When it comes to applying for university, a student's essay is the only way that they can influence the admissions officers into making choices - Your grades, teacher recommendations, CV, service learning projects and everything else can no longer be changed.
Thus, the essay obviously plays a large role in showing the university who you are as a person.
A few common pitfalls when it comes to essay writing are as follows.
1. Because the Common Appp questions follow the trend of "Describe ______ and its impact on you", some students end up spending more of their time describing that _____ instead of its impact. It is easy to write an essay that describes your grandfather without ever mentioning his impact on you as a person, but it does not help your application in any way.
The essay is about you. Make it about you.
2. In their essays, some students describe a service learning trip overseas, or a challenge they overcame, demonstrating hard work, diligence or perseverance. That's all good and fine, but hard work, diligence and perseverance can be seen from your grades. You aren't adding very much to your application, merely reiterating a point that the admissions officer already knows.
Your essay is an avenue for you to show off qualities that are not shown anywhere else in your transcript. Your transcript does not show that you are a kind person, or that you like
3. Some students start off by thinking, "What interesting story should I tell the admissions officers?" and then go on to tell that story without knowing why they are telling that story. An essay should have purpose. A stranger reading it should be able to come away saying, "I learnt A, B and C about you through this essay" and this A, B and C should be things that you intended them to learn through your essay.
Don't think of a story to tell. Think of qualities/sides of you you want to show, and show them through the essay. Passionate about a foreign language? Don't merely describe your journey with the foreign language, show your passion for it in your essay.
4. There could be a concern that "I'm just not funny enough" or that "I'm too weird" and so students sometimes feel the need to tone down their essays or make them artificially funnier.
Don't. Your essay should sound like you because you are writing it and it is your essay. Admissions officers use the essay to get a rough gauge of your personality, and if what they get is false, you might not end up where you would fit in. And they might not be able to understand how cool/funky/weird you are, which could count against you.
5. A common misconception is that the essay has to be absolutely perfect with no grammatical or punctuation errors.
Admissions officers hardly sit around with red pens, circling out your errors and then dumping your entire application down the drain. In fact, what they are looking for in your application is not how perfectly you can write, but what you can bring to the table that can make their new incoming year more vibrant. In his words, "I am trying my very best to love you as much as I possibly can in the least creepy way possible."
Stylistic elements like (), [], -, . , and ... can be used at your own discretion if you feel that it helps the person understand your style of writing better, or if you feel that it helps you at all. After all, the essay is a window into your personality and style and you may bend the rules of the English language a little bit to fit that style.
Note however, that there is a difference between people who deliberately break the rules of the English language and those who
These pitfalls make essay writing look like a horrifyingly daunting task, but when it's all boiled down, and if you tl;dr-ed this post, what you should keep in mind are two things.
1. The essay should sound like you.
2. The essay should say something about you that isn't already shown somewhere else.
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Hope that was useful and happy writing!
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