While deciding which applications to accept, colleges are usually very particular about who they are selecting for their programs. There is more than one criterion that plays a crucial role here, such as SAT scores, extracurricular activities, school grades, and ACT scores. However, currently, more and more colleges are doing away with test scores.
Instead, several colleges are now opting for admission policies that are ‘test-blind,’ meaning these policies add weight to other aspects of your college application. As a result, this change in policy is fair for students who suffer from any kind of test anxiety or have no access to actual testing.
This means your college application essay, a traditional requirement for most college applications, is now one of the most important factors. Stay tuned to find out how to write an impactful college essay.
How To Craft An Impactful Essay For Your College Application?
So you are wondering how to write an impactful essay for your upcoming college applications? Understandably, writing a killer application essay is a lot of stress, and if you are not confident about your writing skills, you can always find out more and subsequently hire a good writing service.
Meanwhile, if you can pull this off on your own, let’s find out how you can craft an impactful application essay. So without wasting any more time, scroll down to find out more about crafting a killer essay!
1. Be Original
It is very important that you choose a point of view or topic that’s consistent with who you actually are – this factor matters more than any other consideration. Readers can always understand when writers are not bringing original content. Inauthenticity mostly refers to using flowery language that people wouldn’t actually use in their conversations.
Similarly, selecting any inconsequential topic that reveals little about the writer’s identity also points towards inauthenticity. While writing the essay, use your natural voice, sense of humor, and conversational habits. The subject you are selecting has to be something that is genuinely important in your life, not a topic you have selected to impress the selection board.
Obviously, you can write about specific hobbies, personality quirks, and experiences that illustrate all your strengths. This will also help you to write about your flaws and weaknesses. If you are honest about your childhood background, your traits, or other situations, then your essay will resonate strongly with your readers.
2. Grab The Reader’s Attention From The Beginning
You will be required to compete with several other applicants just to grab the attention of the admissions officer. Therefore, begin your essay with a paragraph or sentence that immediately captures the reader’s imagination. Your opening paragraph or sentence needs to be either a bold statement, thoughtful questions, a relatable quote, or even a descriptive anecdote.
When you begin your essay powerfully, accompanied by a solid thesis statement, it can help your writing process. Also, if your primary task is good storytelling, then a bold start can be seen as a very natural prelude towards getting there, engaging with the reader from the beginning, serving as a roadmap, and finally, presenting your writing’s purpose.
3. Focus On Deep Themes
Several essay writers might think that they will be able to impress committees just by loading their essays with figures, descriptions of different activities, and facts, such as wins in multiple sports or detailed descriptions of your volunteer work. But that is not the point. The selection committees are more into finding out what really makes you tick.
These people want to find out what has actually gotten you to this stage in your life; in reality, they want to know about the adversities you have gone through, your success stories, and the realizations you experienced during those times. So, don’t just write about your soccer wins; instead, write about how winning those games helped you grow as a leader or a person.
If you volunteered at a soup kitchen, then make connections with the soup kitchen and write about how the volunteering program motivated your academic journey and your future aspirations. When you write your college application essay, write about what you discovered about yourself – and not just about events you were a part of in the past.
4. Show But Don’t Tell
When you start expanding on your chosen theme for your college application essay, you have to remember to show but never tell. The most entertaining writing always’shows’ by just providing the right anecdotes and setting the right mood, at the right time, instead of listing different activities and accomplishments of the writer.
In fact, if you just recite the list of things you are good at, we are sure you will end up writing a very boring essay. Any admission offer would want to find out about the whole arc of your journey, especially the emotional aspects of it, since emotions are perhaps one of the most relatable factors.
5. Try Doing Something Different
If you want to write a killer essay, then you have to try doing something different—anything that would make your essay stand out from the rest. Approaching your topic from a completely different perspective is one way in which you can try something different. For instance, while several students might write about their wins, you can try writing about your losses.
If you are blessed with good writing skills, then you can even add a surprise element by crafting an impactful essay that ends with an answer to the question originally posed in the last sentence. It would be much better for you to maintain distance from entirely well-worn themes such as sports-related success, or obstacles, immigration stories, volunteer stories, or other achievements.
At the same time, these themes are considered to be popular for a few reasons. They basically represent the totality of most student’s lives transitioning through high school – a coming-of-age story. This is precisely why staying away from these topics is relatively less important compared to taking a new approach.
Practice Makes Perfect!
Now that you know how to craft an impactful essay for your college experience, it’s all about practice. Remember, practice makes perfect – the faster you understand that, the better. It might take you some time, but with the right practice and exposure, you stand to do well. So what are your thoughts? Tell us in the comments below.
