Writing tips and techniques for your college essay

Tip #1

Pose a question the reader wants answered

This doesn’t mean you should literally pose a question in your essay, but you
should certainly keep the reader wondering, “How is that going to turn out?”
“What does she mean by that?” “How is this all going to tie back together?”
To accomplish that, begin your essay with a hook that encourages the reader
to want to find out more. You might write, for example, “I sat down in the
back of the crowded auditorium without a clue that I’d soon be standing
center stage.” This establishes a forward momentum right off the bat that
makes your reader want to continue reading. Tips for essays can also be
found at Big Future.

Tip #2

Don't focus exclusively on the past

Admissions look for essays where student highlights their growth and
introspection, so your essay should focus on you learning and growing as a
person. Don’t just brag or describe. Your essay should have a moment of
revelation: what did you learn from your experience? How did it make you
the person you are today? Colleges don’t want to read essays that are set
exclusively in the past. They want students who are actively looking at their
future so make sure that if you’re describing a past event, you connect it to
who you are now and how it will impact you as a person moving forward.

Tip #3
Open up

When recounting an event or experience, make sure to include how it made

you feel, how it changed the way you think, and whether it had an impact on
your priorities and/or values. Readers connect more when you reveal a
vulnerability than when you tout a strength.

Tip #4

Experiment with the unexpected

If it makes sense within the context of your essay, give your story a twist or
reveal something unexpected, i.e. something readers wouldn’t have
necessarily thought you’d do, think, or care about.

Tip #5

Don't summarize

Avoid explicitly stating the point of your essay. It’s far less effective when
you spell it out for someone. Delete every single “That’s when I realized,” “I
learned,” and “The most important lesson was...” It's unnecessary,
unconvincing, and takes the reader out of the moment. Instead, let them
read between the lines and interpret the meaning of your story on their own.
You shouldn’t have to say anything like, “And that’s how I learned to stand
up for myself,” because the admission's officer should already know.
Oftentimes when you watch a movie, an actor’s expression, sigh, or closing
of a door speaks louder than words. Your actions can be small, but they
should be loaded with meaning, i.e. that you’re taking a stand, making a
decision, giving something up, or taking a risk. It can be simply deciding to
get up in the morning or to smile. It just needs to represent that you’ve
made a decision, change, or risk.

Sample essay 1

Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have

taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you (500
word limit).

A misplaced foot on the accelerator instead of the brakes made me the

victim of someone’s careless mistake. Rushing through the dark streets of
my hometown in an ambulance, I attempted to hold back my tears while two
supportive Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) comforted me. Although I
suffered a minor knee injury, the trauma of that accident still lingers.

Fast forward six years to the present. Now I am sitting in the back of the
ambulance, a rookie EMT, with my purple gloves on, stethoscope around my
neck, and a red medical bag in hand. I am also making sure we have the
proper medical equipment stocked, including neck collars and long body
boards.

As I step out of the ambulance, a bitter breeze nips at my face. Shattered

glass, two crushed car hoods, and traffic everywhere, the scene is put into
perspective as I can finally see what is happening. I stop in my tracks. It is
my accident all over again.

“Get the collars and boards, there is a possible back injury,” my partner
whispers to me. I fetch the items, still attempting to deal with my conflicting
emotions. Using the help of five other EMTs, we extricate the victim from the
car and secure him to the stretcher. While in the ambulance, I realize now
that circumstances have been reversed. This time, clutching the patient’s
hand, I tried to soothe him, and he slowly calms down. I keep my composure
and actively tried to help the patient feel as comfortable as I did. Keeping all
of his personal belongings close to me, we wheel him into the busy
emergency room and transfer him safely. As we leave, he looked into my
eyes and I could feel his sincere gratitude. Rather than being an innocent
victim, like the current patient was, I am now the rescuer.

Even though I felt the horrid memories rushing back, I kept my duties as a
rescuer in the forefront of my mind. Keeping my cool in the face of extreme
pressure I came out of the call a changed person: someone who can see a
problem, regardless of any bias I may have, and focus only on what is
happening at that instant. Confidently facing my own terrors, I felt as if
conquering my fears allowed me to face my duties with a grounded and
compassionate outlook.

Tears stream, limbs hurt, children cry: I am there, with a smile on my face, a
stethoscope around my neck, compassion in my heart, happy to help and
proud to serve.

Sample essay 2

We are looking for an essay that will help us know you better as a
person and as a student. Please write an essay on a topic of your
choice (no word limit).

I'm one of those kids who can never read enough. I sit here, pen in hand, at
my friendly, comfortable, oak desk and survey the books piled high on the
shelves, the dresser, the bed, the chair, even the window ledge. Growing up
without TV, I turned to the beckoning world of literature for both
entertainment and inspiration. As I run my eye over the nearest titles, I
notice... only three written in the last 50 years. Ahh, here's Homer – by far
my favorite ancient author – alongside Tolkien, my favorite modern.
Incongruous? I think not. Tolkien loved Homer and honored him constantly
within his own work. How could I fully appreciate the exchange between
Bilbo and Gollum without seeing the parallel story of Odysseus and
Polyphemus in the back of my mind? In the innocent characters of Bilbo and
Frodo, Tolkien gives a quiet refutation to Plato's philosophical dialog of
Gyges' Ring. Only a classicist would notice. Donne would, over there on the
shelf, encased contentedly in his quiet brown binding. Aristotle wouldn't.
He's too busy analyzing the Dickens on either side of him.

The deeper I dig, the richer ground I find. I accidentally discovered the
source of Feste's comedic dialog in Twelfth Night while translating the Latin
plays of Plautus. I met the traitor Brutus as a fictional character in
Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, renewed my acquaintance with the actual man
in Classical History, and hope never to meet his soul in the deepest circle of
Dante's Inferno. In all of this, I can sense a bond, transcending time and
linking me to Homer, to Tennyson, to Virgil, Byron, and Nietzsche. In my
mind's eye, all the great works I've read lie spread out on a gigantic
blackboard, and that mystic bond takes shape in a vast connecting network,
branching from history to myth and from myth to fantasy.

I've been unconsciously collecting this mental catalog all my life. I was 12
the first time I read the unabridged Odyssey, but I've known the story for as
long as I can remember. Growing up, I read authors like E. Nesbit, C.S. Lewis,
J.R.R. Tolkien, and Robert Louis Stevenson. As a child, I didn't try to analyze
the conflicts of Long John Silver's character or document Kipling's literary
devices – I just loved the stories, and I picked up the techniques of great
authors subconsciously. Good writing is contagious. Now as a senior
beginning to analyze literature and philosophy more closely, I already have a
huge pool to draw from. In British Literature this year, my paper on the
monsters of Beowulf won praise from my teacher because, having already
read Beowulf several times over the years, I was able to analyze on a deeper
level and recognize themes I hadn't noticed before.

In college, I will continue to study great stories and contribute in my own

way: literature on the big screen rather than on paper. Film is the way that
our modern culture experiences narrative. Cinema has always fascinated me
as a medium for storytelling, and my passion has only grown as I've studied
every aspect of film-making. The vast scope of Peter Jackson's Lord of the
Rings trilogy draws me in, but I want to write my own epic. One day, I will
create my masterpiece, rich with the wisdom and artistry of three millennia,
and offer it humbly to the classicists of the future.