Start a Coronavirus Diary NOW!

Person Holding Notebook Beside Ceramic Cup

It’s Not Too Late to Capture Your Unique

COVID-19 Experience in a Journal

I know most of your are busy with online schooling. If you find extra time on your hands, and want a great way to practice narrative writing to prepare for your college application essays, start a diary about your Coronavirus experience as soon as you can.

For most of you, this could be the most dramatic, real-life experience of your life–and it’s happening right now.

For some of you, the hardest part so far has been the boredom of staying at home, cancelled events and not seeing friends. I hope that is your biggest problem. Many students will experience more intense repercussions from this pandemic, including losing loved ones, watching parents get laid off from jobs and enduring financial and emotional hardship.

All of you will have stories to tell. It’s not necessarily one long tale. But many small moments, incidents, conversations, emotions, insights, questions, conflicts, frustrations, jokes, and so on. If you’re smart, start collecting them now.

Trust me–someday you will be so glad you took the time to write down the details of your experience. You think you will never forget what it’s like now, but you will.

Also, keeping a Coronavirus diary (or journal, same thing) is an awesome exercise to learn the style of writing (narrative/story-telling) you will need to ace your college application essays.

This pandemic started a while ago, but you can start a diary capturing your unique and highly personal experience NOW! It’s not too late.

Even though COVID-19 most likely will not be a great essay topic on its own, there’s a strong chance it still will play a big or small part of your essays.

Person Sitting on Wooden Chair

How to Start Your Diary or Journal

It’s best if you can find some type of self-contained notebook. Lined or unlined. Personal preference. If you don’t have one single notebook, just find a way to collect your pages, either in an envelope or folder. You can always bind them together later. You can also write on the computer. Create a file and get started (I would print out your work, if possible, as back-up.)

Find a time of day that works for you to spend at least 10-15 minutes to write. It can be in the morning or afternoon or before you go to bed–again, your call. Just make a commitment to write something–anything–every day. If you miss a day, or even several, don’t let that stop you. Dive back in whenever you can. Put a reminder on your phone.

At the top of each entry, put the day and date. Doodling is totally allowed!

Resist the urge to erase. Even if you re-read what you wrote, and it sounds dumb or cheesy or not how you want, just LEAVE IT ALONE. That is your voice at the moment, and it is fine. If what you write really bugs you, just don’t read it. Keep writing.

Ball Point Pen on Opened Notebook

WHAT TO WRITE ABOUT?

Diaries are usually a mixture of recounting what happened to you during the last day or so, and your feelings about those events. You can give an overview of your day, or pick one or two interesting things that happened. It’s up to you. If you give an overview, stick with chronological order–start with how it began, what you did, and go from there. If you just want to share one thing that happened, just start with that. There are no rules.

The other part of a diary, besides telling what you did and what happened, is to write about what it meant to you. This can include a lot of reflecting, examining and analyzing what happened. You can also share how you felt and what you learned. (In your college application essays, especially personal statements like the Common App essay, you also recount something that happened to you–like telling a real-life story–and then you explain what it meant to you. See how they are similar?)

One writing tip to keep your Coronavirus diary balanced between what happened and what it meant to you is to shift back and forth. If you write a few sentences or paragraph about something that happened and those details, follow up with how you felt about it–especially your feelings and what you learned about yourself, others and the world. Then describe something else that happened, and reflect. Back and forth. Something happened => what it meant to you => something happened => what it meant to you….This writing technique (sometimes called the Ladder of Abstraction) is how you add depth–another skill you can use to power your college application essays.

LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS WRITING TECHNIQUE: How to Structure a College Application Essay

When you tell about your day, and the specifics of something that happened, make sure to includes tons of details. Name the movies you watched, the brand of cereal you ate, the friends you talked with, the words your dad used, the way your room looked, etc. These type of details will brighten your story and years down the road, you will laugh or even cry at many of them since you and your life will change.

A few more tips: Write like you talk. Don’t try to make your coronavirus diary sound like an English paper. You can use slang, or even foul language, if that’s how you talk. The important thing is that you will be capturing your authentic narrative “voice,” which is exactly what you want to use when writing your college application essay.

Also, stick to the past tense, even though you are writing about things that just happened. They are still in the past, and it reads better. Try to use the grammar, spelling, punctuation, and all that you know, so that it’s as readable as possible, but don’t sweat the them. Most important, you want to be able to read your diary later.

Use mainly first person. “I” “Me” “We” “Us”….

These are just some ideas on how to capture your experiences and feelings and observations about what’s going on right now with you. But there are NO RULES. This Coronavirus diary is yours, and your alone.

Close-Up Photo Of Notebook With Pen

Some Prompts to Get You Going

The dreaded blank page. Yikes!! How do you start when this CV has been going on for a while and you have already been homebound for a week or more? Try something like this:

Start with your first impressions of the pandemic. How did you first hear about it? Where were you? What did you think? What went through your mind? How did you feel? This will help you start at the beginning of this CV phase of your life, and you can go from there until you bring it up to today.

“I’m not sure the exact moment I first heard about the Coronavirus, but I remember seeing a video on Facebook about someone in China……”

Share some details about other things you remember early on learning about it, from your friends, from social media, from your parents, etc. You can keep this short, or write about it over the next couple entries and days. Your call. At some point, you will start simply writing about what happened THAT DAY (or yestserday).

Talk about the first day you learned school was closed. Include how you felt. Scared? Disappointed? Angry? Depressed? Anxious? Share what your first day home was like. It will be interesting to see how that changes over the coming weeks, and possibly months. Did you start a routine? What did your parents tell you about what was happening and what to expect?

Coffee in Cup

Still not sure what to write about? Just think back over your day. Did anything happen that made you laugh? Write about that moment. Did anything happen that upset you? Write about that moment. Did someone else do something weird or unexpected? Write about that. Just pick a small incident or conversation or moment, and simply tell what happened. If it comes to mind, it’s memorable to you and worth jotting down the details. Then, Boom. You have a Coronavirus diary entry.

REMEMBER: What you choose to write about does not need to be super exciting, life-changing, shocking or momentous to have value. It’s actually the everyday and ordinary moments and interactions that are the most meaningful since they are the most real to YOU. Trust what you cared about, and record it. If you have some more dramatic incidents, of course, record those as well!

Also, you don’t have to tie everything you write about directly to this Coronavirus. Everything that happens to you now IS related on some level because it is happening now during this pandemic. Simply focus on writing about how your life is now.

If things in your life are bad, all the more reason to write down what’s going on in your Coronavirus diary. Getting out what’s happening and especially how you feel about it can help you get through this. This won’t necessarily fix things, but it will help you handle them and can be helpful since you can get out your fears, worries, anger, whatever.

Hopefully, this will get you launched on your Coronavirus diary. You will never regret it, and again, you couldn’t have a better exercise to prepare for writing a killer personal statement for your college application essays. Big bonus!

We are in the middle of very weird and terrifying times. From reports I’ve read, we could return to some type of new normal within a matter of months. And then, looking back, this will be one of those bizarre nightmare experiences that you endured and will never forget. Your grandparents and parents had watershed times like the Great Depression, the Vietnam War, 911 and the 2008 Crash. This is yours, happening now. If you have a written record of how YOU handled it in your Coronavirus diary, you will value that for the rest of your life.

So get a notebook, jot down the day and date, and write something. Anything. Then put it down. Repeat.

Good luck!

I plan to write some follow-up posts with more tips and prompts for keeping your diary/journal going. So stay tuned!

How to Ignore College Application Essay Hype

Need Help Starting Your Essays? 
I have a Jumpstart Webinar THIS Saturday morning, June 22!
Only $30, includes my online essay writing course, too!

Webinar Details Click Here!

Macro Photography of Black Sunglasses on Sand

Keep Your Summer Chill!

Many of you are already out for summer, or at the finishing line. Yippee!!

If you’re now officially an incoming high school senior, or soon to be, it’s time to get cranking on your college application essay.

I’m sure you have heard that summer is the ideal time to start the brainstorming and writing process. If you can get them all done before the start of your senior year, all the better.

You most likely have heard these essays can be critical to your college acceptance chances.

Yes, it’s true they can matter, and sometimes tip the scales in your favor. No doubt it’s worth putting in significant time and effort on them.

But I believe it’s important not to fall for all the hype and madness around this application process.

I know when I’m stressed or anxious, my creative juices quickly shrivel up.

Stress Handwritten Text on White Printer Paper

Once you start reading about college application essays on the Web, you most likely will find advice that uses intimidating words, such as “transformational” and “differentiating.” So-called experts like to say things like how it’s critical to “Be yourself”  in your essay, and how these are your “Chance to shine.”

They aren’t wrong, necessarily. But all the ballyhoo isn’t very helpful if all you want to know is how and where to start, and what topic to write about, and how to craft it into an effective essay.

When you hear that a killer essay is one that shows you “transforming yourself,” that’s quite a directive. It means you had some type of dramatic change in your life, whether it was physical, emotional or even spiritual.

If you had that type of experience, good for you. And it could make a solid topic.

Most of us, however, by age 16 or 17 or even later, have not experienced that type of radical metamorphosis. So can you still write a great essay?

Absolutely!

What I have found working with students on these essays and the search for the holy grail topic, is that the simple, everyday “mundane” ones usually work best. Same goes for life changes. They don’t need to be profound to be interesting and meaningful.

For instance, if you are rooting around for an interesting topic, and reflecting on ways you have changed in recent years, look for the smaller changes. Look for shifts, adjustments, alterations, smaller movements in your life. I believe the most interesting shifts come in your thinking, especially if you learned something new or unexpected, or saw something in a different light or context.

The idea is that your essay topic doesn’t need to be about a momentous change in your life. Instead, recall moments, incidents or experiences that happened in your recent past (high school years are best), and see if anything changed or shifted in your thinking (about yourself, about others or about the world) in the process of dealing with whatever went down.

That takes off the pressure to have had a radical life experience where you were one person, and then something happened, and suddenly you were an entirely different person. That rarely happens. Instead, brainstorm those everyday moments or “times,” and explore how your thinking changed. Even better, think about how what you cared about changed. Hint: those are called your values.

White Board on Beige Surface

Colleges love to not only get a sense of your unique personalities in these essays, but they value seeing how you think, feel and behave, and what you value and learn, in these essays. You can write a “transformational” essay without having changed from a bad person to a good person, or a shy person to an outgoing person, etc.

You are changing all the time, and it can be hard to notice at the moment. Take a little time to think of things that have happened to you, and more time to examine how you responded to them. Another hint: best place to find interesting moments are those that involved problems.

Even if you are following me so far, you most likely are wondering what you do once you think of some of these personal changes or shifts, and how to spin them into a piece of writing.

I have written posts all over my Essay Hell blog on exactly what to do, and I also spell it out in my popular writing guide, Escape Essay Hell, and in my online writing bootcamp. I’m also walking students through this process in my Jumpstart webinars, which started this month. The next one is this Saturday, at 10 a.m., West Coast time, and I will have several more this month.

So many ways to get started on these essays. Pick one and get going!

I hope you are hearing my main point in this post: Don’t get freaked out by all the hype about what these essays are all about.

Like all the millions of students who have gone into Essay Hell before you, you will also find a topic and write a killer essay! Just buckle down at some point this summer, read up on what they are all about, pick what resources you think will help you the best, and you will find they aren’t that freaky after all.

Orange Flames Wallpaper

Here are some of my best posts to get you launched:

What Makes a College Application Essay Great?

The Secret to a Killer College Application Essay

#Selfie: 5 Ways It’s Like Your College Application Essay

Land in the Yes Pile

Use The Unexpected

Essay Topics That Worked

How to Show Your Grit

How to Write Your College App Essay in 3 Steps

GOOD LUCK!! You got this!

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Record Scratch Your College App Essay Stories

                     

How to Background an Anecdote

(Includes 5 writing examples at the bottom!)

If you’ve done your homework on how to write an effective college application essay, you probably know the place to start is with your real-life stories.

The idea is to find moments, incidents and experiences from your past that illustrate a larger point you want to make about yourself in your essay.

Often, the best place to share an engaging mini-story (also called an anecdote) is at the very start of your piece.

The anecdote (mini-story) serves to “hook” or grab your reader’s interest at the start—something you always want in a standout application essay.

However, once you share that little moment, incident or mini-story (anecdote) that you have plucked out of time with little to no introduction, where do you go after that first paragraph or two? (more…)

College Rejection: 3 Lessons

college rejection

Don’t Despair over College Rejection

Sometimes You Discover a Better Path

 

It’s the time of year when high school seniors are learning where they got accepted to colleges or universities.

Yay! Good for you! Time to celebrate!

Many are also opening those dejecting rejection letters.

If they didn’t get into their dream school, that can be a bummer.

If they didn’t get into any of their schools, it can be a time of utter panic.

So I wanted to share a timely story about a young woman who recently sought my help after experiencing the wildly unpredictable and emotionally charged quest for the right school–and brutal college rejection. (more…)

The Big Eclipse: A Lesson in College Application Topic Ideas

 

Don’t Even Think About Writing About the Eclipse

And What to Write About Instead

 

When I was invited to give one of my college application essay writing workshops to students at Colorado Academy in Denver, Colorado, I had no idea it would be on the day of the big eclipse.

As Monday, August 21, neared, we all realized the sky would darken just about lunchtime during my daylong workshop.

Even though I knew it would be hard to compete with a full-on solar eclipse, I was excited because Denver was more in line with the action than my home in Southern California. (more…)

Start Your Personal Statement the Right Way

personal statement

 

Ready to write your personal statement essay?

It can be for your Common Application essay, or other university or college prompts, or transfers, or medical or law school, or even scholarship applications.

To start, always read the prompt.

If it asks you to write something fundamental about yourself (such as all seven of the Common App prompts), then they want a personal statement essay from you.

The next step is to start brainstorming. (more…)

Common Application Prompt 6: Be Warned!

common application prompt 6

 

Big Red Flag on this New
Common Application Prompt 6!

The Common Application added two new prompts for 2017-18.

Now students can choose from seven prompts (instead of five) to inspire their personal statement “Common App” essay.

The seventh new Common Application prompt basically allows you to write about anything you want, and you can learn more about it and the new prompts in New Common Application Prompts for 2017-18.

The other prompt, the new Common Application Prompt 6, essentially asks you to write about one of your intellectual passions. (more…)

24 Top FAQs About College Application Essays

FAQs about College Application Essays

24 More Commonly Asked Questions
about College Admissions Essays

 

  1. How far back should I go in tracing my background?

When writing about experiences from your past, it’s best to stick to your high school years in general (for Common Application and incoming freshmen). That way, you make sure that any moments, incidents, activities or “times” that you include are relevant and timely. It’s okay to mention details from earlier days to support points you want to make, but use those sparingly because that was a long time ago and not as powerful as more recent examples.

Learn more: How to Answer Prompt 1 for Common Application

  1. How much of the information already in my application should I repeat?

Ideally, try to include information and topics in your essay that college admissions officers would not have already learned about you in other parts of your application. This is your best opportunity to showcase something additional and meaningful that goes beyond your test scores, grades and lists of extracurricular activities. Why tell them something they already know?

However, you might need to mention specifics from your application if you are going to write your essay about a topic related to your extracurricular activities or academics, and that’s fine—just make sure your essay tells the reader a lot more than simply what you did.

Learn more: Write Your Essay in Three Easy Steps

  1. Should I include or explain negative experiences?

You should definitely consider writing about negative experiences from your past, because chances are these involved problems. Problems are essay gold because you can share something that happened to you that is interesting and engaging (bad stuff simply is more interesting to read about), and then explain what you learned from handling it.

If you do share a negative experience—and these often make the best essays—you must quickly include how you found something positive from handling or solving it. If you don’t include the upside, your essay will be downer, which you don’t want.

You must share the negative experience, however, so we know how far you came and what you learned by working through it.

Learn more: Tips on Topics to Avoid

  1. Should I call attention to a low (or high) G.P.A.?

Essays are often an excellent opportunity for students to explain blips in their academic record. In general, let high G.P.A.s stand for themselves—if you call attention to them you can slip into sounding full of yourself. It’s crucial to maintain a humble tone in your essay, no matter how brilliant you are.

If you had a dip in your grades, you could write your essay to explain what obstacles got in your way, but make sure to include how you handled or managed those and either recovered or are on your way.

Don’t waste your essay explaining average grades. Instead, focus on writing an essay that showcases your individuality and character, and leave your grades out of it. Only consider writing your essay about grades if they crashed at some point. You are not writing an excuse for your poor performance; just giving an explanation. Also, share your plan to keep them upward bound.

Learn more: 5 Tips for “Do This; Not That” in Topics

  1. How “personal” should I be?

The best college application essays are highly personal. Students who share their struggles, low-points and feelings connect with their readers, and are memorable.

However, there is a line. The best rule is: When in doubt, leave it out. The last thing you want to do in your essay is to offend your reader.

There’s no need to include things that are gross or offensive. Often it’s all about how you say it. The more sensational something is, the fewer details you need to get across your point. Red flag topics to handle with care are religion, politics, sex, illness and death.

Instead of saying, “The kid barfed green puke all over me.” Say something like, “The kid couldn’t keep down his dinner.”

If you can’t tell the difference, ask advice from someone you trust.

Learn more: TMI in College Application Essays

  1. How do you fit everything important in 650 words?

The reason essays have a word count is to help students focus their essay on making one central point about themselves. If you write your draft, and you exceed the count, go back and edit it down. Never go over!

Cut out the big chunks you don’t need to support your point first, then sentences and finally individual words. Look for parts that don’t support your larger point, or sentences you already said and don’t need. Shorter is almost always better.

Instead of aiming to include everything about yourself in the essay, pick one main point to showcase, such as one of your core defining qualities, characteristics or a core value.

Learn more: The Ultimate Editing Checklist

  1. What do college admissions officers say I should write about?

College admissions officers first want you to respond their prompts. After that, they are looking for essays that tell them something about your that they wouldn’t learn from other parts of your application.

They also are looking to put a face on your application. The essay is the only part of the application where you can share your personality (your individuality) and character (what you care about).

They are looking for essays that help them differentiate you from other applicants. So look for ways to show how you are different from other students, and why that matters.

Learn more: College Admissions Officers Want Stories

  1. How personal should the personal essay be?

The best essays are always highly personal. The best way to get personal is to share some type of problem you faced (mistake, challenge, obstacle, flaw, phobia, setback, life change, failure, etc.) and include how it affected you and made you feel.

When you are open and vulnerable in your essay, you will connect with your reader. They will feel your pain and be on your side. This does not mean you complain or whine. Instead, share some of your feelings when you wrestled or handled a problem. Include a sentence on what went through your head, or what inspired you to address a problem. Be honest and direct. We are all more likable when we share our low points rather than our high points.

Learn more: How to Get Personal in Your Essay

  1. Do college application essays need MIA format?

There is no set format for these essays, since most require students to copy and paste them into web site applications, which can often lose any special formatting.

In general, write them in the first-person and stick with the past tense. Indent paragraphs and use standard punctuation, grammar and other rules of the English language.

The style is less formal, however, so you can relax some of the rules if it helps you set a more familiar, conversational tone, such as using contractions or phrases. Write more like you talk, but don’t get sloppy.

More FAQS about College Application Essays

Learn more: Forget the 5-Paragraph Essay

30. Does a college application essay need a title?

You can include a title with your essay, but it’s not required. Only use one if it adds something to the piece. A snappy title can help an essay be more memorable or stand out. But if you can’t think of one, leave it out.

Learn more: Should You Title Your Essay?

  1. How to conclude college application essay?

These essays are more casual than academic essays that you wrote in English class. You do not need a formal conclusion that restates your main point, or to wrap it up in a neat bow at the end.

However, there are ways to give your essay a satisfying and memorable conclusion.

One of the best ways to give a narrative, slice-of-life essay a sense of continuity is to find a way to link back to what you started with in your introduction. If you started by sharing something that happened to you, touch back to that incident and bring the reader up to date.

Also, try to share how you intend to apply whatever you say you learned in your essay toward your future college and career goals. It never hurts to end with a broad, upbeat statement.

Learn more: How to End Your Essay

  1. How to organize college application essay?

These essays have a looser format than typical academic essays your wrote for English class. Do not use the old five-paragraph style if possible. Even though these personal essays are less structured, it still helps to have a simple outline to organize how you want to present your ideas.

One way to structure a personal essay is to decide what quality, characteristic about yourself you want to showcase. Then find examples from your life that illustrate it. Start by sharing a moment or experience that is an example of your quality, characteristic or value, and then spend the rest of the essay explaining what it meant to you—what you learned and how you changed in any way.

Learn more: How to Structure a College Application Essay

  1. How to make college application essay stand out?

The best way to stand out with your essay is to try to find a topic that is unusual or unexpected. Writing about things you have done to impress colleges does not work, and in fact backfires, since those essays are usually very boring and a turn-off.

Instead, look for topics that are everyday or “mundane,” and find real-life stories where something happened to you to engage your reader. Brainstorm moments or “times” related to your hobbies, passions, jobs, family, background and interests for topics.

It’s often not what you write about, but what you have to say about it that makes the most difference in these essays. Try to find a way to tell target schools something they wouldn’t learn about you in other parts of your application.

The best trick to finding a topic that is interesting and sets you apart is to share times you faced some type of problem, especially one that was highly personal or challenging or unusual.

Learn more: Podcast on How to Stand Out with Your Essay

  1. What should college application essay be about?

The essays needs to be about you. Period. You can include other people in your essay if they had an impact on your topic, but you must make sure that most of what you say and share is about you.

The best way to make sure your essay is about you is to choose a defining quality or characteristic about yourself to showcase in your essay.

Then share real-life moments or experiences that illustrate why you are that way, and what you learned about yourself and why it matters. If you stick to writing about one quality or characteristic, your topic can’t wander too far away from being all about you.

Learn more: How to Find a Killer Topic for Your College Application Essay

  1. Who reads college application essays?

Usually, a small group of adults who are part of a school’s admissions committee read college application essays. The committee is comprised of admissions officers, who are staff (usually from the admissions department), professors or current or former students.

They can come from all types of ages and background. It’s best to think of them as basic people who are tasked with finding students they believe will contribute to the college or university.

Most will tell you they are looking for the “right fit,” so it’s in your best interest to help them by writing an essay that helps them understand your personality and character.

Learn more: Watch an Admissions Committee in Action

  1. Which common app essay to write?

You can pick from five prompts (essay questions) to write about you’re the Common Application core essay for incoming freshmen. Read through all five and see if one grabs your interest or if you feel you have something to say about it.

Generally, the first prompt is considered the most open-ended and most personal essays that include anything about a student’s background, identity, interest or talent would work. Notice they are also asking for a story, which always make these essays more interesting and meaningful.

Prompts 2 and 4 both ask students to write about problems (a failure in Prompt 2 or any imaginable type of problem in Prompt 4), which are the easiest to craft into a personal essay. Share the problem, and then go onto how you handled it and what you learned and you will have a solid essay.

Remember, these are just prompts and intended to “prompt” ideas and you are not expected to directly answer them, but write an essay that responds to it.

Learn more: Strategies for All 5 Common App Prompts

  1. Which common app essay topic is best?

The best essay topic is the one that allows you to share something interesting and meaningful about yourself. There is no one topic that works for all students.

If you can find a topic that is unusual or unexpected, that could help make your essay more interesting and memorable. But the most important part of writing about any topic is what you have to say about it—what you learned, how you felt, what you thought and how you changed.

Learn more: Strategies for All 5 Common App Prompts

  1. Should I be specific in my essay?

Yes, you should be specific in key parts of your essay to give it both a strong focus and interest.

When deciding what to write about yourself in your essay, it helps to be specific about what part of yourself you want to showcase (as opposed to trying to cram in everything about yourself.) Instead of writing about all your accomplishment or talents, try to think of one of your defining qualities or characteristics and write your essay about that.

Also, when you make general points in your essay, back them up with specific examples to add interest and clarity.

Learn more: Defining Qualities Bring Focus to Essays

  1. College Applications: How do universities ensure that the essays they receive don’t have any kind of plagiarism?

 

College admissions officers have keen radar on essays that were not written by students. They have read hundreds and even thousands of essays, and can usually detect when someone else has written an essay for a student. Never buy essays since these are usually poorly written and colleges can tell they were not original.

When admissions officer suspect plagiarism, it’s not hard to use to Google to check the source.

If you don’t write your own essay or copy what others have written, you will only hurt yourself in the long run, since colleges use these essays to make sure they are the right place for you.

Learn more: Why You Shouldn’t Even Think of Cheating on Your Essay

40. Serious or Funny Essay?

Both serious and funny essay can be effective. It depends on your topic and what you want to say about yourself.

You can even be both serious and funny in the same essay. For instance, you can start your essay with an entertaining story about something that happened to you, but then explain what it meant and share serious insight, opinions and lessons learned.

What you don’t want is to try to write a funny essay, like a comedy sketch. Instead, share the funny thing that happened in a direct way and let the humor stand on its own.

In general, the subject of what you are talking about will determine whether your essay is serious or funny, or a little of both.

Learn more: 5 Ways to Blow Your Essay

41. What is most important part of an essay?

This is a hard question because an effective college application essays needs to accomplish several goals, and different parts have separate roles. First, the essay must engage the reader at the start, so it’s imperative that the introduction is compelling. Second, the essay must reveal something unique about the writer, so it must have a sharp focus and share something about the writer’s personality. Third, the essay needs to show the writer’s character, so it needs to express their values, how they learn and what they care about. The best way to do all three is to share a personal experience and then explain what it meant to you.

Learn more: https://www.essayhell.com/2014/04/what-makes-a-college-application-essay-great/

42. Should I write an analytical essay?

Your essay should be a personal essay, which typically also includes some type of analysis or examination of how you feel, think and learn. A stricly analytical essay has a more formal style and structure and would be too academic to work as an effective college application essay. The best personal essays are narrative (storytelling) in style, and start with students sharing a real-life experience and then explaining what it meant—through analysis of the event, what they learned, how they thought about it, what they valued and why it all mattered in the larger sense. The best college application essays also include personal reflection (sharing ideas, insights, realizations, questions, etc.).

Learn more: https://www.essayhell.com/2016/07/random-questions-answers-college-application-essays/

43. Should my essay be narrative?

The best style and format for an effective college application essay is narrative. This means the writer shares a personal experience and uses that to reveal something unique about themselves (their personality), as well as how they learn, what they care about and what the life lesson mattered (their character.) Narrative essays are not one, long story; rather, they take one moment or incident and use that to illustrate something about themselves that will help colleges differentiate them among other applicants. The single moment or incident is often used at the start (an “anecdote”) as the introduction and is only a paragraph or two long. The rest of the essay is used to explain what it meant to the writer.

Learn more: https://www.essayhell.com/2011/08/jumpstart-your-personal-statement-in-6-simple-steps/

44. How do I end my essay on a positive note?

It’s always best to leave the reader on an upbeat note, no matter how intense or negative other parts of the essay were up to that point. Many essays share experiences that were challenging or problematic, but it’s imperative that the student also quickly show how they handled those issues and turned them into learning experiences. The best way to leave on a positive note is to share how you intend to apply what you learned from an experience in your future goals. Use your last sentence or two to shift into the future and share how you intend to use your newfound knowledge toward your dreams.

Learn more: https://www.essayhell.com/2013/09/jumping-to-conclusions-how-to-end-your-essay/

Hope you found these FAQs about College Application Essays helpful. Read the first 20 Most Commonly Asked Questions about College Applications if you want to learn more.

If you have a burning question I haven’t answered here, please ask away in the comments section below and I will do my best to answer it.

Good luck!

Random Questions (and Answers) About College Application Essays

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Got a Burning Question
About Your College Application Essay?

(Leave it in the Comments!)

After working with students like you for nearly a decade now, I’ve heard a lot of questions about these cursed essays.

And you are so smart to ask them.

How else can you figure out what is expected of you and how to write them?

Here’s a list of some of the most common ones I’ve heard over the years, and my answers. (more…)

Best College Application Essays Have Touch of Gray

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Learn How to Avoid Black-and-White Thinking
to Add Depth to Your Essays

 

It’s exciting to see that word is getting out to collegebound students, and those who support their admissions quests, that real-life stories power the most effective college application essays.

If you are new to this concept, read up on the narrative (storytelling) writing method that I promote all over this blog.

(If you are just starting learning about college application essays, I recommend first reading How to Write a College Application Essay in 3 Steps. This post you are reading here is intended for students who have a topic and have started writing their first draft.)

Here’s the essence of my writing approach: You use your real-life stories to illustrate or demonstrate one of your defining qualities, characteristics or core values in your college application essay or personal statement.  (more…)