COLLEGE HANDBOOK

Planning the College Essay

A lot has been written about how the college essay is one of the most important parts of your application.  There is also a great deal of material about the components of the ideal college essay and about how the college essay is your "one-way dialogue" with the admission officer(s).  Now that's all very good, but what about actually writing the essay? Very few articles get around to help you actually start composing the essay - and that is just what we've tried to do here.

Your approach to writing the college essay should not be particularly different from how you have gone about writing essays for class. The steps are the same, the stages are the same, and the process is the same - the only difference is that this time you'll be writing about yourself (and not about how Edison invented the light bulb) and never before has an essay about "you" been so instrumental in deciding the future course of your life. In many ways, your education, your career and basically the rest of your life depends on this one essay about yourself (that was just to scare you into getting serious!).
Now that we've established that this essay is your last ray of hope of a successful life, let's get down to business.

The college essay will be written in 3 distinct steps:
Step 1:       Planning
Step 2:       Drafting
Step 3:       Tweaking (a.k.a. editing)