By far, one of the biggest mistakes that you can make when writing your admission essay is to base it on your resume, recounting achievements and enumerating them in your essay. Doing so can easily extinguish your readers’ interests (if you’re even able to ignite them at all). Furthermore, basing your essay on your resume does nothing to show your character and personality, which is what most admissions panels are looking for in your admission essay. Here are some tips on how to avoid writing your essay based on your resume:
Avoid enumerating achievements and tell the story behind the events
One of the best ways to avoid turning your essay into a lengthened version of your resume is to tell the story behind your achievements. For example, if you were a class president, athlete, or working student in high school, try to reflect upon your experiences and write about how they have helped to shape you into the person you are today. Focus on how certain experiences have fostered positive virtues and values that are important to your goals of attending college and succeeding in life, in general.
Reflect and find more significant topics
Another way to avoid basing your essay on your resume is to avoid talking about just your achievements and instead think of more meaningful and significant experiences to share. For example, instead of talking about your achievements in high school or your work experience, you can instead talk about a time in your life when you had to make sacrifices to help others (such as your family or friends). The idea is to show that, although you are proud of your achievements at school and work, you also want to show a side of you that cannot be seen in your resume – one that truly speaks of who you are as a person.
Colleges and universities normally require you to submit an admission essay so that they can learn more about who you are, what makes you unique, and why you would make a good fit in their school. Most of the time, these schools provide questions that you must answer in your essay. A good example of some of the admission essay questions that are asked is, How will you use your personal strengths and unique experiences to enrich the school community during your two years in the program? This is a relatively common admissions essay question, but some schools have more unique and creative questions, such as How did you get caught? (Or not caught, as the case may be.) Such a unique question may catch you unaware and confuse you, but this article will help you answer such creative questions – or any other admission essay question, for that matter.
Show the real you in your essays for admission
When writing your admission essay, you have to remember that the main objective of your essay is to gain admission to the school by expressing your personality and individuality. As such, you should always try to be true to yourself when writing these essays. In other words, don’t simply write your essay based on what you think someone else might answer, but reflect on the questions and try to show your own thoughts and feelings. Remember, admissions committees want to know what makes you unique, so they probably won’t be looking for a run-of-the-mill answer, especially if the school poses creative questions like the one mentioned earlier.
Think outside the box when writing admission essays
Another great tip is to take a cue from the school you are applying to. If the school asks a creative question, then you may want to get a little creative with your answer as well. Believe it or not, some people have gone as far as to write poems, songs, or short stories as their admission essay, but this is not always the best way to go. While you should encourage yourself to be creative, try to practice a little restraint and still stick with the format and style of an essay – after all, it is called an admission essay and not an admission song. The challenge is to think of different perspectives to your admission essay questions and answers. This will help you to come up with a creative, unique, and personal essay.
Related questions:
1. What are some examples of admission essay questions?
2. When is it acceptable to be creative and when is it not acceptable?
3. Is it acceptable to give a serious answer to a creative question?
