Tips
to help your writing style:
In this section you will find helpful tips to guide you
in the essay - writing process:
Writing Tips:
- Start early.
Do not (we repeat, “DO NOT”)
wait until the last minute. This is the number
one mistake most applicants make. As a result,
the final product may be rushed, full of errors, and
poorly constructed. However, if you do wait until
the last minute, With Honors
can still help you craft a powerful essay.
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- Take your time and
get some distance. Reserve a full week
to develop your essay, write it, and proofread it.
Once you are finished revising it, put it down for a
few days. It is difficult to remain objective
about your own work without having some time and distance
during which you can reflect upon your essay.
After several days, revisit your essay and look over
it with fresh eyes. You will be surprised how
different it looks. Is this the essay that you
want to submit to colleges? If not, then repeat the
same exercise until you are satisfied with the final
version.
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- Brainstorm and explore.
There are any number of topics about
which you could write. Which one best suits you? The
more avenues you explore, the better your essay will
be. Most of us have suffered from writer’s
bloc at one time or another. It helps to brainstorm
to generate interesting ideas. Take out a piece
of scratch paper and write down any thoughts, words,
phrases, and ideas that come to mind. This exercise
will help you develop create topics for your essay.
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- Ask others for advice.
Although no one can write your essay
for you, asking friends, families, and teachers for
advice can help you generate many interesting ideas.
Each person will provide a different perspective.
Each person will have his or her own approach
to a difficult question.
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- Create an outline.
Even if you have a good idea of what you want to say,
we cannot stress the value of an outline enough. By
creating a rough template of your thoughts, you greatly
increase the chances of creating a lucid and concise
essay. Essays written without an outline often
wander aimlessly. An essay of this type may make
perfect sense to the person who wrote it, but it will
make little or no sense to the people reading it.
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- Mention the school to
which you are applying. The common application
enables prospective students to write one general essay
for multiple schools. However, many students fail
to include the school’s name anywhere in the essay.
Admissions officers look for this. They
want to see enthusiastic applicants. Make certain
that you mention the school’s name while being
extra careful to change the name for each version of
the essay you submit. You do not want NYU to receive
an essay that you wrote for Stanford.
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- Research the school
to which you are applying. Do your research.
Know the names of the professors, the classes,
and the extracurriculars. If you are interested
in studying political science at Duke University,
make certain that Duke offers this exact field. Harvard,
for instance, does not offer political science
as a field of study—it offers government.
Harvard also does not have majors—it
has concentrations. Details like these
can make a tremendous difference in your application
essay.
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- Do not use big words
to show off your vocabulary. Many applicants
create an impressive essay and then use a thesaurus
to insert words they otherwise never would have used.
If you are truly comfortable with such words,
then feel free to include them, but be warned: admissions
officers can spot a phony in an instant. It is
their job to do so.
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- Spell Check! Spell
Cheque! Spell Czech! Use the Spell Check
feature on your word processor to make certain that
you have no misspellings in your essay. A typo
can be the difference between acceptance and denial.
Even after you have checked your final
version, read it again…..and again. However,
be advised that their our sum mistakes spell
check will knot cache.
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- Avoid using contractions.
Although we use words such as "don't,"
"I'm," and "can't" in everyday speech,
it is best to spell out contractions in their entirety
("do not," "I am," and "cannot").
An admissions essay is a formal piece of writing
and must follow the standards of proper English prose.
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- Avoid passive voice.
In formal writing, it is preferable to use the active
voice. Instead of saying, "this essay was written
by me," say, "I wrote this essay." It can be
difficult to avoid this common habit, but it is worth
the extra time and effort. Most spell check programs
will not catch all instances of passive voice, so it
is important to proof your essay very carefully.
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- Treat depressing
subjects with extreme caution. We all
have experienced varying degrees of grief. Some
applicants exploit this fact in their essays in the
hopes of winning sympathy points. Be very careful
of this trap. If you decide to recount the untimely
passing of a relative or some other source of immense
grief, make sure that you relate it to your personal
development. Explain how the tragic event influenced
you and helped you gain new insight into the world.
This subject area can be very difficult to navigate,
so proceed with caution.
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- Avoid September 11th.
This is a caveat of the preceding bullet point, but
it is worth mentioning here. There are very few
people who can say they were unaffected by the tragic
events of 9/11. Over the past two years, essays
about the attack on the World Trade Center have flooded
admissions offices. Unless you have a radically
new spin on the issue, it is best to avoid this topic.
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- Avoid politically
volatile subject areas. Issues like abortion,
Capital Punishment, prayer in school, war, and race
are potentially dangerous in the admissions process.
You might be tempted to write an impassioned
and well-executed essay praising a new piece of legislation
about one of these topics. However, you must remember
that the admissions committee is a diverse group of
individuals from all walks of life. Your essay
might fascinate some but alienate others.
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- Be creative.
The admissions officers read essay after essay
after essay. What makes your essay stand out?
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