. If your essay is about the statement of your purpose, you can use something like, “Nothing is born in this world without some purpose”, or “an unseen hand guides everything to its destiny”. Link the quote with your opening statement.
Remember to keep your introduction brief. Present the main idea (which is called the ‘topic sentence’) of your essay in the last sentence of your introduction.
After the introduction, select paragraphs from the crude draft you have already made.Remember to discuss each component of your main idea in separate paragraphs. Use reasons and illustrations to reinforce your points. Be systematic in your transitions from idea to idea. Indicate the transition with appropriate linking terms. For example, if you are moving to a contrasting point, use a word like ‘however’.
As you write your College Admission Essay, pay heed to your language. Use more positive words; use the negatives only to create specific impact; employ the appropriate vocabulary; pronouns must match with their nouns; subjects must agree with their verbs; and prepositions must be properly placed. While concluding, briefly recapitulate your main points. As you draw to the last sentence allude to the quote with which you began. Let the last sentence of your College Admission Essay as well be a quote related to the prefatory quote.
Once you have readied your College Admission Essay, go through it with a comb.Emend your text: correct the spellings, rephrase awkward expressions, and replace or remove irrelevant words. Thus hone your essay to possible perfection.
To conclude, writing your College Admission Essay is a painstaking task. But it is worth the effort as a well-written essay for admission almost ensures admission to the college of you dream.
Wish you all all the best.
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