1. Essay Writing
Gloria Mueller

2. Why the Essay?
Your Voice, Your Story, Your Skills

3. What’s Most Important? Courses, Grades, Transcript
Talent, Recommendations, Activities
Testing, Special Circumstances
Portfolio, Supplemental Materials
Audition, Interview

4. Do Colleges Look At Essays the Same Way?
Not every college requires an essay
If they do, it can be for the following reasons:
a) to differentiate top candidates
b) to look at borderline candidates
c) used differently at large, small, private, public, selective and nonselective schools

5. What Are Colleges Looking
For?

6. Don’t Sweat Over Things You Can’t Change
Transcript is what it is
Work on what you can change - the essay
Colleges want the essay to show:
a) your writing ability and thought process
b) a sense of who you are
c) your values, preferences and style
Don’t sweat over the “C” you got in your Sophomore year, the numbers are behind you. Work on your senior year grades, they are important.

7. Can You Write? Tell your own story Get feedback
Polish, spell check and proofread

8. Can You Think? Application can be flat without essay
Can help judge a student’s understanding of social/intellectual issues
Did he take it seriously or did the essay look predictable?
Did he take risks?
Did he buy it off the Internet?
Brigham Young example - uniform response, thought process very important here, responses can vary and make it more interesting
I chose college X because college X is committed to learning and I want to learn
4. “These are the voyages of the Starship Nussbaum”

9. What Can the Essay Do for You?
Personalizes your self-presentation
Shows your personality and writing ability
Conveys your personal style under less pressure
Should convey information not found elsewhere in the application
Because you have more time to prepare than the interview, also counteracts the numbers and the anonymity of the application process
Sieze the opportunity to stand out from the better numbers, the similar recommendations, the other kids!

10. No need to panic! You’ve done this before:
It’s familiar (introduction, body, and conclusion)
It’s about YOU!
And…there is no wrong answer
Beginning, middle, end
You’ve done this for 12 years
No essay will compete with yours, you’ve picked colleges that are appropriate for you
Colleges are not looking for a single answer, colleges are not looking for a specific student

11. The Process Brainstorm |Organize | Write | Rewrite | Edit
Avoid shotgun approach - telling everything you know about a subject - including yourself. Select one thing and illuminate that. Less is more
Brainstorm - like cleaning your room, throw everything in the middle of the floor, organize piles from the central mess (like note cards organized). Patterns can emerge
The Process
Brainstorm |Organize | Write | Rewrite | Edit

12. Defined by Our Choices How you write - reveals your ability
What you write about - reveals you
Look at the list of questions required

13. Three Kinds of Questions
The “You” Question
The “Why Us” Question
The “Creative” Question

14. The “You” Question Advantages: Disadvantages: It is direct
Open opportunity to speak for yourself
Disadvantages:
Extremely open-ended
Temptation to tell everything instead of focus
Try to hard to sound academic and scholarly

15. The “Why Us” Question Advantages Disadvantages
It is directly about you and your choices
Disadvantages
Might not know your subject
Tone can be a problem

16. The “Creative” Question
Advantages
Form is provided
It can be fun!
Disadvantages
Essay without substance
Essay without sense

17. Other Essay Problems Only two inches of space Sending writing samples
Start strong
Start fast
Should be approached with the same care and attention given the long essay. Same approach as a regular essay just reducing the # of lines.
B+ or better paper with lots of teacher comments should be sent if school asks for one (shows how good your work was and how demanding your teacher is!)
What might seem funny to one person may seem boring to another - get a second opinion from a disinterested adult: especially if you are submitting a funny essay - even Letterman has a staff of writers
Quick start by editing is better than a slow stroll, in other words, edit, edit, edit for improvement in the first paragraph to grab attention

18. DEAD. ON. ARRIVAL.
“In college I plan to continue to live a well-rounded life, meeting and working with people from a variety of backgrounds. I expect to prepare for a profession that permits me to be closely related to children as well as adults. I want to help people. I have gotten so much out of life through the love and guidance of my family, I feel that many individuals have not been as fortunate; therefore, I would like to expand the lives of others.”
This is the kind of essay admissions folks read all day long, It is not the kind however, they remember, nor the kind that sends you as the “gray zone” applicant to the committee for reconsideration. Also referred to as a “Boy Scout” essay, eager, involved, loyal - colleges can’t use it.

19. Why Do Essays Fail? Too comprehensive Too general
Autobiographies, travelogs
Boy Scout essays

20. Start By Brainstorming
Make a list | Ask questions | Focus | Prove
Of accomplishments you are proud of, places you’ve been, things you’ve done. Set a timer until the page is full, the good, the bad, the special, the obvious, the habitual, the extraordinary. Don’t worry about the audience right now. Or take a look at the resume you are preparing for your counselor.
What are my strengths, my weaknesses? Am I stubborn, do I like a challenge, do some soul searching at this point
Make connections on some of the points or clusters of the brainstorm, focus on 3 or 4 points. Keep the unusual, the vivid, the positive
Your purpose is to persuade, organize into an outline and make sure you can prove what u say. If u say you are concerned about the welfare of others but can’t think of more than 1 proof, omit it - you might think you ought to be and you think the college would like to hear that, but that’s an example of an institutional response-forget it.

21. Editing is Your Friend
Focus and prove | Reread | Support | Reread | Rewrite/Revise
Be yourself in your writing, admissions officers are reading hundreds of these and know what the college needs and wants. Avoid cliches that sound good but mean nothing I.e. I’ll bring as much to College X as X will give to me -what does that mean?
Avoid vague and predictable conclusions: I learned a lot, I interacted with others different from myself, I benefited from the love and support of my family, I learned to work well with others.
Proofread, proofread, proofread!!!

22. Making the Essay Yours All writers get help No live-in editors
Don’t misrepresent yourself
Believe in yourself and tell
your story
Counselors might help with subject, teachers/parents might help proofread a draft - all legitimate
Colleges and universities have writing centers for you to get help, but ultimately the paper has to be your own, the same goes for your essay. If you are ready to go to college, you need to be ready to accept successes and failures, make it your own!

23. Last Minute Tips for Procrastinators
Pick 3 things in your room
Family photo album
Talk to parents, coaches, teachers
Think about something you used to believe in but don’t anymore
Write about those 3 things, the chunk of rock, the photograph, explain the poster and its significance - see if any of them will generate an essay
Look thru the album and see if time, place or event generate a thread for an essay - did a person or a place have a particular influence on you in your life and why?
Parents especially (they have known you for 17 years, what do they see as your strengths, characteristics, talents, ask them to write something about you, they like u!) Ask teachers/coaches about what u have contributed and to remember a time/event that might peak and essay subject for you.
Or something u thought was true, but turned out to be false, write a few sentences about before and after and what caused the changed - can reflect thoughtfulness and curiousity

24. Tips to Remember “Tell us about yourself”
Familiar format with “you” as subject
Chance to add to application
All the questions in one way or another ask this - so that means you are an authority on this topic!
This format is not unfamiliar, it’s a regular essay that you have been writing - the only difference is it’s about you
This is not a punishment! It is your chance to add life to your application and to pitch yourself outside the “numbers”

25. 5 Myths:
Must write about something no one has ever written about
There’s a right answer to every question
Be funny, clever or wacky
You have to write this essay alone
Your essay can get you in
Five Myths
Unlikely and high risk to do this
There’s only your right answer
Only if you think they are looking for funny, clever or wacky applicants or you are a creative excellent writer and can do that
Every writer should ask for feedback, especially in this high stakes setting
Only if other credentials also make you an interesting candidate - it can help the gray zone candidate for sure

26. Common Mistakes
Thinking of admissions committee as stuffy old people you need to impress
Trying too hard to be memorable
Writing a predictable or generic essay
Forgetting that counselors/teachers/parents are your allies in this process
Trying to hard to be memorable that it changes your writing that it becomes unnatural or eccentric and not you.
That with fewer than 3 nouns (change my dad to my boss, change my summer at the beach to summer in the mountains, change the master singers to the varsity basketball team), the essay could work for most of the senior class.
****Cannot predict who will be reading your application-the dean with 30 years experience (he loves xx skiing, murder mysteries with culinary subplots and syndicated episodes of MASH) or the new hire who just graduated last May who loves spinning class, Nora Roberts and the Bachlorette. Forget about “What should I say, focus on “What don’t they know?” about me

27. Parent “Can’t Do” List
Make guidance office your own personal support system
Write essays
Shield him from rejection
Let inertia teach its lesson here
Easy to say “Well, if he doesn’t get his act together, he’ll learn there won’t be any choices left.” Great for prom tickets or graduation gowns, but no appropriate for college selection process. Kids are already conflicted about wanting to stay and go. Don’t complicate the matter by letting their irresponsibility bring them down, let life do that later. Be helpful, inspire action and get to the end as friends.

28. Parent “Can Do” List Frame conversation about college selection
Talk about essay, but not about essay questions
Be there to lend a sympathetic ear
Stay on the sidelines once the writing begins
Choose times when noone can distract them
Your role is to look at the “yourself” part of the essay question through your lens and help them decide what is worth talking about - you have 17years of experience with your child. Begin with talking about strengths and positives attributes. If they say they don’t know what they want to study - great you are clearly interested in everything!
If they don’t want to talk, just lend a sympathetic ea