How to Conquer the College Essay 

Post date: February 3, 2025

By Gianna Nese

Class of 2026 is halfway through their junior year, which means college application season is coming up fast. Every college application will require a college essay. If you’re a junior like me who doesn’t know where to start, this article will cover all the basics of going about the writing process and how to stand out to a panel of college admission advisors.

A college essay falls under the category of a personal narrative essay, which means that the essay will talk about you and a personal experience you choose! If you don’t know what to write about here is some input from our Southern Regional English teachers. Ms. Newton suggests, “Make yourself unique and don’t be too generic,” similar to Mrs. Grose’s advice, “Be authentic and write about things that are important to you.” Mr. Cappelli states, “Students tend to be too general, so provide specific examples and don’t be afraid to brag.” Going along with that Mr. Goganzer strongly suggests, “Make sure to write about yourself.” It is easy for many students to get carried away with writing about only the experience and other people involved in the experience, but you want the college admission advisors to pick you, so write about yourself! Now, with the English teacher’s great advice, let’s get more advice from those who experienced this process early in the fall. Here is what two members of the class of 2025 have to say about college essays. “Connect a hardship to why you want to succeed,” advised seniors Kira Kelly and Belle Placa. Using this technique Belle was able to get accepted into her college of choice with a $48,000 scholarship, and Kira got accepted into fourteen schools including her top choice. Half of those colleges gave her scholarships. Taking all of the advice from our seniors and English teachers, pick a topic that is important to you and makes you want to succeed, and be unique to yourself!

Now that you have an idea of what to write about, how do you write the essay when it comes to grammar and structure? The first step of writing the narrative essay is to choose an experience or topic that is important to you. Check! Before you even open a doc to write the essay, it is important to create an outline. This outline will help you visually see how to set up your essay and how to place the order of events the way you want. To begin your introduction paragraph, create a hook. The hook is made to compel the reader to advance deeper into the essay, so generally do not make it too long. The hook should not be longer than two sentences! As you write your introduction paragraph keep in mind that this is to give your reader a preview of what the rest of your paper will be about. With that being said, as you write your body paragraphs do not stray away from the preview given in the introduction paragraph. Also with the body paragraphs remember that this is a personal narrative essay, not a formal essay. While you should still be sophisticated in your writing, remember that you are telling the reader about your life and your experiences, so you’re allowed to be vulnerable in your writing. As you write your body paragraphs remember your audience, and make it easy for them to read by adding transitions and keeping it interesting. Your final paragraph, the conclusion, should wrap up the theme of your essay and how the personal experience impacted you. When you are finished with your essay Mr. Goganzer and Mrs. Grose suggest having others read it over. “It’s good to have another set of eyes look at your essay,” Mrs. Grose suggests. “Have at least two teachers look it over,” recommended Mr. Goganzer. Also make sure to pay attention to grammar as you write. Ms. Newton says that a common mistake is changing the tense. “Keep the same tense,” Ms. Newton said, “So many students jump around with present and future tense, especially in college essays.” 

The advice I would like to leave you with is to be authentic to yourself, don’t be too general in your topic, and pay attention to those grammatical and structural elements. After all, a college essay is still an essay.