1. The College Essay Fall 2010

2. Seal the Deal While one essay doesn’t guarantee you college admission, a good one “helps” and a bad one will “tank” your application. You’ll need one for each application.

3. Do Answer the Question Questions are often open-ended to allow you room for expression, but make sure your essay fits.

4. Don’t Try to Be Funny Unless you really are, most people can not carry this off like a pro

5. Do Get Personal Be passionate. If it sounds like 300 other people could’ve written this essay, you’re missing something.

6. Don’t Suck Up! They already know you want to go to their college. Why else are you doing this?

7. Do Write a Good Lead Hook ‘em with the first sentence and they’ll want to read the rest.

8. Don’t Go Over the Word Count Officials must read thousands of essays. Too long and you’ll be disqualified on a technicality.

9. Do Read Find other essays to see what works.

10. Don’t Use Big Words You Don’t Understand If you use them incorrectly, it’ll count against you. Plus, you run the risk of looking arrogant.

11. Do Check Your Essay How does it come across? Are you likeable? Are you friendly? Are you INTERESTING?

12. Don’t Involve Your Parents. Don’t have your parents write YOUR essay. You don’t want to sound like your 45 years old. This is about YOU.

13. Do Give Your Essay a Rest Write it and put it down for a couple of days or weeks. Fresh eyes will tell you what you’re missing.

14. Don’t Let Friends… Or relatives critique your essay. They’re too biased. Use a teacher.

15. Do Edit and Rewrite. Even the best authors did this.

16. Don’t Be Negative. Don’t whine, complain, or ask for sympathy. Don’t ever try to explain away bad GPA’s or ACT/SAT scores.

17. Helpful Websites www.myessay.com www.admissionessays.com www.goodessaytopics.com www.teeink.com/CollegeEssays/ index.phpwww.teeink.com/CollegeEssays/ index.php http://collegeapps.about.com www.scholarshiphelp.org/schol arship_essay.htmwww.scholarshiphelp.org/schol arship_essay.htm

18. In Summary Review last year’s essay topics on-line at your college’s web site. Find out what requires an essay. Brainstorm a list of topics. Write a draft of your essay. Edit and rewrite it. Tailor, or blend in, changes to your essay to make it more specific to your college selection. Proof it. Ask two objective people to review it. Make sure the final copy is neat and clean.