Complete guide to college application essays - The Princeton Review 2020
Developing your essay
How to make sure you’ve got a beginning, middle, and end
By the time you apply to college, you will have a fully fleshed out personal statement, somewhere in the ballpark of 650 words. Right now, however, you’re likely only sitting on a pile of ideas and experiences and need to find a way to use them to showcase your uniqueness. In the previous chapter, you may have generated some eye-catching introductions, but now it’s time to fill the page and no longer be intimidated by a blinking cursor or a blank screen.
In this chapter we’ll:
· do some free-writing and brainstorming to overcome any blocks
· make sure your thesis provides as solid a foundation as possible for the rest of your essay
· plan out next steps using an outline
· look at various types of introductions
This chapter is designed to help develop your ideas, build your confidence, and give you the tools you need to:
· begin your essay
· complete a rough draft of your essay
· stand out from the other essays
You and the blank screen
The hardest part of writing is starting. Self-doubt lurks in the emptiness, filling your mind with questions like “Is having a strong essay topic good enough?” and “What’s the best way to tell this story?” The only way to get past these questions is to trust in the process and start writing. You can always go back and revise once you’re done, but the truth is that we all have to start somewhere, and that somewhere is a blank page.
If you find yourself really struggling, you may start considering schools that don’t require you to write an essay. Resist this urge! You can still apply to those schools, but don’t allow a surmountable obstacle like a personal statement to limit your choices. Apply where you want to apply, not to where you wind up having to apply.
Setting Boundaries
Choosing an essay prompt is more helpful than you might as first think. It provides some basic guidelines as to what you should write about, ensuring that you don’t just end up writing “I hate this” 216 times (however cathartic that might feel). Not having any topic leaves that page as empty as it will ever be. Choosing the topic of your college essay at the very least provides you with a task.
Putting together a rough draft, which is your next step, will help you even further in this regard. Think of this as assembling the ingredients for cooking or gathering a block of clay for sculpting. You may not necessarily use all the food you’ve chosen; you might reshape your clay several times, but you’ll at least have narrowed down what you’re working with. Each subsequent step will help you refine your choices.
The key is to not overwhelm yourself. You don’t have to get it perfect on your first try. Forget perfect! Your rough draft doesn’t even have to be in good shape! It just needs to be enough to get you started, so you’re not drawing blanks.
You’re going to be doing a lot of idea-generating writing in this chapter, and not just where you’re prompted to fill in the blanks. So that you don’t have to keep flipping between pages, put together a physical or computer folder where you can easily find all of your different exercises. Draw upon this as you work not only through this book but as you continue to polish your essay in your own time.
Using Tools
Even the strongest writer doesn’t simply conjure words out of thin air. Every writer, regardless of skill, uses certain tools to translate thoughts into written words. It won’t surprise you, then, to learn that the more tools you bring to a writing assignment, the less difficult it will be to get started. (Try cutting a tomato without a knife.)
What may surprise you is that you’re on more of an equal footing with your peers than you might think. Writing a college essay is a different exercise than any writing assignment you have ever done. Though a good essay will borrow many techniques from creative writing—it should be engaging, enjoyable, and surprising, like the best fiction—it’s an entirely different project. However, knowing the fundamentals of proper grammar, the mechanics for connecting ideas, and having an overarching theme will help.
Don’t get too creative with your interpretation of a topic. Poems, short stories, and screenplays do not make good college admission essays—emphasis on essay.
Remove Distractions
Before you start writing, set yourself up for success. Make sure your chair is comfortable, your desk is clear of anything non-essay related, and put your phone somewhere that you can’t see or hear it. Consider disconnecting your computer from the Internet or just use paper and pencil. (Some find the act of physically writing, as opposed to typing, to more fully engage the mind and body.) If you’re in a public space and have access to noise-cancelling headphones, use them. If you’re at home, ask your family not to disturb you.
Once you’ve set up your space, get your mind in the game. If you know any exercises to help you focus, run through them. Here are a few you might try:
· Sit still and count your breaths backward from twenty.
· Spend a few minutes visualizing something relaxing, like ocean waves or a gentle rainfall.
· Stretch your fingers, hands, forearms, arms, and shoulders.
STEP 1: The free write
No matter how much planning you do, eventually, you just have to start writing. So pick some sort of topic, ideally one that’s related to the prompt you want your personal statement to address. Set a timer somewhere from five to twenty minutes—we recommend starting at the lower end unless you already do this often. Turn off your internal editor and just write, putting whatever words come to mind on the page. When you’re done, turn that editor back on and mark up your page. Highlight or circle anything that works. Cross out anything that doesn’t. Repeat this process until you have enough material for a rough draft—and by “enough material” we mean two or three times as much as what you’ll want for your final draft.
“Write, write, write…. Good writing ability takes time to develop and like many things in life, a good finished product needs many iterations before it’s ready for the world to see.”
—Cooper Union
ACTIVITY
Getting Started
If you don’t yet have an essay topic or specific prompt in mind, try the ones below. These come directly from things college admissions counselors say they want to learn from reading a personal statement. Give yourself three minutes for each, writing as much as you can. When you do choose a topic, consider picking the one that most closely aligns with the one you have most easily and readily generated material for.
1. What is your passion? How did you find it? What has it taught or given you?
2. Describe a challenge you overcame. When did you show grit, courage, or persistence?
3. How do you see yourself? How do you see yourself growing in college?
4. What college are you the most excited about? Why?
5. Describe a time you experienced failure. How did you respond?
6. How would you describe your worldview? When have you had your point of view challenged?
Fending off Writer’s Block
Take a moment to think of your favorite three writers. Guess what? All three have probably experienced writer’s block before! If you find yourself suffering from it, just remember that you’re in good company, and that it doesn’t at all reflect badly on you. What matters is what you do next to get past this block.
Break your routine.
If you’re stuck in a writing rut, break it. Get up from your chair. Grab a snack, go for a walk, take your mind away from the work. Don’t treat this as an escape, though. It’s not an excuse to start binging television or to avoid the work. Set a timer so you know when to get back to writing.
Leave yourself hanging.
Think about how cliffhangers work on television or in books. They have you actively anticipating the next episode or chapter, ready to dive back in for more. You can also do this with your writing. Instead of exhausting every idea at once, end a session on an unfinished thought that you’re excited to write about. Then, when you pick things back up, you’ll already be ready to go.
Jump around.
This isn’t geometry. The shortest distance between two points doesn’t have to be a straight line. If you’re getting stuck on your introduction, jump to one of your paragraphs. If the conclusion is giving you grief, work on a different section.
Talk it through.
If you can’t bring yourself to pick up a pen, try recording yourself. Call up a friend or talk to a parent about what you’re trying to do. Sometimes this can be enough to shake loose what you are trying to convey, or it might give you an idea for a new approach.
STEP 2: The thesis
Ever gone bowling before? Now that you’ve successfully got the ball rolling, it’s time to make sure you’re aiming it correctly. To do so, you’ll want to make sure that both you and your readers have a clear vision of your main idea. In argumentative or analytical writing, this is called your thesis statement.
Another way to look at your thesis is as a so-called “elevator pitch.” How, in one or two sentences, would you persuade an admissions counselor that you’re an excellent student to have on campus? Start there, and have the rest of your personal statement back up your thesis or pitch.
Your thesis is a clear characterization of the overall essay you’re writing. These are two main ways to present it. One method is to put it in your introductory paragraph, which works when you’re going to spend the rest of the essay backing up that claim. Another is to put it in your conclusion, which is effective if you’ve been describing a change throughout your essay. In either case, you’ll need to have some version of your thesis in both the introduction and conclusion, and you’ll want to make sure that each body paragraph clearly connects to it.
“Edit your essay carefully. Don’t use big vocabulary words for the sake of puffing up your writing—it’s clear that’s what you’re trying to do.”
—College of the Atlantic
ACTIVITY
Building a Thesis Statement
Your goal here is to draft a rough thesis statement that emphasizes what you want a college admissions counselor to most learn about you in the essay. Imagine that you’re constructing the building below: from the key qualities on the left and right, add details to the middle, and then use those to complete the top floor—your overarching thesis.
Make a similar drawing to help visualize building your thesis. List your key qualities, then choose two to give examples for in the middle, then take any common or unifying thought about those to write your thesis at the top.
STEP Three: the outline
Like other essays, personal statements use body paragraphs to develop and support the thesis. Body paragraphs can look different from one essay to another, but many will include elements you’re familiar with from analytical writing: a topic sentence, evidence, and analysis. If you’re stuck, use a description of yourself as the topic sentence, a personal experience as evidence, and a reflection on that experience as analysis.
“I see a lot of essays about overcoming or facing challenges, but what I like even more is when an essay addresses how an applicant’s perspective has changed as a result. How has some moment in life or some series of events changed your view of the world?”
—Sarah Lawrence College
These paragraphs might be organized by character traits you want to describe. Or, they could be organized chronologically if you’re telling a story. Here’s an example of how you might approach writing an essay about an experience that changed your life.
As you can see, we’re not worried right now about what each paragraph specifically states. But by laying out a structure like this, we now have an outline for how to approach and make the most of each paragraph. That’s the goal of outlining: to get the tough work of figuring out what you need to say out of the way. Now, when you write your essay, all you have to focus on is how to say it.
ACTIVITY
Develop Your Outline
Stories have a beginning, middle, and an end. You may deviate from such a straightforward presentation with your final draft, but for now, work on organizing your thoughts in that fashion. Pick a favorite book and a favorite movie and break them down. On a sheet of paper, describe the following elements of each:
· Overall theme
· Beginning
· Middle
· End
· Lesson learned
—
Then, following the same principle, develop two of the topics you’re thinking of using and give a description of each part.
STEP 4: Body paragraphs and conclusion
If you’ve taken a road trip, you know that it’s a good idea to start with some sort of map or route guidance. The work you’ve done to this point has essentially been assembling those directions. If you don’t yet feel that you have enough rough, free-written material on your topic, and you’re still shaky on your thesis and outline, take some time here to generate some more. When you’re ready, let’s put the car in gear and start developing those ideas into complete paragraphs.
Most introductions tend to pull from and describe what’s been done in the body paragraphs, so for now, we recommend skipping it and coming back to it later.
The Journey
Though we mentioned a road trip earlier, be aware that you do not have to write your essay from beginning to end. That said, you also don’t want to get bogged down in detours. Find the compromise between the straight line and curved path that works for you, and use that outline to help stay on track as you twist and turn, write and rewrite, and remix all of your ideas into a final draft.
Whatever your route, your first step should probably be to use your outline to organize everything you’ve already written. Index cards of your ideas can be helpful here, as can copying and pasting if you’re working digitally. As you add each piece, check it against your thesis, and leave notes about sections that need more development. Once you’ve collected everything, check to make sure that you have specific examples and that you’re not repeating yourself. Make sure that you have specific examples and that you’re not repeating yourself. Get the point?
“We love to see stories that back up the attributes they claim about themselves. If they say they are courageous, an example of how that was lived out is fantastic.”
—Grove City College
The Three Elements of a Personal Statement
There are three key elements in narrative non-fiction, the genre in which your essay belongs. Knowing these and using them will help you support your main ideas, make your writing clear and readable, and give you room to use creative writing for dramatic effect.
Summary
Summaries are used to efficiently describe many things and to make connections between various points. They are the broad strokes of writing that serve to introduce further information. For instance, “In tenth grade, I was on the swim team, the debate team, and the school newspaper” or “I was a shy and nervous first-year when….”
Detail
Often following from summaries, details are the specifics about a situation. These serve to explain and develop a topic, and often rely upon figurative language or imagery that engages the senses. For instance, “Debates were my sport of choice; I would spend all day dribbling ideas down my mind’s court, taking shots with various points and counterpoints, and setting up rebuttals to block opponents with.”
Reflection
Reflections are like summaries, but instead of introducing more details, they often serve to encapsulate those that have already been presented. They’re an opportunity to showcase yourself and the impact events have had on you, and they are a critical part of connecting the story that you’re sharing to the topic required by a college. For instance, “It was through debate that I was able to build up the confidence necessary to start speaking my mind in class.”
“[I remember an essay] about rutabagas—it was poetic, beautifully descriptive (lots of strong written images), personally meaningful, and intellectually sophisticated. It showed us who the applicant was: a glimpse of her life, her interests, the work she envisions herself doing in the world and in her community, and some of her incredible writing talent and potential. It was powerful, mature writing from a young person who had already developed a strong and compelling voice.”
—College of the Atlantic
Here’s an example of a successful body paragraph that braids together these three elements of writing.
ACTIVITY
Put It to the Test: Part One
We’ve done a lot of abstract exercises so far, where you could write about anything. So here, let’s try writing specifically about what you’ve just been doing in this chapter.
Summarize what you’ve worked on so far.
List details about what you’ve done.
Provide an evocative example of two of those details: be creative.
Reflect on how this is going to help you.
Now use the same techniques to build out the body paragraphs of your own essay. Keep everything organized so that you can find it later!
“[You can take] any theme—even a perfectly mundane one—and use it to illustrate a personal insight, thought process, or bigger idea that delves beneath the surface.”
—College of the Atlantic
STEP 5: The conclusion
One way to think of your conclusion is as a reflection or summary of your entire essay so far. This is where you’ll want to reiterate the most important ideas and to really make sure that you’ve answered the topic question you chose. Remember, it’s not just a matter of whether you understand how your facts relate to the question, but whether the admissions counselors will get it. This is especially important because while you may have written these sections out of order, this is the last thing a reader will be seeing.
Note: this is not the place to introduce new concepts or ideas. This is the home stretch of your journey—the act of parking the car after that road trip. All of the good work you’ve done to this point risks collapsing if you crash here!
If your essay is being submitted to a specific school, the phrase “bring it home” is particularly relevant here. Take the opportunity to address the institution itself, making it a part of the conclusion of your story. Don’t try this if you’re submitting an essay to multiple colleges at once, as with the Common Application.
ACTIVITY
Put It to the Test: Part Two
Now that you’ve had a chance to draft ideas for your body paragraphs (this page), draft a conclusion.
—
Next, write the prompt that you based your body paragraphs on.
—
Draw a line from each question in the prompt to its answer in the conclusion. If you can’t make a connection, draw that line to the side of the page and write down what’s missing from the conclusion.
STEP 6: The introduction
At long last, with a working draft of your thesis, body paragraphs, and conclusion on the once-blank page, it’s time to turn back to the introduction. We’ve waited until now so that you could be as prepared as possible, because the introduction carries a lot of weight on its shoulders. It must:
· capture the reader’s attention and interest
· clearly lead into your thesis
· uniquely stand apart from other essays
Don’t be surprised if you find yourself returning to your opening lines over and over again. You’ll be tinkering with them until they’re just right.
Make a Splash
One way to capture the reader’s attention is to start big, by which we mean open with your Big Idea. This allows admissions counselors to immediately get a sense of your unique worldview, using your personality and sense of style to introduce the topic.
Think of an upside-down triangle. The point at the bottom represents your thesis: It is a specific statement that addresses the prompt directly or describes who you are as a college applicant. The side of the triangle at the top represents a Big Idea that begins your essay.
If you’re skeptical of starting with a Big Idea, just look at the works of some great authors.
Opening Line
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.” (Pride and Prejudice)
Why it Works
Pride and Prejudice centers around five sisters in the late 1700s in England. Unable to work, they must marry wealthy men to secure a comfortable future for themselves. The novel opens when a wealthy man moves to their village and their mother is desperate to meet him. This line iterates what all the characters want—a single, wealthy man, looking for a wife.
Opening Line
“All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” (Anna Karenina)
Why it Works
This opening line introduces the idea of family drama by making a social observation. The stereotypical “happy family” is compared to the unique unhappiness that an individual can feel within their own family. Take a look at the precise sentence structure that makes it memorable: parallel sentences united by a semi-colon.
Opening Line
“Okonkwo was well known throughout the nine villages, and even beyond.” (Things Fall Apart)
Why it Works
This opening line is successful in large part due to its frank tone and simplistic style. Okonkwo is the protagonist of Things Fall Apart, and the novel narrates both his personal downfall and the imperialization of the Igbo people by European colonizers. This sentence states Okonkwo’s status, well known, and the setting of the novel, the nine villages.
ACTIVITY
Your Turn
Let’s use these classic examples to draft a few options for your opening sentences.
1. Use a universally appealing statement to introduce your topic.
2. Use a semicolon to unite two sentences that compare and contrast a topic discussed in your essay.
3. Use frank, simple language to describe yourself and your community.
Let’s take a look at what a Big Idea introduction looks like in practice. This essay is responding to the following prompt:
Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.
Don’t feel as if you need to write about a tragedy. Everyday experiences can be just as relatable and successful. What matters is that they’re well written and insightful.
ACTIVITY
The More You Read, the Better You Write
The best writers tend also to be the best readers because they’re always absorbing new ways in which to tell a story. To be clear, this doesn’t mean that you should be imitating what others have done. Imitation might be the best form of flattery, but it does little to help you stand out. However, you should be taking notes on what works and considering how you might use those techniques to craft your own writing.
Here are a few examples from successful college essays. For each, identify the parts of each sentence that draw you in.
· “It is a statistical fact that about three percent of babies are born breech. It has not been determined, however, whether prenatal upside-downness affects spatial orientation during the rest of the baby’s life. But in my case, reversed entry into the world appears responsible for at least one significant subsequent event.”
· “Egyptian sarcophagi. Minoan vases. Ancient things speak to me. Their stories fascinate me. I feel a personal connection to people, places, and objects from before modern civilization; this is my passion.”
· “Every day, the news is filled with stories of brilliant politicians and gorgeous Hollywood actors. Society chooses to give its million-dollar bills to football players and pop stars, and even my parents want me to jump on the bandwagon of fame and wealth by becoming a lawyer, a neurosurgeon, or a business magnate. Yet somehow, I know I would not feel quite right spending my life as a glamorous celebrity or an affluent doctor, but I hope to be a somebody someday. After all, who doesn’t want to make their mom and dad proud?”
· “An awe-inspired fan once told a famous master of the flamenco style, “I would give my life to play as well as you do.” The guitarist responded, “I already did.” To me, music is the language of the mind, and the melodious arpeggio of a burnished walnut instrument speaks what cannot be written in words.”
· “To really understand who I am, remember your childhood. Remember the pleasure that eating a great big peanut butter and jelly sandwich delivered? How it seemed to just slide down your throat and ease into your stomach? That sandwich is the result of the perfect combination of ingredients, all working together to create a satisfying experience. If any one ingredient was missing, the whole sandwich would fall apart. I would argue that the world is very much like one large PB&J, filled with many different ingredients.”
Start Mid-Splash
Another way to start the essay is to begin in the middle of a big splash, a technique known as in medias res. Though the Latin phrase, which means “in the middle of things,” is old, this method is often used today, especially on television and in films. That’s because the mind has a need to fill in the blanks, and if you leave a reader wondering how you got into the middle of a fight, they’ll not only read on to see how it resolves, but to see how you wound up there in the first place.
The one caution is that in medias res openings tend to take up an entire paragraph—they’re hard to compress into a sentence or two. As a result, you may need to find a clever way to introduce the topic and characterize yourself while you’re also describing the dramatic effect of the scene.
“I love to see essays that grab my attention right from the beginning. A student’s ability to use descriptors and dialogue is quite effective. Additionally, it’s great when students stick to the topic and keep the essay concise.”
—Quinnipiac University
To build your own in medias res opening, follow these steps:
Start with the climax.
What is the most exciting moment of the experience(s) you’re recounting in your essay? Use a climactic moment, a conflict, or a sudden revelation as your starting point. Then describe it in as much visceral detail as possible to make it real for the reader.
Play catch up.
As your essay progresses, give context so your reader understands the situation you began with. Focus on your personal experiences, interests, and/or choices that led to the starting point. Use clear transitional phrases, such as “Before this…” or “Two months prior…”.
Reflect. Reflect. Reflect.
It’s easy to get caught up in plot and drama, particularly if you have a knack for fiction writing. Keep bringing things back to the prompt, using the action to emphasize who you are as a unique college applicant.
Here’s a sample of a Mid-Splash opening. See if you can figure out what the prompt was!
ACTIVITY
What’s Going On?
For each of the following sample in medias res introductions, see how quickly you can correctly identify what’s actually happening. Find each new clue and choose the one that gives it away to you.
· “Many times when I thought that I could not go any further, I had to rely on all of my inner strength to pull myself through. This summer I spent eight weeks on a bicycle that carried not only me, but all of my worldly possessions for those eight weeks, from Seattle, Washington, to Sea Bright, New Jersey. I moved my legs around in constant circles for seven or eight hours a day, every day, all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic.”
· “Beat her up,” one of them shrieked, referring to me, while the four of them pounded their fists into their hands on the sidewalk corner. I had suggested that we run faster, but my cross-country teammates’ response demonstrated that they didn’t agree. Although they were entirely kidding about the violence, such a strong statement was quite frustrating.”
· “I looked into the microscope and gracefully fumbled around with the tweezers and scissors, attempting to assist my lab mentor tie two arteries together.”
· “Click. Click. The last two feet fall into position with 42 others, thus ending the procession of shoes and leaving only their echo to fill the ancient stone monastery. Slowly, even this remnant of sound departs the room and only an expectant silence is left. For a brief moment, there is no motion, no breath, no sound. Then, almost imperceptibly, twenty-two pairs of eyes rotate upwards, each following the arc of one hand in its purposeful rise. Suddenly an organ chord bursts through the silence. The single hand sweeps downwards, three rows of mouths open, and the concert begins.”
End of chapter review
Solving math equations and identifying historical facts are problems that have right or wrong answers. There’s no one way to write, however, which can be a bit scary. How do you know when your essay is ready?
Ultimately, you know when you know. Read each draft as critically as you can, and keep assessing whether you’ve shown enough or if there’s still room for growth.
Consider how complete you feel your personal statement is. You could even draw a progress bar for each section.
· Introduction
· Body Paragraph #1
· Body Paragraph #2
· Body Paragraph #3
· Conclusion
Then, even for the sections that you feel are 100% complete, write at least one thing you can try adding, whether it’s a new detail or a different stylistic approach.