Accepted! 50 successful college admission essays - Gen Tanabe, Tanabe Kelly 2008

Challenge your topic with these questions
How to find the perfect topic

Once your topics pass the two tests above, you will want to subject them to a fi nal battery of questions. These questions will help you prioritize those topics with the most potential.

Does your idea have good supporting examples or stories? To be memorable, your essay will need to have concrete details or even anecdotes. You don’t want an essay fi lled with generalizations (again remember that anyone can make a generalization) so you will want to make sure that you have specifi c detail. Think about details according to your senses—sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. You want to help your readers develop a mental picture of your experience with your description.

Can your idea be expressed within the limits of the essay? Some topics just require more words to express than you are allowed for your admission essay. While you may not be certain at this stage, you need to be ready to chuck a topic that is just too complex to properly express in approximately 500 words—which is the word limit for most application essays.