Tips For Writing Your College Application Essay

Tips For Writing Your College Application Essay One hurdle that you must surmount when planning to go to college is the application process. It can be laborious, time intensive, confusing, and overwhelming. The college essay can feel like the worst part of the application process. This length will be fairly consistent across institutes of higher education whether you are using the Common Application or an individual schools application. You can find some examples of good answers to these essays in the resource section of this module. We can’t guarantee results, but this advice might help you get started. Standing out with your college essay is important. College admission counselors read hundreds and thousands of essays every year. Identify the parts of you that set you apart from others and utilize them to write a unique essay. Some colleges weigh essays higher than other parts of the application. However, the essay is not the most important part of your application when you are applying for college. Your overall Grade Point Average , college preparation, test results, and the strength of the high school curriculum all outweigh the essay . However, teacher recommendations and extracurricular activities rank below the college essay . Therefore, it is extremely important to submit a well-written college entrance essay. If you are a strong writer, you might also be able to present your topic in a unique and interesting way. You can find some examples of creative essays in the resource section of this module. Again, remember it is important not to plagiarize the ideas of others, but they may help you to get started in writing your essay. There is no definitive answer to disclosing your disability in your college essay. Reading essay examples can be helpful in guiding you to writing your own good essay. However, make sure that the essay is completely original. Never copy an essay from the internet or have someone else write it for you. The risks are greater than any benefit you might get by plagiarizing an essay. Do not assume that if someone else writes the essay for you that it will produce a high quality essay. It might help the admissions team to understand you holistically or explain a gap in performance. You may decide that it will not benefit you in anyway to disclose before you are accepted to the university or college. You should discuss the pros and cons of disclosing your disability with your family, friends, and school counselors to decide the right decision for you. A student's essay is usually expected to be between words or 1-2 pages. The importance of college essays has increased in the past few years. Twenty-six percent of college admission offices consider the college entrance exam is of “considerable importance” in the admission process . Quite simply, a great college essay helps illuminate who you are. The worst things you can do is write an essay that is generic, one where if your name was replaced by another, the reader could not tell the difference. The people in the admissions office are trying to learn about you and the essay is often the last chance you have to shape their impression and understanding of you. Whether writing comes easy or is a struggle for you, writing an essay can be a significant challenge and it can feel like your whole application is riding on that one essay. This module can help you to sort through what you need to do to write the best essay you can write. Few things are as eternal as the search for the great college essay. But given the range of factors that go into the decision making process, it is hard to know if the “successful” essays ones really tipped the balance. That being said, the essay is something you can control so you want to make it good. It is a personal decision that will depend on your own disability and how it has affected your life. There is no requirement to disclose your disability anywhere in the college application. In fact, usually the essay is the only way you would be able to disclose your disability. This is a personal decision for you to make on your own.