College Essay

College Essay Don’t just write about what you’re comfortable with, but don’t take a risk that might swallow the essay whole. The best way to approach the admissions essay is to see it as a first conversation. Anyone can tell a story, but only a true storyteller can pull a captivating narrative out of the most mundane parts of life. A storyteller is equal parts collector and sharer, observer and raconteur. While the essay is a valuable tool that we use to understand you better, it is rarely if ever a “make or break” component of your application. While we still have a few more days until the official beginning of fall, around here it feels a lot like the season has already begun. If you include Step Three in your essay, you will reveal how you are able to take a life lesson beyond how it affected you, as well as your ability to think critically and reflectively. “I never saw a phenomenal essay suddenly make up for everything” Heaton agreed. You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @USATOpinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To submit a letter, comment or column, check oursubmission guidelines. Some college traditions are no longer applicable in today’s society. Let’s come up with a new solution that allows all children fair access to academic institutions. As the post mentions, your essay should supplement the other parts of your application to help us understand you better. That said, you don’t have to include anything about yourself that you don’t feel comfortable sharing. As a senior, most of the accomplishments that will make up the bulk of your application â€" academic performance, test scores, and extracurricular involvement â€" are said and done. In a sense, the only part of the application over which you have complete control right now is the essay. An admissions essay is not an opening statement in a debate tournament, nor is it a litany of personal accomplishments. Is there a specific place to write the essay and is there a prompt, the common app doesn’t have a location to attach a personal essay. Your essay should help to give better, deeper insight into you as a person. To make a great impression, what would you talk about? What about yourself would you be willing to share honestly? What topics spark your interests, your passions? What kind of language are you most comfortable using? And most importantly, what do you want to know about your interlocutor? Where can there be space in the conversation not only for your own curiosity, but also for the curiosity of the other speaker? Framing your essay around this setup will help you make a strong first impression, and one that is organic, personal, and authentic. And let’s keep the personal in the essay by not allowing third parties to ghostwrite our children’s future. Students are essentially paying a third party to ghost-write their story in an essay which is supposed to be a culmination of their skill set, not a professional’s. This may be acceptable for athletes and movie stars who pay for assistance with their memoirs, but should not be commonplace when competing for collegiate acceptance. You can write conversationally, but the grammar and spelling still need to be correct. And don’t solely rely on your computer’s spell-checker. A storyteller absorbs the sensations and the happenings of life, and then shapes them into narrative objects of various sizesâ€"here a tall-tale, there a parable, here a quip and there an epic. A storyteller sizes up an audience and bends her/his story to the attentions of those present. A storyteller never tells the same story the same way. Or better yet, a storyteller never tells the same story.