College Counseling

During this step, you must start collecting ideas, which will form the core of your essay. Remember, the college essay is usually asked for so the admission officer(s) can learn about you – so that should be the focus of most of your ideas.

Brainstorm About Your Qualities.

Brainstorming is the process of coming up with ideas spontaneously from free flowing writing or talking. To brainstorm, you can simply sit down with a pen and jot down every idea that comes into your head. Another approach is to simply start writing and see where you end up. Record as much information as you can recall, such as schools attended, courses taken, jobs held, research projects undertaken. Work on taking yourself deeper into the introspection process by tackling more specific topics. Here are some questions you might want to consider:

What am I like? How do my friends characterize me? What are my personality traits? Have I ever experienced a moment of epiphany? Why is (some color) my favorite color? Why is (some movie) my favorite movie? How have my favorites influenced my life?

Make a list of the qualities (positive and negative) which you would use to describe yourself. This first list includes all your strengths, weaknesses, and any other exceptionally strong characteristics. Remember the emphasis of this list should be broad and conceptual in nature – try to list your personality characteristics and traits, not specific events or happenings. For example, you may have “exceptional communication skills” (not “I can make good speeches”).

After this, make a second list of specific events, achievements and happenings of which you are particularly proud. This is a more operational level list of things you’ve done and activities you’ve participated in. Now you have 2 lists, a list of “broad” qualities and a list of “specific” events and achievements.

What have I done? What are my major accomplishments? Why do I consider them accomplishments? What extra curricular activities have I participated in? Have I strived hard for something and achieved it? Why did I succeed? Have I strived hard for something and failed to achieve it? Why did I fail? What was the most difficult time of my life? How did my perspective of life change due to that difficult time? Where do I want to go? What would I most like to be doing right now? Where would I like to be? Who would I most like to be with? What are my dreams for the future? What do I intend to do to achieve these dreams? What will I be doing ten years from now? How does this university fit in my plans for the future?

You can also brainstorm using the following questions:

What might help the evaluating committee in understanding me better? What distinguishes me from other applicants? What are my career aims? What skills do I possess that would improve your chances for success in this field? What has stimulated my interest in this field of study? Why should an admissions committee be interested in me? Why am I interested in this field?

Some other topics are suggested below to stimulate your thinking:

The most memorable experiences. The most influential ideas, people and events in your life. Your likes and dislikes. Your academic, career and personal goals. Your favorite written work, quotations, intellectual activities. The attributes you most respect in others. Times when you have shown leadership, creativity and ingenuity. Times when you have helped others.

You don’t have to cover all the topics stated above. All you have to do is try going from topic to topic and write around three to five items for each question or topic then move on to the next one. You can skip any topic you want to; there is no compulsion. The whole point of this exercise is to generate a mass of information that will help you in selecting your topic for the essay. Try to make your topic focused and broad at the same time, it sounds paradoxical but it’s not.

Research Yourself.

Repeat the process above, but this time ask your family members, friends and relatives for input and feedback. More often than not, they will be able to show you qualities (good and bad!) about yourself, which you never thought you had.

Link Qualities to Evidence.

Now try to create links between the 2 lists you’ve developed. With the help of these 2 lists, when you start writing the essay you’ll be able to provide “real-world” examples to support and backup the skills and qualities you have laid claim to. Using the previous example, when you claim that you have good “communication skills”, you’ll quickly be able to verify the authenticity of that claim by mentioning how you effectively used those skills to win the state debating championships.

Find Connections & Create an Outline.

Try to group similar ideas together and find further connections between your qualities and achievements. How did you win the state debating championship? Was it really because of your superior communication skills, or did the fact that you are quickly able to analyze and respond to arguments play a more important role? Or was it because you’re a good researcher and have a great ability to absorb information?

Once you have completed the brainstorming process, you’ll have a rough idea of what you actually want to write about. You should now also have the idea of what impression you are seeking to make on the admissions committee. Now, you must confront the problem of selecting the topic that will allow you to synthesize your important personal characteristics and experiences in a coherent whole while simultaneously addressing your desire to attend that particular college.

Selecting the Essay Topic

The key to a strong essay is a good topic. When selecting a topic, you should keep in mind to choose a topic that allows you to demonstrate your skills and individuality, a topic that answers the essay question while telling the reviewers what they really want to know. To begin with, you should first read the essay question carefully and try to understand what the reviewers want to know, keep in mind that essay questions are designed to let the reviewers judge why you should be admitted to that particular college.

There are several different kinds of essay questions. Some of the most common types of essay questions and the purposes behind them are given below:

• Key Influence Questions:Definition: Key influence questions require you to write about something that has a certain influence on your life. This influence can be in form of a person, a movie, an event, some world issue, a work of literature – anything.Ideal response: While responding to this question, you should keep in mind that the influence you decide to write about is just as important as what you intend to write about it. You have to make sure that the influence you choose something valued and casts light on your strengths. Write about how that certain thing has influenced your thoughts, ideas and goals and how it has made an impact on you and made you a better person.

• Goal Questions:Definition: This kind of question can take two forms: it can ask you to directly write about your goals, or it can ask you to write a personal statement that will include your goals and your qualifications. The question usually focuses on academic, career and personal goals.Ideal response: Firstly, you should state your goals clearly. Let the reader know that you have a clearly defined set of goals that you are directed by and that hold utmost importance to you. You may also distinguish between your short and long term goals in the process. Secondly, you should write about how this specific college fits in your plans for achieving your goals.

• Open-ended Questions:Definition: Open-ended questions are non-specific, they do not require you to write about a specific thing rather they can be something like, “Please provide any additional information about you that you would like us to know”. If the open-ended question is optional, don’t feel an obligation to answer, only try to answer it if you really have something important to share with the review committee.Ideal response: If an open-ended question is the only essay question your application includes, you are left with a wide variety of options, you can write anything you wish to. But the most ideal thing to do would be to treat them as key influence or goal questions because these two are the most common types of specific essay questions. You may want to write about more than one thing in the essay, but it is recommended that you decide to write in depth about one certain thing.
• Growth questions:Definition: Personal growth type questions ask you to write about specific things that have been milestones in your growth and how they have helped you grow into the person you are. Some of these questions include: “What is the greatest obstacle you have overcome?” and “What has been your greatest accomplishment?”Ideal response: While responding to a personal growth question, you should be careful not to dwell on the event itself, rather focus on how it has made a difference in your life and turned you in the person you are right now.
• Creative Questions:Definition: Creative questions allow you to express your thoughts and feelings about something – they give you the freedom of expression. Some creative questions can “Choose an issue of international concern and discuss its importance to you” or “Why have you chosen this career?”Ideal response: While responding to creative questions, again, as mentioned before, you should not focus on the issues; rather try to write about how they make a difference to you or why they hold importance for you. Also make sure that you demonstrate within the essay how you can succeed in a competitive college setting without actually mentioning it.Sometimes the topics you choose can be impossible to write about even though they may seem easy at first, and sometimes even boring topics can be made interesting creatively approached. If the answer to any of the following questions is “no” then you really need to rethink your topic and select a new one.Can you offer supporting material in relevance with your essay topic? Will your topic include material different from that already mentioned in the application? Will the admissions officer still remember your topic after having read hundreds of essays? Can you fully answer the question asked of you? Can you keep the reader interested right from the very first word? Can you give personal examples?Never try to write about something that has already been mentioned in your application such as your GPA or your test scores. It is also a very bad idea to write something that you do not feel comfortable with and that does not let your thoughts move in a flow. Also, you should watch out for topics you cannot give concrete personal examples of.While deciding on the topic of your application, keep in mind that you have to keep the reader interested while at the same time, revealing something about yourself in a way that makes you an ideal applicant. It is therefore much more practical to write something about yourself rather than choosing heavy topics such as peace in the Middle East or Life and Death. Watch out for national and international issues because it is very difficult to be well informed. You should focus more on your personal concerns and talk about things that hold meaning for you, rather than just write about what “they want to hear”.If you are planning to make your essay funny and writing it in a humorous way, you have to be very, very careful. It is strongly recommended that you should not try to make your essay funny. Almost always, this is done poorly and not appreciated by the admissions committee. There is nothing worse than not laughing at something that was meant to be funny or amusing.A good essay tells a story about the applicant – it’s not a life history; rather it is a glimpse into the life of the applicant. Treat your essay as a snapshot, each of us has different selves at different times: sometimes we are clowning about, while other times we are demonstrating wisdom. Pick one of your better selves, one that seems interesting, rich with meaning and alive with imagery and write an essay about it. There, doesn’t that sound easy? After you have gathered your thoughts and research and come up with a topic to write about, you are ready to write the first draft of your essay. You may want to break up your essay into different parts by creating an outline before you start writing your essay.