College Essay Package

College Essay Package The best way to tell your story is to write a personal, thoughtful essay about something that has meaning for you. Be honest and genuine, and your unique qualities will shine through. We caution against one-liners, limericks and anything offâ€"color. You have a unique background, interests and personality. Before you get started, you should know exactly what essays you need to write. Having this information allows you to plan the best approach to each essay and helps you cut down on work by determining whether you can use an essay for more than one prompt. How well do you understand the college admissions process? A student who can make an admissions officer laugh never gets lost in the shuffle. What you think is funny and what an adult working in a college thinks is funny are probably different. I became president of the California Scholarship Federation, providing students with information to prepare them for college, while creating opportunities for my peers to play a bigger part in our community. I began tutoring kids, teens, and adults on a variety of subjects ranging from basic English to home improvement and even Calculus. As the captain of the water polo and swim team I’ve led practices crafted to individually push my comrades to their limits, and I’ve counseled friends through circumstances similar to mine. Again, there are sections for all of your extracurriculars and awards; the point of the essay is to reveal something more personal that isn't clear just from numbers and lists. If you don't care about your topic, it will be hard to convince your readers to care about it either. You can't write a revealing essay about yourself unless you write about a topic that is truly important to you. This question is basically asking how your personal history, such as your childhood, family, groups you identify with etc. helped you become the person you are now. Many students become so focused on telling a story or recounting details that they forget to explain what it all meant to them. The body of your essay will consist of stringing together a few important moments related to the topic. I’ve done tons, and I can finally say I’m proud of that. War followed me to freshman year of high school when I wanted more than anything to start new and check off to-dos in my bullet journal. No matter what however, the readers definitely want to hear about your educational goals (i.e. what you hope to get out of college) and how they're related to your personal experience. I would also recommend starting with a longer personal statement before moving on to shorter supplementary essays, since the word essays tend to take quite a bit longer than word short responses. The brainstorming you do for the long essay may help you come up with ideas you like for the shorter ones as well. In order to make sure you have plenty of time to brainstorm, write, and edit your essay , I recommend starting at least two months before your first deadline. The last thing you want is to end up with a low-quality essay you aren't proud of because you ran out of time and had to submit something unfinished. If, on the other hand, you have more than one idea you really like, consider whether any of them can be used for other essays you need to write. As long as you're talking about yourself, there are very few ideas that you can't tie back to one of the Common App prompts. But if you're applying to a school with its own more specific prompt, or working on supplemental essays, making sure to address the question will be a greater concern. Your essay should add something to your application that isn't obvious elsewhere. You can talk about the effects of either your family life or your cultural history . You can also choose between focusing on positive or negative effects of your family or culture. Make sure to use sensory details to bring the reader into those points in time and keep her engaged in the essay. Also remember to elucidate why these moments were important to you. As I touched on above, the narrower your focus, the easier it will be to write a unique, engaging personal statement. The simplest way to restrict the scope of your essay is to recount an anecdote, i.e. a short personal story that illustrates your larger point.