How to Ace Your College Essay
High school is about to be over and you are looking at your favorite college and first choice to go to.
A lot goes into the college admission process. Perhaps the most important and stress heavy part is the college essay for admission. Yes, you would have written an essay before in high school and would know the basics but this is a whole different game.
As students in a high school class, there can be a lot of stress with the college admission process. However, after reading this you will walk away more at ease and with information to help your college application. The advice and tips here for writing a college essay will set you in the right direction of getting into your first choice.
Five Tips for a Great College Essay!
Start Early
First things first, the earlier you start and pick college prompts the better you’ll perform. Yes, prompts as in multiple and you’ll see why in the advice later on. If you get a head start on picking your college essay topics, there will be significantly less stress.
Starting early gives you a lot more time and helps to avoid last minute dread and slip ups that come with having to finish things in a rush. An essay for college applications is not the time to take risks so start early with picking prompts and with actually starting to write drafts for it.
Another great advantage of starting early is that you will be able to approach the essay with full thoroughness. That includes going over the college essay format, and looking through different college essay examples to guide you. In a moment of last minute rush that level of detail can not be put into the essay.
Choose Originality
Originality is important in terms of academic honesty and avoiding plagiarism. You’ll find out how to avoid plagiarism in a later piece of advice here. Outside of that realm, originality in choosing an essay prompt means picking one that you can relate to and would be best able to write about.
An essay for college application is way different to an academic essay you’ll have to write in semester assignments after getting admission. It is less academic and more personal. So, there needs to be a relatable factor, something that can be written with originality, when picking the prompt for a college essay.
Use Outlines
A good map will get you to the destination. An outline is the map of an essay and if it is made correctly then it can ensure a great essay. When you make an outline for college essay after having done initial introspection and note taking about what you want to write on, the rest of the essay writing process will move very smoothly. You will already know what each paragraph will be about and the only thing left is to get it down on that document.
Write Multiple Drafts
The benefit of starting early is that you can go through multiple drafts where each one is better than the last. Once the first draft is done, read it thoroughly and critically. Also, give it to someone you trust and who would be able to provide helpful feedback.
That information will help you to refine the essay and make a second draft. Having multiple drafts will let you compare them and pick whichever one is the best for the final submission for the college essay.
Proofread and Edit
Giving the essay a second look before it’s sent in can only be good for it. The simple reason is that you can spot errors that would have been missed and cost you precious marks. Grammar, punctuation, and spelling are important in a college essay evaluation. Your writing needs to be good enough for a college level admission essay. By proofreading the college essay, you can find those small errors and fix them.
Check Plagiarism
Originality comes back into play here. Plagiarism is taken very seriously in college and any element of such academic dishonesty is not taken lightly. Chances are that a plagiarized college essay will get rejected and you won’t get admission.
In the college admission process, the essays are passed through a plagiarism detector. When you write your essay, keep that in mind and make sure that there is no plagiarism. Cite a source if you need to include such external information but if you are writing about a personal experience then that may not be required.
To be safe and before a college admissions official gets a chance, check for plagiarism in your own college essay with Plagiarism Checker X. Remove any plagiarism you find, give it a final proofread, and you are good to go.
