The Write Angle College Essay Consulting

Tip #9 for Writing Standout College Application Essays: Get personal!

The more you reveal about yourself – your passions, your vulnerabilities, your essential humanity – the more insightful and memorable the essay will be.
Dig deeply and be as self-reflective as possible.
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Tip #8 for Writing a Standout College Application Essay: When Writing a Supplemental Essay, Be Specific About the School's Programs

Many schools have essay questions that ask “Why Our School?” or “Describe Your Academic Interests.” When writing these essays, the goal is to show that you are a good match for the school based on your SPECIFIC interests and the school's SPECIFIC programs. Therefore, you need to do your research on the school and find the specifics that justify your interest. You don't want to generalize, "I like the campus and the school has a great science department." In the end, if you can use this essay for more than one school, then it's not nearly specific enough.
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Tip #7 for Writing a Standout College Application Essay: The Essay Should be Purposeful and Enhance your Application

What are the personal qualities you want to highlight? Do these qualities shine through the essay? When picking your topic, make sure that the essay is purposeful in conveying these qualities. There is no point in telling a story or writing about an experience that does not enhance your application by providing additional insights into who you are as a person. The goal is for the admissions officers to read the final line of the essay (which means it was engaging enough to read all the way to the end!), smile and say, "That was really interesting," or "Hey, I really like this person!"
http://www.WriteAngleEssays.com/structuring.html

Tip #6 for Writing a Standout College Application Essay: Make Sure that Your “Voice” Comes Through the Essay

The essay needs to be well-written, but it is not a formal, dispassionate five-paragraph essay. To the contrary, it should be a relatively informal essay that clearly shows your passions and feelings. Avoid the thesaurus! Use words that you would use in conversation. Be genuine. Do not try to impress. Tell your story in your own words, showing your personality in the process. If you have any doubts, see the quotes from admissions officers on my website:
http://www.WriteAngleEssays.com/quotes-from-admissions.html

Tip #5 for Writing a Standout College Application Essay: Put the Reader in the Story with You.

Make sure that the essay has enough details and emotions so the admissions officer can envision the setting and feel what you felt.
http://www.WriteAngleEssays.com/fine-tuning.html

Tip #4 for Writing a Standout College Application Essay: Grab the Admissions Officers' Attention with a Catchy First Sentence.

Admissions officers have to read hundreds (or thousands!) of essays. A boring essay will put them to sleep. The first sentence has to make them want to read the second sentence. Think about starting the essay in the middle of the “action" or with an interesting statement that piques their interest. For examples of good openings, see the samples on my website:
http://www.writeangleessays.com/sample-essays.html

Tip #3 for Writing a Standout College Application Essay: Limit the Essay to a Single, Narrowly Focused Experience.

The more narrowly you can focus the essay on a single event, the more memorable it will be. The goal is for the admissions officers to be able to label you in a few positive words, e.g. “the girl who spent 24 hours alone in the woods." This way, when they have to choose among many similarly qualified applicants, they will remember the essay and say, "Remember the one who. . ."
http://www.WriteAngleEssays.com/sample-essays.html

Tip #2 for Writing a Standout College Essay: Tell a Story that Only You Can Tell

You don’t need to have won awards or done something unique and amazing to have a great story. What experiences were “defining moments” in your life? Admissions officers want a glimpse into your personality and thinking, so everyday real world experiences work just fine. And sometime they work even better because the admissions officers (who are people, too!) can relate to everyday struggles, failures, etc. But be careful to pick an experience that is unique to you or find a unique angle so that your essay will be memorable.
http://www.WriteAngleEssays.com/brainstorming.html

I am a big proponent of using a personal story to make the essay memorable and unique. And there's a good reason why!

Jennifer Aaker, a marketing professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, writes: “A story is a journey that moves the listener, and when the listener goes on that journey they feel different and the result is persuasion and sometimes action."

"Aaker describes how a marketing researcher asked students in her class to make a 1-minute pitch. Only one out of ten students actually used a story in their pitch. She then asked the class to write down everything they remembered about each pitch. Five percent of the students cited a statistic while 63 percent remembered the story."

Read more at http://women2.com/2013/05/07/the-power-of-stories/ .99

Selling Your Product Means Selling A Story | Women 2.0

Tip #1 for Writing a Standout College Application Essay: Start the Essay with a Short Story that Shows Who You Are

Everyone likes (and remembers!) a good story. Essays filled with platitudes and declarative self-serving sentences are boring and fail to make an impact. As I posted earlier, think back to the Olympic telecasts last month and the athletes' "back stories." You probably remember a few of those stories because they humanized the athletes and made them stand out from the crowd. The same is true for the college application essays -- they are your "back story." A good "back story" will be memorable and make you stand out from the crowd. For examples of good essay "back stories," see my website:
http://www.WriteAngleEssays.com/sample-essays.html

Common Essay Writing Mistake #7: Waiting Until the Deadline to Submit the Application.

Although it's only mid-September, it's time to get cracking on the college applications. Although most application deadlines aren’t until December, January or even February, you definitely increase your chance of admission by getting the applications in much earlier. Many colleges give “priority” or non-binding “early decisions” to applications received by or around November 1. Applications that come in early show that the student is genuinely interested in the school and is on top of the application process. Applications that come in at the last minute suggest that either the student threw in the application as an after-thought or the student is a big procrastinator. The earlier, the better!!
http://www.WriteAngleEssays.com/timing.html

Common Essay Writing Mistake #6: Forgetting to Draw Meaningful Conclusions

Using an anecdote as a means for writing a unique, standout essay is a great idea, but the anecdote cannot swallow the entire word allotment. The point of telling a story is to use it as an interesting device to SHOW who you are, but it’s even more important to explain what you learned from the events in the story and/or how the events shaped the person you are today (and will be in college!).
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