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Writing a great admissions essay can be challenging, whether you are writing one or several.
We share 10 tips for writing a strong essay that will get you noticed among all the other applicants.
Learn the Requirements
When you are applying for a high school or university, the institutions you are hoping to join will all have different admissions essay requirements.
It is important to take note of those requirements and write your essay accordingly—a generic essay won’t bring out your personality or impress the institution.
You also want to avoid sending an essay built around the requirements of one institution to a completely different school—it will come across as unprofessional.
Take the time to organize yourself in advance of writing—which institution needs what from you, by what deadline, and in what format.
Prioritize essays that are due first—even if they are harder to write—and ensure that you send them off well in time, just in case there are issues with web servers.
Being organized can be cumbersome but it will help ease your path to writing an excellent essay.
Study Your Prompts
Institutions generally offer a number of prompts to help you write your admissions essay.
Sometimes the prompts are a short set of questions you need to answer. At other times, they include several statements or directions, or multiple-part questions.
You need to study the prompts carefully if you are to craft an essay that answers the questions the institution is asking of you.
Break the prompts down into smaller points that you can cover in your essay.
Create a comparison infographic to separate prompts, or copy them into the document where you will be writing your essay so you don’t forget them while writing.
Always Brainstorm Ideas
You have organized yourself and now know which essays need to be written and by when. That doesn’t necessarily mean you can immediately start writing.
As we have mentioned before, admissions essays have prompts and you can use them to brainstorm ideas before writing.
Don’t rush this part of the process—as much as you want to have finished writing the essay, if your idea isn’t well-defined, your essay will not impress.
If you are asked to write something from a personal angle, think about what events in your life have had a significant impact on you, and why they would be interesting to the institution.
Often, the most unusual ideas are the most memorable—so think about something that stands out about you, your interests, or your family. It could be a great topic to write about.
Also keep in mind that deeply personal stories don’t need to be included in your admissions essay—if you aren’t comfortable writing about it, you are well within your rights not to.
Use a mind map technique to examine your ideas and define a topic that you can write about.
Be Decisive About Your Topic
When you choose your topics for the admissions essay, it is important to be decisive about your choices.
The last thing you want to do is get half-way through writing a piece, only to think that another topic would have been better suited for that institution.
That is a lot of time spent that you cannot get back, so make a decision and stick to it.
One of the best ways to do this is by creating an outline for the topic of your choice—a one-line summary of the essay, 2-3 sub-headings, and a line to conclude.
Still looking good? Then that is likely the essay you should be writing.
But also ask yourself a few tough questions:
Do you care about this essay topic?
Do you have a strong enough story to make others care about this idea?
What is the essay telling people about your work ethic and personality?
Does this essay need padding to reach the word limit? Or can you make it short and snappy?
Will this topic make you stand out amongst the crowd of applicants?
These are the kind of questions you need to ask yourself before you start writing—answer truthfully but remember not to be too dismissive of yourself.
Back your ability to write a convincing piece based on your topic of choice—but choose wisely so the writing process is enjoyable.
Write About Actions
A number of essay prompts ask you to analyze events from your past, or to discuss how your heritage or community impacts your life.
This doesn’t mean that you state what events occurred as is—the essay is not a retelling of your life. The institutions want to learn more about you through these topics.
You aren’t being asked to be introspective with these prompts—you need to examine what you have learned and how you have grown from your experiences.
While you should be giving context to past events, the purpose of the essay is to write about the actions you took to overcome challenges and become a better person or student.
Make your essay action-oriented—what did you do or learn from what happened and how are you going to apply these lessons to your academic career, and your future?
A good essay includes actionable points that clearly show your growth as a person.
Look online for inspiration—if you have a travel theme to write about, you could learn from travel writers about how to structure a solid essay.
Put Yourself in the Essay
The admissions essay is a more personal document than regular school essays—its primary purpose is to show institutions why you are the best candidate for this place in the institution.
For that reason, you need to put yourself in the essay—talk about events in your life, and how they impacted you on an emotional, physical, and mental level.
Discuss what measurable changes you made to your life as a result of your experiences—and whether they were positive or negative.
Don’t be afraid to show your vulnerabilities—nobody is perfect, and if you write about yourself as someone who never makes mistakes, you might come across as a braggart.
Be truthful about your experiences but, as we have mentioned before, don’t feel like you have to write about something that you are uncomfortable sharing.
Structuring the Essay
Your essay should have an introduction, middle, and an end—this is obvious. But those three sections need to have their own structure.
The introduction should not be too long—this is the section where you establish the core idea of your essay. But it needs to be captivating, not meandering.
Use the introduction to write about the effect of an event, or by sharing an unusual anecdote from the story you are going to share—this will help you draw your reader in.
The conclusion is where you sum up the impact of the experience and how you will apply those learnings as a student of the institution you are applying to.
The middle sections are always tricky—you need to give context to your story, share the story, and then write about what you learned.
Do not forget that last part—the admissions essay is not a storytelling session, but a tool to show why you are the best person for the institution.
Write Several Drafts
The admissions process is exhausting—you have so much to do, and the tension of worrying about whether you will or won’t get into your school of choice.
You may be tempted to think that writing your essay is the end of the ordeal and that you should send it off the moment you’re done with it.
Do not do that! Your first draft is rough, to say the least—you will likely have found yourself reaching your word count before you’ve even managed to define your core idea.
Make a different draft where you can explore the concept from a new angle, or illustrate your idea with new examples.
You may be able to use concepts from one piece in another essay, so make multiple documents and add comments that explain what changes you have made.
Drafting is crucial to the writing process—remember to always name your documents as v1, v2, final, etc., so you don’t confuse them, or send the wrong file.
Always Revise and Edit
Your first draft will have errors, misspellings, and undefined syntax. And your ideas may not be as well-defined as you want.
You may want to change the order of the paragraphs, swap out some words, or restructure your introduction.
This is why revision and editing is so important—you want to send an essay that delivers the best impression of you.
Revise once after writing your piece to catch the typos, then take a break from the essay for a day or two to refresh your mind.
When you come back to it, you will be able to look at the piece with fresh eyes and catch mistakes that you missed the first time around.
Use an online grammar checker to correct syntax and tighten up your phrasing to create a great first impression.
Editing can be hard but you need to be ruthless—don’t think a paragraph works? Remove it. If you don’t like something, your reader definitely won’t.
Ask for an Objective Opinion
It’s hard to be objective about something you’ve put effort into, so it’s important to find someone who is removed from you to look at the essay.
Your parents may not be the best people for this job—they will likely be too forgiving because they’ve seen you slave over the essay.
Try asking a friend, or a teacher, who will have a more objective point of view and just want the best from you.
Remember to take criticism on board as a learning experience and not as a personal attack.
Also keep in mind that if someone is overly critical, they may not be the right person to critique your work.
Find someone who looks at the process and not the person behind the writing to give you an opinion that will improve your essay.
Summing Up
We have outlined 10 crucial tips that students can follow when writing their admissions essay.
Some of these may seem obvious, but they are all necessary when writing a structured, dynamic, and personal essay that is meant to charm and intrigue institutions.
Follow these tips to create an essay that will showcase your personality, and your work ethic, so you can join the institution you are meant for.
Ronita Mohan is a content marketer at Venngage, an infographic and design platform. She enjoys writing about digital marketing, sharing productivity tips, examining pop culture, and championing the need for representation.
Twitter: @Venngage
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