Writing an admission essay is like writing a political speech. You use the essay to convince the admissions officers of your worth as a possible enrollee or future student of the school. To write your admission essay successfully like a political ad, below are tips you can follow. Read them carefully and consider how you can apply them to your own essay.
Tip 1: Tell your readers what they need to know about you.
You are given only a page or two as allowance for your admission essay. That means, there is no room for unnecessary information. At the same time, many admissions officers stop reading essays by the middle part, especially when the content is boring. So to avoid using up too much space for unnecessary information on your essay and to avoid it being thrown to the trash, immediately let your readers know about you, what you can do, and what you hope for.
Tip 2: Convince your readers that you are a good candidate.
After narrating and describing who you are and your intentions for choosing a college or course, explain to your readers why they should offer you a slot in their college. Mention your personal skills that are needed in the field you chose. Mention experiences you?ve learned skills from. In addition, explain how you can contribute to the college and the student body.
Tip 3: Make them cast that vote on you than on other applicants.
Don’t politicians sound very confident about themselves in their speech? That is the way to write your admission essay. While being confident, avoid sounding too proud or boastful. At the same time, use the active voice throughout your essay. The active voice prompts readers to act on your behalf and “vote” for you as the deserving candidate to your chosen college.
Related links:
Profiles of Colleges – Information top US colleges and universities
Good Essay Conclusion – Tips on concluding your essay well
Essay Writing Approach – Another way to write an admission essay
UCAS Application – Thoughts on UCAS application essays and admission requirements
Essay tips – Basic essay writing tips to live by
Your admission essay is a way for you to explain to the schools? admission panel how good you are as a person and as a student. In a way, you are given the license to advertise yourself and make the panel realize the benefits of having you in the campus. But some admission essays go overboard with the advertising tone, making a terrible impression for the student writing it So to avoid doing this in your own admission essay, keep the following in mind :
Avoid writing your essay like some sort of poetry
The admission essay is precisely that–an essay. And as much as you would like to make it creative, writing your essay like poetry will make it distasteful. So scrimp on the figures of speech and be straightforward on what you have to say. After all, the last thing the admissions panel would like to do is to guess what you?re trying to say to them.
Avoid delivering promises that are too good to be true
Just like a sleazy ad, an admission essay is as good as rubbish if it contains overly ambitious promises. And though you can use sales copy as a method to write your essay, it is advisable to use the “decent” sort of sales copy. Be realistic in any promise you must make to avoid making a foolish image of yourself through your essay.
Avoid stuffing your essay with high-falutin words and figures of speech
Words that are easier to understand are often more appealing, tasteful, and straightforward. Use simpler words and statements in your essay to communicate your message clearly and effectively. By using simpler words, you can even do your readers a favor. When they have hundreds of essays to read, a very understandable essay stands out. It is remembered easily.
Related links:
Expository essay writing – Expository essay writing tips and advice
Writing essay conclusions – Guide to writing essay conclusions
College profiles – Profiles of US colleges and universities
Admission essays – How admission essays can be a gateway to success
Essay writing advice – Advice from the admissions dean
Application essays are a way for you to market yourself. After all, your transcript of records, test scores, and list of achievements fail to inform the admission panel of who you are as a person. To market yourself effectively through your essay, below are tips you can follow. Read them carefully and think about how you will apply them in your own essay.
Tip 1: Connect to your readers on a personal level.
When persuading other people to agree with your views, it is always better to speak to them like an equal than to intimidate them. So keep your writing tone friendly. Use simple words instead of high-falutin ones. Also, plan out the content you will put in your essay and arrange them logically so your readers will understand them better.
Tip 2: Tell them what they need to know about you
Unfortunately, many admissions officers sometimes read an essay only halfway through. So if an essay fails to state what must be stated, the writer no longer has the chance to express him or herself once the essay is chucked to the bin. Keep this from happening to your essay by immediately answering the officers? questions. Avoid introductions that have nothing to do with the body or the conclusion. With a catchy and relevant introduction, your essay will already engage readers? attention.
Tip 3: Make it a fun and easy read for them
Readers of application essays only have so much time to read each applicant?s essay, with the great number of applicants there are every year. So, do them a favor and make your essay fun and easy to understand. Doing so will leave them a good impression about you. You can be easily remembered for your witty writing and will be tagged as a strong candidate for admission.
Related links:
Profiles of Colleges – Information top US colleges and universities
Good Essay Conclusion – Tips on concluding your essay well
Essay Writing Approach – Another way to write an admission essay
UCAS Application – Thoughts on UCAS application essays and admission requirements
5 Writing Steps – 5 steps on writing great essays
Every personal statement needs a bit of bite to stand out from hundreds of others. It is possible to make your essay become unique by writing it like a decent sales copy. Writing in such an approach can be tricky. One mistake can make your essay sound tacky and hard sell. So, follow the tips below to effectively write a personal statement.
Tip 1: Be clear with your intentions and what you offer
Because you must always state your intentions for pursuing a course or attending a school, be upfront with it through your essay. Avoid making the admission panel guess your intentions because they can stop reading your essay even at the middle. After stating your intention, point out the skills you?ve honed from your extra-curricular activities and personal experiences as well as how you can contribute to the school using such skills.
Tip 2: Capture their interest from beginning to end
It is one thing to start an essay right. But it is another to keep it interesting all throughout. To make your personal statement captivating to the end, avoid citing unnecessary details. Keep all information related to your topic, and if you have to divert a little, bring your readers back to your topic. In addition, state what the school can benefit from by having you around.
Tip 3: Make readers want to act on your behalf
After explaining how the student body will be better with you in the campus, conclude your essay by subtly prompting your readers that you deserve a slot in the school. However, avoid being overtly demanding and sounding like a brat. Choose the words you will use very wisely to get the best effect from your readers. With a bit of planning and pondering, you can write an excellent personal essay that can persuade readers and make them act on your behalf.
Related links:
Essay writing approach – Another way to write an admission essay
Good Essay Conclusion – Tips on concluding your essay well
Capturing Readers’ Attention – How to capture readers’ attention
College essays – Meeting the wordcount and essay quality requirements
Essay tips – Basic essay writing tips to live by
It’s not hard to see what the blog is about. Surviving College Life is meant to give useful advice and information on getting through college life. You can find posts on a variety of topics, from social advice to financing and academics.
What to look forward to when visiting this blog
About the site design, the site is clean, sleek, and organized. The posts make good use of multi-media to gain reader interest. One nice feature is that each post is marked by a signature, so it gives off a more personal feel to it. It’s just nice to see one for a change. And you can also find standard blog apps, such as RSS feeders and links to social networking sites like Facebook.
The best thing about the site is that it has a wide variety of topics to choose from. And it can be said that the topic list presented on the blog is comprehensive when it comes to issues encountered during college. You have the academics, the student financing, social life, family life, and employment topics on the blog. Having a lot of topics to cover is difficult, and being able to do that is impressive. What is both interesting and logical was the post about if you slept through an exam. At first it seemed funny, but the advice given is sound, and some may find the information useful.
Areas for improvement
Surviving College Life is a pretty good blog overall. It has lots of topics that are of interest to different people in different college levels. The only comment that can be given is that it could explore the idea of having guest writers in the blog. Aside from the comments section, it would be interesting to see different viewpoints in the blog. Especially if the writers are experts in a certain field, say, student financing. Such entries could add more value to the blog.
For those who went through college, we all know how difficult it was adjusting to the new surroundings and way of life. Didn’t we all groped around for a guide to help us through it all? Well, that’s what That College Kid tries to be. The blog gives advice and information about college life. In the blog, you can find study guides, tools, and information about what you may experience in your college life.
What this site offers
What’s interesting about the blog is that it has a decent coverage of the common issues that students encounter in college. You can find useful information on student loans, scholarships, study materials, and living in dorms. For incoming freshmen, and even for upperclassmen, there should be information on That College Kid that they can find very useful.
As for the site design, it’s easy on the eyes. Site navigation is easy, and the archives are organized. Also, you have the basic RSS subscription if you want to follow the blogs. One thing though is that it could use some work on adding some social networking sites.
Other suggestions for improvement
As for the format of the blog, it could use multi-media to spice things up. Though the content itself is interesting, some people do need some visuals to get interested in the material. And as time goes on, reading plain text can be boring. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. So putting some nice images or videos won’t hurt.
The content could also use some specifics. It can be more narrowed down to a specific course or college. In line with that, it could also use more bloggers from different universities and colleges to have their say. Though the general information found on the site is useful, specific information can be more appreciated by some people.
The name of Study Hacks can be called a misnomer, but in a good sense. When people think of hacking, what enters their minds is that of some form of cheat or workaround. That is not what Study Hacks is all about. What the blog provides are good, old, basic pieces of advice in keeping you organized and focused in your college studies. And that’s what’s great about the content of the blog—the advice given are so simple to follow that you wonder why you haven’t thought of them yourself. And the most important thing is, the advice given on the site works for most people.
What’s good about this blog
The tone of the blog can be quite serious. Not the boring kind of serious, but one that gets straight to the point and gives out the essentials. And that’s one way of showing what the blog is about, being effective and productive with time and effort.
The site is well-organized as expected. Navigation is made easier by the side links which are categorized by what you may need to learn. There’s a section to get started and additional links to proceed. One of the entries that make a lot of sense is the one about becoming exceptionally good. Basically, you just have to keep working to become great at what you do so that your skills and talents just can’t be ignored. It’s basic advice, and it makes a lot of sense.
There’s not much tweaks that can be suggested for the blog because it gets its message across effectively. It also has a healthy community of people commenting on the posts, so exposure among readers is no issue. Aside from comments, people can also email Cal Newport (the owner of the blog) directly for any advice or stories to share in the blog. Overall, the setup of the blog is very good.
Hack College aims to bring more of the web into the educational system, as what they claim in their About section. And they have been doing a good job at it. Aside from that, the blog also provides very useful and practical advice on getting on with college life. The topics vary, and most of the posts do make good use of technology, particularly the Internet and the free online options and resources that it provides for students.
What to like about Hack College
One thing that’s noticeable about Hack College is the tone of its posts. It can be called the voice of the current generation. If you want your posts to have some attitude and some sarcastic humor, then Hack College is for you. And they do add valuable information that any college student could use. For example, the post about getting your textbooks for free was very informative and most probably, not a lot of students know about those options. As they also say, there’s a need to work smarter, and not harder.
The blog’s features and network is also impressive. The blog has a UK version, where it deals with college issues that the Brits deal with. Also, the blog has its own podcast that is entertaining and informative as well. As for its network, there are links for guest bloggers to share content. So everyone is free to make a contribution aside from the comments.
What can be improved
Some comments on navigation need improvement. You’d need to scroll down to the bottom of the page to check out the navigation links for the blog. Another thing to note is that the topics are archived by date only. It would be nice to have the posts sorted out by topic for the reader to head on to what interests him or her the most. But all considered, Hack College is a fun and educational read.
This blog is as what its name suggests; it is a blog about clothing style and fashion at the college scene. Of course, the blog is targeted towards female college students. Men don’t generally care about fashion, and if some do, they would be the exception rather than the rule. Back to College Fashion, the blog was born because there was no blog before that addresses college fashion specifically. And that is what College Fashion has done.
What to like about College Fashion
There are several things to like about College Fashion. The fashion tips on this blog are wide and varied. You can find several fashion advice for different seasons and there are information about different get-ups and attires. Aside from those, you can also find posts about the latest, and somewhat controversial, fashion trends. One post that’s very attention-grabbing is the one where you’re asked whether or not you’re willing to wear a visible bra, or having your bra showing from your outfit.
The growing blog community is also noteworthy. Now you can find different blog writers from various colleges and universities in the US. This gives out a more localized view of college fashion and you also get a real feel for the current fashion trends in different colleges.
Suggestions for improvement
There really isn’t much to suggest to College Fashion. One thing that could be a nice addition is to have a fashion expert as a guest blogger and share some tips and advice. It would also be nice if they can have a make-over feature, where they’ll give a fahion-challenged student and transform her to a fashion diva. In line with that, a fashion advice column would also be interesting to see.
All in all, College Fashion is doing a good job at what it does—giving good fashion tips and information to college students.
Despite the rising cost of tuition, there are financial aids you can turn to, even when you belong to a minority group. You can easily find scholarship grants for African-Americans, Latinos, Filipino-Americans, or just any other ethnic group. Even women can apply for some minority scholarships, especially in male-dominated course programs or career fields.
Available scholarships for minority students
Even top universities support cultural diversity, and offer minority scholarships. Options for college aid, however, are not only limited to group-specific scholarships. You can broaden your search and include scholarship grants intended for minorities in general, or go for federal aids. This will help tide you over with your college spendings–from school fees to board and lodging.
You should also inquire about sponsorships from professional organizations and community groups. Don’t limit your search to these sponsors, however. Some local community stores can offer support through financial aids that range from a few hundred dollars to more. Practically, you should consider every option available to you.
There are need-based programs for all types of students, whether or not they belong to a minority. Students with good academic records are also more likely to qualify for most kinds of scholarships.
Common requirements for application
There are different application packages for each scholarship program. But usually, applicants are required to submit proofs of academic achievement, letter of recommendation, and scholarship application essay. For need-based programs, you may be asked to submit proofs of income. You may also need take and pass a qualifying exam and meet the GPA requirement. Application for scholarships may also include a one-on-one with the selecton panel for cross-examination.
Tips when applying for aids and grants
Before you scour the Net for scholarship programs, you may want to stop by the guidance counselor’s office first. You can get referrals from here as well as recommendations. After listing down every option you can find, the next step is to inquire about the application requirements. Take note of special instructions. A lot of applicants are taken off the list simply because they failed to follow special directions for the application process. Begin your search months before your high school graduation. Submit your application as soon as possible to increase your chances of getting the scholarship grant.
When writing your scholarship application essay, research about the sponsor and not just about the requirements. The organization’s mission or vision statements can be your best guide. Know what the selection panel is looking for, so you can tailor your essay to meet the specific requirements of your sponsor. Free college admission essays are also there to help you through effective writing tips.
