IT'S ALL ABOUT YOU. The college application provides an overview of who you are as a student, the classes you took, the grades you earned, and the activities you participated in. Then there are test scores (maybe) and teacher/counselor recommendations to help round out the picture. The college essay is your opportunity to get personal—to transform your academic history and statistics into flesh and blood.

What should I talk about? In the words of Flannery O’Connor, “Anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his life. If you can’t make something out of a little experience, you probably won’t be able to make it out of a lot.” Here is your opportunity to take a look at your life and examine your accomplishments, your struggles, your adventures your successes and your failures. No one knows better than you the key experiences in your life that have transformed you into the person you are today!

Starting the writing process….

"How do I begin? I have nothing to write about—nothing ever happens to me, my life is so boring, why would anyone want to read about me?" Take the time to take a closer look at your life—you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much has gone on in your 16 or 17 years.

  • Write a resume: list your activities in and out of school, community service, jobs, volunteer work, awards and honors, etc.

  • Start a journal and begin by writing a sentence or two about:

      • Important events in your life

      • Important people in your life, both from your childhood and right now

      • Adventures that you’ve had

      • Teachers who have had a special impact on you

      • Challenges you have faced

      • Obstacles you have overcome

      • Accomplishments

      • Influences in your life: people you’ve known, books you’ve read, movies you have seen

      • Your favorite qualities

      • Travel experiences and your strongest impressions of places you have been

  • How do you think other people would describe you? Try to honestly imagine how people you have known would remember you.

  • Have fun and get your friends to help. Sit down with your friends and take turns listing words or images that best describe each of you, compare favorite memories, remember how you met, describe how you’ve each changed since you first met.

  • Your family has known you longest. Ask your parents, siblings, cousins, grandparents, etc. to describe you. Get your family to remember their favorite stories about you. Look at family photo albums, they are sure to stir up memories.

  • Look where you live. If you’ve lived in the same neighborhood for a long time you will have friends and neighbors who have watched you grow up…talk to them. What are your favorite places in the neighborhood and what memories do they evoke? Is there a friend or relative in a different city or country whom you have visited?


  • Write about something important to you. Your friends and your parents might not choose the same essay topic but this is your story.

  • Think of your essay as a tool for self discovery. Who you are, what you‘ve done, where you’re going.

  • Tell a story. Whether you begin at a high point of the action or start at the very beginning, “action” is the key word!

    • Your essay should be about the events in your life rather than abstract ideas.

    • Use the elements of good storytelling including action, sensory detail and even dialogue

    • Use imagery and clear, vivid prose

    • Your story should have a point

    • Use your own unique voice. Write your essay as if you were telling a story to a friend. Forget about pretentious or flowery language.

  • Keep it focused, organized, and without errors!

    • Start with your main point or argument and follow it through to the conclusion. Don’t meander.

    • Keep your verbs active and your sentences uncomplicated

    • Don’t lose the reader in the language

    • Be clear, coherent and concise.

    • The very best essay will lose all credibility of it is filled with spelling and grammatical errors.

  • Take your time writing your introduction. Admissions officers take about 1-2 minutes to read your essay so you need to grab their attention and keep it from the first sentence. Don’t summarize, get right into the story. Create mystery or intrigue in your introduction; raise questions, appeal to emotions and lure the reader through the end of the essay.

  • Don’t be too clever or cute. Your essay should demonstrate writing ability, reasoning ability and creativity.

  • Revise, revise, revise.

    • After completing your essay give it a rest for a few days. Read it aloud. This is a great way to catch awkward sounding language and confusing structure!

    • Have someone else read it. Find out if you’ve succeeded in making your point. If you need to explain something in order for your reader to understand then you have not done your job.

    • Rewrite fearlessly. You may have a few brilliant sentences that you simply cannot part with but if they do not serve your essay, get rid of them. Use them another time. Add more detail, delete repetitive language, combine sentences for smoother flow. If necessary, write it another way—pick a different starting point, find a better conclusion, tell it from a different point of view.

  • Proofread, proofread, proofread. Put it aside for a day and then proofread again.

A Few Don’ts…

  • Don’t get too political or too topical—the person who reads your essay may hold equally passionate but completely opposite views.

  • Be careful writing about the “3 D’s”—death, depression, disaster. Many of us have suffered through personal tragedies. If the story is important to you then it needs to be about YOU and its impact on your experience, not about your suffering.

  • There are millions of baseball, basketball, football, soccer, hockey, etc. players applying to college. Unless your sports story is unique and about you (not playing sports), think of another topic.

  • Please don’t focus your essay on your friend, girlfriend/boyfriend, or family member. It’s you they want to hear about! If you are going to write about an influential person in your life, 70% of the essay should be about you and 30% of your essay should be about that person.

  • If you aren’t funny, don’t use your college essay to try to be.

  • Don’t write about your 2 week volunteer trip abroad. While these experiences are certainly impactful or transformative, college admissions reps read these essays all the time.