personal statements
Guiding Question 3: Do you write only in the first person and not spend too much time describing anyone or anything else?
Guiding Question 3: Do you write only in the first person and not spend too much time describing anyone or anything else?
Use my one-third-two-third rule. You may not spend more than 1/3 of the essay describing anything other than your own activities and goals.
That group, person, or community is not going to college. You are.
Here are a couple of writing patterns you can try:
1. Start in past in at most two paragraphs and then move to present and show who you are in last three paragraphs. Please mention one core way you are making a different-an activity, job, community service, etc.
2. Start in the present with a story of someway you are making a difference and then connect to the past or community or person. Then in last two paragraphs talk again about who you and how you are making a difference in your community.
Make Your Stories Pop: 10 College Application Essay Guiding Questions
Make Your Stories Pop:
10 College Application Essay Guiding Questions
Working on the drafts of your personal statements for your college applications? The drafting process is critical and can help make your stories and messages clearer. Please be willing to draft and re-write to make your essays stronger.
Here are 10 questions to help guide you through the editing process. I hope they can help make your stories pop on the page and help you get admitted to your match colleges and receive lots of scholarship money.
- Does your essay start with a story that hooks us in from the first paragraph?
- If you start in the past, do you get to the present very quickly? Colleges want to know about the recent you. Great essays can start more recently and weave in past events.
- Do you write only in the first person and not spend too much time describing anyone or anything else? Use my one-third-two-third rule. You may not spend more than 1/3 of the essay describing anything other than your own activities and goals.
- If you are writing about your community or family, do you get to the present and your life and life works quickly? Can this description only connect to you and your story of who are you and how you are making a difference?
- Do you only tell one story and not try to tell your entire life story?
- If you are writing about an obstacle or challenge overcome, do you get to how you have responded and made a difference in the life of your community by the second or third paragraph of the essay? Admissions officers want to know who are you and how you make an impact drawing upon your obstacles or challenges.
- Do you have a metaphor that goes through the entire piece…does this metaphor reveal who you are and what you offer to potential colleges? You can embed this metaphor throughout out your piece.
- Can I close my eyes and picture your story? Does it make you sound unique and not like anyone else applying? Can I see your leadership and initiative and the power of what you will offer a college campus?
- Do you tell new stories and qualities in each separate essay your write? Do you make sure to reveal powerful information and core messages that colleges will need to know to admit you and give you money to attend?
- Endings-Do you end with a bang? Do you make it clear by the end you have goals and aspirations that drive you. Your endings must be specific for some prompts like the University of California and University of Texas, but can be more oblique and implied in Common Application and many supplementary essays. Do you end leaving the reader with the desire to get to know you more, to see you on his or her campus, and to share your essay with someone else?
Note:
- If you are responding to University of California Prompt 1, do you end with how your story has affected your dreams and aspirations—in terms of majors, life goals, and your community?
- If you are responding to University of California Prompt 2, do you make sure to connect whatever you writing about to a major activity or project you have done that makes you proud?
- If you responding to the Common Application long essay, do you end with a bang. You don’t have to have a formal ending like the UC applications. Do you clearly let us know that you understand the power of your story?
Follow Dr. J’s Into, Through, & Beyond Approach: Brainstorming Tip #8
Follow Dr. J’s Into, Through, & Beyond Approach: Brainstorming Tip #8
Your essay needs to grab readers from the first word. You are competing for the fleeting attention of admissions officers who have dozens if not hundreds or thousands of essays and files to process. So don’t waste their precious time and tell them a story that no one else can tell. That will help you get admitted to the match college of your choice.
So follow my three pronged approach.
INTO: With your INTO, grab us into the story with a moment in time. That moment must reveal a core quality. The INTO can be a sentence, paragraph, or series of paragraphs.
THROUGH: Then go into two levels of THROUGH.
- THROUGH 1 provides the immediate context of the INTO.
- THROUGH 2 provides the overall context.
BEYOND: End with a BEYOND that is not sappy but powerful. Think of a metaphor that guides you and weaves through your story and into your ending.
Write a “Where I’m From” Poem: Brainstorming Tip #5
Write a “Where I’m From” Poem: Brainstorming Tip #5
Read George Lyon’s “Where I’m From” Poem.
http://www.georgeellalyon.com/where.html
Think of where you are from.
Read the poem to get ideas to write your own and start an amazing essay.
Boston College Adds Supplemental Essay-Shocker
Boston College Adds Supplemental Essay-WOW!!!
Here they are: Different and not easy to mass-produce. Should make for an interesting year for BC admissions.
| 1. St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, encouraged his followers to live their lives in the service of others. How do you plan to serve others in your future endeavors?
2. From David McCullough’s recent commencement address at BC: “Facts alone are never enough. Facts rarely if ever have any soul. In writing or trying to understand history one may have all manner of ‘data,’ and miss the point. One can have all the facts and miss the truth. It can be like the old piano teacher’s lament to her student, ‘I hear all the notes, but I hear no music.” Tell us about a time you had all of the facts but missed the meaning. 3. In his novel, Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann writes: “We seldom know what we’re hearing when we hear something for the first time, but one thing is certain: we hear it as we will never hear it again. We return to the moment to experience it, I suppose, but we can never really find it, only its memory, the faintest imprint of what it really was, what it meant.” Tell us about something you heard or experienced for the first time and how the years since have affected your perception of that moment. 4. Boston College has a First-Year Convocation program that includes the reading and discussion of a common book that explores Jesuit ideals, community service and learning. If you were to select the book for your Convocation, what would you choose and why? |
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College Application Essay Tip #9: Get Trusted People to Read Your Essays
College Application Essay Tip #9: Get Trusted People to Read Your Essays
Tip 9. Have trusted inside and impartial outside readers read your essays. Make sure you have no spelling or grammatical errors. Continue reading
College Application Essay Tip #6: Always Write in the First Person
College Application Essay Tip #6: Always Write in the First Person
Tip # 6: Always write in the first person. Remember, these are autobiographical essays, even when you talk about other people or issues. Remember the colleges are looking to accept you, not your relatives.
So use the one third and two thirds rule. Continue reading
College Application Essay Tip #5: Share Positive Messages and Powerful Outcomes
College Application Essay Tip #5: Share Positive Messages and Powerful Outcomes
Tip #5: Plan to share positive messages and powerful outcomes. You can start with life or family challenges. You can describe obstacles you have overcome. You can reflect on your growth and development, including accomplishments and service. College admissions officers do not read minds, so tell them your powerful life stories.
College Application Essay Tip #3: Keep a Master Chart
College Essay Tip #3: Keep a Master Chart
Tip 3. Keep a master chart of all essays required by each college, including short responses and optional essays. Continue reading
College Application Essay Tip #2: Develop Overall Strategic Plan
College Essay Tip #2: Develop Overall Strategic Plan
Tip 2. Develop an overall strategic essay writing plan. College essays should work together to help you communicate key qualities and stories not available anywhere else in your application. Continue reading
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