10 College Application Essay Dos And Donts

10 College Application Essay Dos And Don'ts Each student needs to be able to claim authentic ownership of their essays. Mom and Dad may be great help during the brainstorming process of generating essay topics. They do not know what admissions officers are looking for. For the same reason, I do not think English teachers make great admissions essay readers. Your English teacher reads your essay as 1 out of 30. The admissions officers reads as 1 out of 1000’s and possibly even 10,000 or more. Your English teacher reads your essay to assign one grade out of many. Asking someone who is slightly more removed from the application process may be the wisest route to go. While parents mean well, any constructive feedback may be misinterpreted, creating conflict at what can already be a stressful time. Your teacher was just trying to make sure you understood how to write, not give you a rule you had to always obey. Students applying to colleges that use the Common Application will typically need to respond to one of seven essay prompts. For the 2020 application cycle, the length limit for the essay is 650 words. That limit includes the essay title, notes, and any other text that you include in the essay text box. Dr. Allen Grove is an Alfred University English professor and a college admissions expert with 20 years of experience helping students transition to college. The writing must adhere to a specific format, APA format for example. A student is usually away from home when going to college, and loves the taste of freedom. Being tied down for hours each day for days on end doing research and writing an essay is not their idea of freedom. Low-income students already face an uphill battle when it comes to higher education. The admissions officer reads to determine if they should offer you one spot out of probably relatively very few. Many applicants will have high GPA’s and SAT scores, volunteer in a local organization, or be the president of a club or captain of a sports team. Admissions officers are looking for something, anything, to distinguish your essay from the pile. I recommend that students try to find an adult other than their parents to help with essay editing. Parents are blinded by love and perhaps perfection. The essay needs to be a reflection of the student’s creativity, writing ability and personality; not the parent. While it is okay to have a parent proof an essay, they are not always the best option. Parents may know other details about the student that they should include in the essay. Parents are also a great second pair of eyes for grammar and spelling errors. I would still suggest that a English professional still read over the essay for expert editing purposes. However, parents should not try to change the voice of the student, which can be difficult to refrain from. Honestly, throughout most of high school and college, I was a mediocre essay writer. Guidelines for essay writing are much stricter in college than high school. Model UN is a club for middle school, high school, or college students whose members simulate UN committees. If you're still unsure, drop by a meeting at your school to get a sense of what joining the club would be like. While this is a great way to get more information, it usually isn’t a very interactive experience. Model United Nations, often referred to as Model UN or MUN, is an extracurricular most commonly for high school students, but also available to college and middle school students. I do not believe that parents make good essay editors because they are not admissions officers. Costs associated with standardized testing, applications fees create a barrier to entry in the first place, and that is before those students are hit with a steep bill for tuition each semester. Now schools are putting those same students at a disadvantage before they even have the chance to submit their transcripts. If you're in the process of applying for college, be warned that it isn't just your grades and extracurricular activities that are being reviewed by schools. These practices could lead to schools favoring students based on financial incentives for the school, placing students from low-income backgrounds at a disadvantage. I think the five paragraphs for an essay is more of a rule-of-thumb number that is easy to teach students when they are first learning to write.