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The College Application Essay

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Title: The College Application Essay


1
The College Application Essay
  • Presented by
  • Chris McGovern Bater
  • Class of 1980

Bronx HS of Science Alumni Mentor Program
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Anatomy of a College Application
  • Personal Data
  • Grades
  • Scores (SAT, ACT, APs, SAT IIs)
  • Raves
  • Teacher Recommendations
  • Extracurricular, Personal Volunteer Activities
    and Work Experience
  • Short Answer
  • Essay
  • Supplemental Applications

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Anatomy of a College Application
  • How to showcase YOU.
  • Gather all of your information.
  • Determine the best way to present it.
  • The College Application is a package.
  • You dont want your essay to repeat or conflict
    with other pieces of the application.
  • Fewer and fewer colleges offer the chance to
    interview.
  • This may be your only chance to deliver your
    personal message.

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The Essay
  • 500 words to personally introduce yourself to the
    college of your choice.

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The Essay
  • SELL yourself to the school.
  • Help the Admissions Committee categorize you.
  • Coming from Bronx Science, you are already
    categorized.
  • Now tell them something that they dont already
    know about you.
  • TELL YOUR STORY.

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The Essay
  • What is more important?
  • What you write?
  • or
  • How you write?

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What is the Admissions Committee Looking for?
  • Who are you and what is important to you as a
    person?
  • How you grew as a person as a result of a
    specific situation?
  • How you have grown in a position that you have
    held?
  • How you have become the person you are now?

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What is the Admissions Committee Looking for?
  • Bryn Mawr College is very specific
  • Demonstrate your ability to express your views
    clearly and rationally, to resolve intellectual
    problems and to make new discoveries,
  • and
  • Illustrate that you are a good match for Bryn
    Mawr by revealing your thoughts, attitudes,
    experiences, aspirations, and personal qualities.

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What is the Admissions Committee Looking for in
your Essay or Personal Statement?
  • YOU
  • WHY US?
  • CREATIVITY

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What is the Admissions Committee Looking for in
your Essay or Personal Statement?
  • Buzz Words
  • intellectual curiosity
  • passion
  • dedication
  • commitment
  • accomplishment
  • leadership
  • sense of humor
  • sensitivity
  • tolerance
  • compassion
  • integrity
  • motivation

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Why your choice of essay topic matters
  • The college regards your choices as a way to
    evaluate your preferences, values, mental
    processes, creativity, sense of humor, and depth
    of knowledge. Your writing reflects your power of
    persuasion, organizational abilities, style, and
    mastery of standard written English.

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How to get started
  • Review several complete application forms
  • Prewriting Brainstorming
  • focus on strengths of character and personality,
    NOT things that you have done
  • Create a self-outline
  • look for patterns and connections that help prove
    your point

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The Essay
  • Keep your focus narrow and personal.
  • Your essay must prove a single point or thesis.
  • The reader must be able to find your main idea
    and follow it from beginning to end.
  • Essays that are to comprehensive may end up
    sounding watered down.

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The Essay
  • Prove Your Point
  • Develop your main idea with vivid and specific
    facts, events, quotations, examples, and reasons.
    There's a big difference between simply stating a
    point of view and letting an idea unfold in the
    details.

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The Essay
  • Three basic styles of essays
  • Standard Essay
  • Take two or three points from your self-outline,
    give a paragraph to each, and make sure you
    provide plenty of evidence. Choose things not
    apparent from the rest of your application or
    "light up" some of the activities and experiences
    listed there.
  • Less is More
  • In this format, you focus on a single interesting
    point about yourself. It works well for brief
    essays of a paragraph or half a page.
  • Narrative Essay
  • tells a short and vivid story. Omit the
    introduction, write one or two narrative
    paragraphs that grab and engage the reader's
    attention, then explain what this little tale
    reveals about you.

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The Essay
  • Tell a Story
  • Employ elements of story-telling including
    action, sensory detail, even dialogue, to make
    your essay compelling.
  • Remember that "action" can be physical or mental
    (your thought process).
  • Use your true, unique voice to tell the story,
    not a flowery, inflated or pretentious style. If
    you are thorough and thoughtful in expressing the
    meaning in your experience, this will be
    impressive enough.

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The Essay
  • Defend a Belief or Value
  • Pay attention to the issues you follow in the
    news, discuss with your friends or write about in
    your journal. Once you've identified why this
    particular issue is important to you, ask
    yourself, "So what?" Then answer this underlying
    question with your essay, which also gives you an
    opportunity to reveal your maturity and
    perspective by demonstrating your connection to
    the larger world. Bonus you'll also show that
    you are ready to be an active participant in a
    diverse community, such as a college.

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The Essay
  • Write a Character Portrait
  • Reveal what aspects of character you value. Do
    pay attention to the difference between exterior
    and interior descriptions.
  • Do remember that this character portrait is meant
    to reveal you not only who you are now, but who
    you will become as a result. You would do well,
    though, to show support or plan to support values
    in college. Is there a research project, program,
    application, or work of art that has personal
    meaning and that you intend to pursue?

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The Essay
  • WARNING!
  • Don't try to strategize or "game" the application
    process.
  • There is no way you can ever really know what
    "they" are looking for.
  • JUST BE HONEST AND TRUE.

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The Essay
  • The Topic
  • should be personal to you
  • dont be afraid to reveal your thoughts,
    feelings, and opinions
  • The Tone
  • find your natural voice for expressing these
    ideas

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Consider Your Audience
  • During admissions season, admissions officers
    read for six to eight hours per day. Processing
    up to 30 files per day.
  • Your essay may only get 90 seconds of attention.
  • MAKE IT COUNT!

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Consider Your Audience
  • Make the essay memorable.
  • While the essay should be bold, it should also be
    tasteful.
  • The best remembered essays are those that move us
    emotionally or strike a familiar chord.
  • Admissions officers read hundreds of essays, so
    sameness is detrimental.

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Writing Tips from Stanford University
  • Answer the question, understand the purpose of
    the essay, and consider your audience.
  • Tell a story
  • Tell a story only you can tell.
  • Reflect on the meaning of the story.
  • Write about the specific rather than the general.
  • Don't insult your readers' intelligence by
    turning the essay into a resume in prose or by
    attempting to explain away some short coming.
  • Avoid gimmicks of any kind.
  • Don't exceed the suggested length.
  • KEEP IT SIMPLE. Don't use "big" words just to
    use them. Construct short sentences.

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The Process
  • Pique the reader's interest
  • Hook them in.
  • Tell the story. Be Specific.
  • Sum it up.
  • Leave them wanting more.
  • Leave them wanting to meet YOU!

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How to be a better writer?
  • Be a better reader!
  • Read well. Read good prose by good writers, and
    read carefully, looking not only for information,
    but for logic, structure, interesting turns of
    phrase, and anything else that makes the writing
    work. Read a variety of things, including
    British, American, and even Australian authors
    read The New Yorker and Harper's read the NY
    Times editorial page and compare the styles of
    the better columnists. Read literature,
    philosophy, and poetry read good scientific
    writers and non-fiction writers read The NY
    Review of Books and The Times Literary
    Supplement read the NY Times Magazines Lives
    essays. Enjoy reading good writing, even in
    popular genres, but balance it with enough
    challenging material.

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General Writing Tips
  • Avoid clichéd topics
  • Adventure travel
  • Community Service
  • how I helped save the world
  • how the project made me feel lucky
  • Dead relatives/pets
  • How we/I won the game.
  • Comparing a sport to the game of life
  • My favorite coach

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General Writing Tips
  • Eliminate unnecessary adjectives and adverbs.
  • Use sharp descriptions and spare dialog.
  • Be personal, not impersonal.
  • Put away the thesaurus.
  • Don't attempt to tackle a topic that can't
    possibly be covered in 500 words.

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General Writing Tips
  • Show, dont tell.
  • Be as specific as you can when recounting events.
  • Give the reader that "you are there" feeling.
  • Be vivid.

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How to finish the Essay
  • Draft
  • Edit
  • Let it cool.
  • Feedback time.
  • Edit down.
  • Proofread, proofread, proofread!

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Essay Checklist
  • Is the essay interesting?
  • Will it stand out because it shows who I really
    am?
  • Is it about something important to me?
  • Do I show how I think?
  • Do I illustrate the issue, story or experience?
  • Is my presentation neat, logical, and clearly
    stated?
  • Are there good transitions between separate
    ideas?
  • Did I make a conclusion rather than ending with a
    summary?

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Sample Essay Topics
  • Common Application Topics
  • Evaluate a significant experience, achievement,
    risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have
    faced and its impact on you.
  • Discuss some issue of personal, local, national,
    or international concern and its importance to
    you.
  • Indicate a person who has had a significant
    influence on you, and describe that influence.
  • Describe a character in fiction, a historical
    figure, or a creative work (as in art, music,
    science, etc.) that has had an influence on you,
    and explain that influence.
  • A range of academic interests, personal
    perspectives, and life experiences adds much to
    the educational mix. Given your personal
    background, describe an experience that
    illustrates what you would bring to the diversity
    in a college community, or an encounter that
    demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.
  • Topic of your choice.

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Sample Essay Topics
  • NYU Supplemental Application
  • If you were a member of the committee that was
    reviewing your application what is the single
    most important aspect of the application that you
    would emphasize in order to convince the rest of
    the committee to offer this candidate admission?
  • Please tell us about something you did last
    Sunday afternoon (or the Sunday before that or
    the Sunday before that).
  • Many students apply to NYU because of its NYC
    location. Other than location, please tell us
    why you feel that NYU is a good match for you.
  • Please tell us what led you to select your
    anticipated academic program and what interest
    you most about the discipline.

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Sample Essay Topics
  • Princeton University Short Questions
  • Your favorite book.
  • Your favorite recording.
  • Your favorite website.
  • Your favorite source for inspiration.
  • Two adjectives that your friends would use to
    describe you.
  • Favorite word.
  • Favorite keepsake or memento.
  • Favorite movie.
  • Using one of the quotes below (or your favorite
    quotation) as a jumping off point, tell us about
    an event or experience that helped you define one
    of your values.

Bronx HS of Science Alumni Mentor Program
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