what should i write my college essay about reddit

r/ApplyingToCollege is the premier forum for college admissions questions, advice, and discussions, from college essays and scholarships to SAT/ACT test prep, career guidance, and more. My World-Ending Guide to the College Essay. Psst, I'm back and writing new admissions content as u/McNeilAdmissions . --.

5) The pretentious essay. This one is really subjective to the reader. There was one essay I read that was ranting about capitalism and then somehow related it back to autism and kids dancing at the orchestra. The essay tried to impose a greater sense of morality, and it just didn't work.

My Common App personal essay was about taking out the trash. Obviously it has an overarching theme and a deeper meaning but the literal content of my essay was largely a description of my daily experience emptying some garbage bins. In my essays, I liked creating meaning from seemingly insignificant things. One of many approaches.

Here's a useful way to understand and reframe college essay topics: Essentially, your "topic" (e.g. Home or Light) is just an excuse— your topic is always you. Who you are, what you value, what you bring to a campus and community. So this is the place to fill in the gaps by being personal and specific.

My personal essay and supplementals are being flagged as AI when I wrote it myself. This started when I asked people for feedback and some would say it's really good, others would say it's kind of robotic. So I ran it through those generators like copyleaks, gptzero, and Winston ai, and the results flagged like most of my essays and I would get like 50% is likely to be generated by Ai from ...

Going over the word limit. Part of showing your brilliance is being able to work within arbitrary rules and limitations. Going over the word count points to a lack of self-control, which is not a very attractive feature in a college applicant. Repeating the same word (s) or sentence structure over and over again.

Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. (Bates College) Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head.

Give a brief snapshot of your role model's positive character and their influence on you. Maintain focus throughout the rest of the essay, giving examples of your own new actions, outlook, and goals. A traumatic experience or death in the family. Negative and may seem like you're trying to win sympathy points.

1. Before your essay sounds good, it has to sound honest. Authenticity should always be your starting point. The primary goal of the personal statement should not be to impress your reader (that's what the rest of the application is for) but to connect with them. Remember, admissions officers are not robots (not yet, at least).

Don't Repeat. If you've mentioned an activity, story, or anecdote in some other part of your application, don't repeat it again in your essay. Your essay should tell college admissions officers something new. Whatever you write in your essay should be in philosophical alignment with the rest of your application.

DON'T copy and paste. With upwards of 25 or more essays to write for a balanced college list of 10-12 schools, it's tempting for students to repurpose essays across applications if the prompts are similar, especially when working down to the wire. While students can use the same main essay on the Common App for multiple schools, we always ...

Identifying an experience that exemplifies that value or fundamental truth. Writing a thoughtful essay that uses your "uninteresting" experience to say something interesting about yourself. 1. Get the Ball Rolling. There are many different practices you might find useful as you start brainstorming your college essay.

Here's a list of essay topics and ideas that worked for my one-on-one students: Essay Topic: My Allergies Inspired Me. After nearly dying from anaphylactic shock at five years old, I began a journey healing my anxiety and understanding the PTSD around my allergies. This created a passion for medicine and immunology, and now I want to become ...

Personal Essay. I'm a middle-class, female Middle Eastern who is interested in getting into a really good school to make my family proud and find a pathway for my future in the medical field. I don't know what to write my essay about or how to write an essay about myself. I don't have anything really traumatizing happening to me besides family ...

Again, we'd recommend sticking with standard fonts and sizes—Times New Roman, 12-point is a standard workhorse. You can probably go with 1.5 or double spacing. Standard margins. Basically, show them you're ready to write in college by using the formatting you'll normally use in college.

Clearly delineate your paragraphs. A single tab at the beginning is fine. Use a font that's easy to read, like Times, Arial, Calibri, Cambria, etc. Avoid fonts like Papyrus and Curlz. And use 12 pt font. You may want to include a college essay heading with a page number and your application ID.

What should I write my college essay about? Application Question. Currently I have two ideas for college essay. The first being about me blacking out while fasting during a track trace, and the second about me growing up having 4 sisters. I plan to write both in some sort of how it built who I am, how it makes me who I am, etc.

The essay is about you, after all. Rather than revealing how X author uses Y literary device in a book, you're revealing your core values. You can be vulnerable. This can be scary, but it's one of the most efficient ways to show a stranger (i.e., a college admissions officer) who you truly are.

A list of things you want to say about yourself in your essay/application. This could be related to your application theme/narrative or whatever else you feel is important. Focus on core values, motivations, personal strengths, foundational beliefs, personality traits, passions, aspirations, etc.

For many, getting started is the hardest part of anything. And that's understandable. First, because it turns whatever you're doing into a reality, which raises the stakes. Second, because where you start can easily dictate the quality of where you end up. College essays have their own special brand of DTDT.