Want to get into your dream school? Express your passion and uniqueness in your college essay, so that your essay stands out. Don't use Chat GPT as inspiration. Use your own unique passions and experiences.
Last updated on November 26, 2024 by College Financial Aid Advice.
Here are some college essay advice that reflect the passion and uniqueness of the writer. This advice was written by some of our readers, based upon their own experiences with college admissions.
Lewis and Clark College
College admission essay by Naomi from California
The school admission process can be stressful, but just stay true to yourself and you are bound to get into a school that is right for you.
Approach
the application with the mindset that you are choosing them, not the other way
around. This isn't a job interview. You will invest a lot of time and money
into your education. Make sure it is the education that you want and feel
passionate about. If you intend to major in English and want to learn about
contemporary American literature, don't apply to schools that specialize in
Shakespeare. Do your research to make sure you are applying at universities
that offer what you seek. This will help you in the application process,
especially the essay portions.
Most applications require an essay. This essay
is your chance to impress upon the school who you are as a person: your goals,
your personality, and how your life experiences have shaped you. Don't use the
essay to impress them about your excellent grades. In fact, don't worry too
much about grades. They already know this information from your transcripts,
and grades only partly factor into the selection process. Instead, use your
essay to express your passion about the subject you will study and why you feel
their particular program will help you achieve your goals. This is where your
research will come in handy. You should be able to explain how specific
qualities of their program are suited to your particular interests.
Universities
want to
know that you have considered how their program is tailored to your goals. In
addition, use your essay to explain how events or people in your life have led
you to want to study this major. Passionate students tend to be successful, and
universities want students to succeed. You may be chosen on passion alone,
regardless of your grades.
With that in mind, don't over-embellish your
goals, hoping to make a better impression. It's better to stay honest. For
example, don't tell the school you intend to pursue a lifelong career as a
volunteer-teacher in Africa if, indeed, you really want to teach literature to
high school students in your hometown. If you are not honest, you risk your
essay sounding ingenuous and will waste the opportunity to express your true
intentions.
I encourage you to follow my advice. It worked
for me. I've recently been admitted to my top-choice university based on three
essays in which I expressed how my experiences led me to pursue education
through their particular program. I wrote from my heart and showed my passion
for the major and how education will build a foundation for my future success.
If you honestly express your passion and clearly
state how the university will help you achieve success, you will likely be
accepted into the school(s) of your choice.
College essay advice from Emelia of Washington
The most important advice that I have for
nervous college applicants is to simply be your own great self. I chose to
exemplify this while writing my Common App essay about failure. The prompt
formally stated something along the lines of “Choose a time that you failed and
how it helped you become a better person and how you didn’t explode and the
world didn’t end because you made a beeline towards the opposite way of your
goal.” That may not be the prompt word for word, but regardless of the wording
my initial thought was “hey, I have failed at a lot of things” so I chose that
one.
The Common App essay is my favorite essay that I
have written in my seventeen and a half year existence. It elegantly blends the
phrases “socialite of the Eagle Scout initiation party scene,” “hot commodity,”
and “ultimate loser,” among others to create probably one of the most awkward
stories about a wool fabric sewing competition ever written. The best part is
that Cornell University loved it. I am going to their Fiber Science and Apparel
Design program this fall.
It might be possible that I have an unwise amount
of confidence to submit an essay like that. But I have a few tips on why you
should work your humor and nonchalance (even faked!) in order to stand out. I
first noticed that it is a valuable asset when I visited Cornell and the three
of us on the tour were asked to share one word that our friends would use to
describe us. The results were “strict,” “studious (or driven, I forget),” and
“I hope they think I’m funny because I think I am ha.” The admissions representative
wrote our responses down for our files. In case they did not think I was as
funny as I thought I was, I applied to five other schools, joined more clubs
(four total), played on the tennis team, volunteered twice a week, and took
four AP classes along with improving my art portfolio. I would have done those
things anyways though- I made sure to not let high college standards rule my
life.
I applied early action to Oregon State University
and was accepted months before other applications were due. This definitely
took some pressure off because I would have also loved to go to OSU. This left
me feeling less stressed about applying to the other colleges. The deadlines
were still incredibly hard to follow for art schools, so it was helpful that I
had written some of my essays after the prompts came out in the summer and had
already invested a lot of time in my art portfolio. The feeling of receiving
the acceptance letters made it all worth it. I was accepted to the Fashion
Institute of Technology, Pratt Institute, Oregon State University, and Cornell
University. Following my own advice to not let failure affect your own fine
self, to my letters of declination from RISD and Brown University I barely
batted an eyelash.
Failure is supposed to be taken with a shot of
humor, if it wasn’t then sitcoms or comedies or SNL wouldn’t exist. So on
college applications, don’t forget to let your shining personality blind the
reader with high wattage joy and a bit of laughter. If it connects to an
admissions officer, they will want you to go to their school because you are
more than just another one of the talented applicants, you are an individual.
So please, let your loveable awkwardness bubble through, don’t be a jerk
though, and if you don’t get in, then tell people what happened like it has the
potential to be the funniest story they have ever heard.
College essay writing advice by Brianna of Illinois
How do you get into your dream school? As
cliché as it may sound, be yourself. If you have the grades and if you have the
extracurricular activities that 90% of the prospective students have then you
need to set yourself apart.
College admission offices are flooded with a sea
of black, Times New Roman, size 12 letters on white sheets of paper every
winter. Aesthetically every sheet looks similar so they expect you to wow them
with your content. Stories about you dunking the winning basketball at your
senior night game is not going to win them over because they’ve read the paper
and seen the movie a million times before. Writing is a freeing art that allows
you to paint your personality with words, so take advantage of that freedom.
My advice is for you to take out a piece of
notebook paper and write down every important life experience that you’ve dealt
with, write down your favorite quotes and your biggest inspirations, list your
favorite movies and what physical characteristics makes you look unique. Your
paper is going to fill fast and the end product is going to be messy. From that
pull your favorite (or even more interestingly, your least favorite) word,
phrase or event on that paper and write about it for your personal statement.
These are the unique, personal stories that tell administrators that you’re the
perfect fit for their school. It is going to set you apart from the clichéd 5
paragraph essays that will inevitably pile up on the admissions desk.
They know you’re smart, they know you were on
varsity softball and Student Council. So was everyone else in the pile. Set
yourself apart and that acceptance letter will be in your mailbox in no time.
I did this same exercise and was admitted to my
top choice. On my finalized notebook paper, I noticed a motif: my hair. I had a
doodle of it in the corner and on a timeline I wrote when I chemically
straightened it, dyed it, and then cut the straightened parts off. I wrote
about times I had to defend its bigness and curliness and the societal stigmas
that come with having natural hair. My hair is unique and ties me to my family
and my culture. In my personal statement, I started with the times I struggled
with it and hated it and ended with how much I love my hair now and embrace
every crazy curl. I integrated some of my favorite quotes, my inspirations and
my favorite song, which I had written down on my notebook paper. At a school
like Washington University, my grades and leadership experience would not have
set me apart from the majority of the prospective students. But my hair, my
culture and my interest in tearing down cultural stigmas did.
I hope you see the value to express your passion and uniqueness in your college essay! For examples of good college essays that show passion and uniqueness see College Essays about the Influence of Music in My Life.
100 Examples of Good College Essays
College Essays about Motivation
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