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College Application Essay Tips
Good luck writing!
Jon
Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.
Not literally. Figuratively. What I'm getting at is this:
That expression is your essay's emoticon. Sometimes, it isn't easy to figure out. Here's a conversation that gets repeated over and over:
Me: What do you want the reader to feel? Student: I want the reader to know...
But I didn't ask about what the reader should know. I asked about what the reader should feel. That's harder but also more important. If your reader feels nothing after reading your essay, you have failed to connect.
When I'm helping a student figure out her essay's emoticon, I usually start with two questions.
Your answer is a good clue about what you want your reader to feel. We all like it when someone else feels what we went through.
Look at the question again. It asks about a "time." The smaller that measure of time, the easier you'll find it to write about. 500 words isn't enough space to cover years. If you try, you'll end up giving a 30,000-foot airplane view of your life, a quick flyover of a too-vast landscape. Think seconds or minutes, not weeks or years. Think about a thin slice of time you can place under a microscope and examine in detail.
The feeling you choose for your seconds or minutes could be positive - joy, excitement, relief - or negative - fear, disappointment, shame. Anything. Whatever feeling you choose is your essay's emoticon.
Think about your slice of time, the one you're going to put under the microscope. Now all you have to do is apply two sophisticated techniques you learned in elementary school. First, ask, "Who, what, where, when, why?" Hooray for the 5 Ws. Second, ask, "What did I see, hear, smell, taste, and touch?" Hooray for the 5 senses. When you answer all these questions, the reader can start to see the world from your perspective.
"Showing" means giving the audience raw sensory data to interpret. "Telling" means giving the reader an interpretation of that data. For example, when you watch Game of Thrones, you are experiencing "showing" because you are watching the characters and interpreting their actions and motives for yourself. But when you miss an episode and your friend tries to catch you up, you are experiencing "telling" because you are getting his interpretation, not the raw data.
And of course, though you appreciate your friend's effort, you'd much rather see the episode for yourself. Your reader would also much rather be shown than told.
When you show - by giving the reader the 5Ws and the 5 senses - the reader enters your head and sees what you saw, hears what you heard. Walking in your shoes to get your perspective allows the reader to connect with you.
Before you write, at least think about your essay's emoticon: what you want your reader to feel. Start by thinking of some moments when you had strong feelings. Continue by writing out the 5Ws and the 5 senses for those moments. That's one approach for connecting with your reader.
Good luck writing!
Jon
Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.
Interdisciplinary. Teamwork. Intellectual Curiosity. Every college uses buzzwords to describe why it's special. You have to find these buzzwords. They're your clues into what a college values. Look at the undergraduate admission website. Look at the school's mission statement. Make a list of the words that seem to pop up over and over. When you speak someone's native language, you are showing that person respect. Colleges are no different. They want to know you care enough to speak their language.
List some of your major experiences, including any academic interests. Look back at your list of buzzwords. Ask yourself which experiences match with which buzzwords. If the buzzword is "interdisciplinary," then list that research project you did about the intersection of art and biology. If you write about buzzwords without connecting them to your experiences, then it just seems like you're making stuff up. Bad move.
Any college considering your application wants to know it's not wasting a space on you. That's why you need to explain how you will take advantage of the college's opportunities. What classes or seminars interest you? What research opportunities get you excited? What internships sound cool? Show the college that you understand where you might find your niche.
Don't settle for platitudes in the "Why College X?" essay. This is not the place to talk about the school's great reputation or beautiful campus. Those kinds of remarks are doubly generic; any applicant could make them, and they could apply to any school.
A good "Why College X?" essay, like most application essays, connects your past to your future. You want to write a bridge between your experiences - your past - and the college's opportunities - your future. And you want to adorn this bridge with a couple buzzwords to show that you've done your homework. At the end of your essay, your reader should feel confident that attending College X is the natural next step for you.
Good luck writing!
Jon
Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.
If you have ever watched CSI or any other crime drama, you've probably seen luminol. The detective suspects there is blood at the crime scene. To test her hunch, she sprays the area with luminol. Luminol reacts with the iron in blood to give off an eerie blue glow.
When you first think of a possible topic, you're standing in the detective's shoes. You have a hunch you're on the right track to a good essay, but you need a way to confirm. If only there were essay luminol, something you could use to test your topic to see whether it's the real thing or just a false lead.
My version of essay luminol is a series of 7 areas you can explore about your topic. If you find you have a lot to say about most of these questions, that's a good sign. If not, then maybe you need to keep looking. OK, here we go:
If you have a topic in mind, try writing a few sentences about each of these 7 areas. That will give you a fast indication of whether you've detected the makings of a good story. Not as fast as luminol, but still effective.
Good luck writing!
Jon
Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.
There's no single recipe for your introduction, but that doesn't mean I can't give you an ingredients list. Cook to taste.
To belabor an already belabored point, the function of the introduction paragraph is to whet your reader's appetite. To accomplish that goal, you might consider mixing these three ingredients:
Yes, I'm sure you can do better. But the point is to get started. Write about your observation, desire, and obstacle.
But in what order should you write about observation, desire, and obstacle? It doesn't matter. Start with whatever, and then hit the next one. That's why the diagram has double arrows between each pair of ingredients - you can start anywhere and go whatever direction you choose. I know, really clever.
To put it another way, you can mix these ingredients into an intro in exactly 6 sequences:
It's not a secret formula, but if you're trying to figure out how to start writing about your topic, maybe one of these combos will help you get un-stuck.
Good luck writing!
Jon
Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.
