Download Writing the Perfect College Essay: From Ordinary to Extraordinary and more Schemes and Mind Maps English Philology in PDF only on Docsity! The College Essay: or How to go from the maybe pile… to the yes pile. Doug Calvert Interlake HS English Teacher 27 years and thousands of essays…. “Consultants charge up to $300 an hour to help prepare and polish it, and $60 for a quick appraisal. Prep schools offer a weekly class throughout the fall to conceive, draft, rewrite, revise, and edit it. Parents ghostwrite it and get secretaries to type the final version, spell- checked and grammatically correct on 24 pound bond paper. Students who write it without assistance experience what the former Dean of Bates College calls myopic paranoia; “I don’t know why they are asking that question, but I know they are out to get me.” – Glenn C. Altschuler What can the essay really do for you? • Know the school’s admissions policies and procedures. • Do they really read all of these essays? Great Essays: They can’t help but read it. Good Essays: Well…Ok. Bad Essays: 1. You are not serious. 2. You are not up to our standards. So what will you write about? • What have you undertaken or done on your own in the last year or two that has nothing to do with academic work? (Northwestern) • Imagine that you have the opportunity to travel back through time. At what point in history would you like to stop and why? (Swarthmore) • What is the best advice you ever received? Why? And did you follow it? (University of Pennsylvania) So what will you write about? • Select a creative work -- a novel, a film, a poem, a musical piece, a painting or other work of art -- that has influenced the way you view the world and the way you view yourself. Discuss the work and its effect on you. (New York University) • What do you think has been the most important social or political movement of the twentieth century? Do you share a personal identification with this cause? (Trinity College, CT) • If you were to look back on your high school years, what advice would you give to someone beginning their high school career? (Simmons) Step 1: Learn about yourself • It takes time to think reflectively. • Think About Yourself: – What are your strengths and weaknesses? – What are your best qualities? – Are you an intellectual? A creative type? Curious? Passionate? Determined? • Now choose a positive quality you’d like to convey to the admissions committee. • Pick your qualities….not the story. • Ambivalence is OK!! So……it’s time to write •Whatever is not on your application is what should go in your essay. Step 2: Frame it within an event • No one remembers a list. • No one remembers “the common.” • People remember what they see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. • People remember things that “move” them. Smile, laugh, cry, cringe…. “Danger” Topics… (But nothing is totally off limits) • Drugs • Depression • Death • Divorce • Sports • These are dangerous topics because they can be terribly cliché. • (Your battle is that most of your life IS cliché…you’re young) The other D’s…the DON’TS • Don’t write a resume. • Don’t forget to pruferead, • Don’t use 50 words when five will do. • Don’t tell them what you think they want to hear. Bad Assumptions…. • It has to deal with serious or traumatic events or issues. No. • Nothing bad has happened to me so I have nothing to write about. No. • I’m just “normal/typical.” Nothing about me stands out. No. • I have to use “big” words. No. The hard news…. • It is often very easy to read an essay and know that it is not “right” or does not “pop,” but it is very hard to tell someone how to do it better or what he or she should write on. • I often tell students that “I don’t know how to make it better….but this essay is not the one that will get the job done.” • Most “good” essays require several/many versions and attempts. Questions???
