College Essay

'Tis the season! As we are busily writing essays anyway, what better way to harness that work in an exercise that is useful? And while some may say that this essay must be perfect, that its importance is unrivaled in your writing career to this point, or that this might make or break your application, I think that this kind of pressure is completely unnecessary. It is important, but it is also an opportunity for you to show off your fancy writing and win over those admissions officers who will already be impressed with the application from your amazing self. The challenge here is to be both eloquent and authentic. You want your reader to feel like they know something about you after they finish your essay. Including a short anecdote that you can then relate to a more broad theme about yourself and your identity would work well. And you typically don't get much room in which to do that: commonly only 500-600 words. Here are the directions for your college essay:

  1. Pick a prompt. Some help can be found below:
  2. Compose a rough draft of your essay. If no word count is associated with the prompt, then please write between 500 and 600 words.
  3. Follow the formatting guidelines:
    • In the top right-hand corner, write your name, date, and period.
    • In bold, write the entire prompt.
    • Write your essay in 12-point, Times New Roman font, double-spaced.
  4. Upload your final draft to turnitin.com by 11:59 pm on the night of the due date, Tues./Wed., 10/29-30 (Tuesday for White Day schedule, periods 4 and 6; Wednesday for Black Day schedule, period 3).