Use the following college admission essay tips for dummies to make sure you don’t look dumb when you apply for school!
No slang. This should be a no-brainer, but you would be surprised. Save the cute phrases for your conversations with your friends in the dorm room after you get admitted. Steer clear of clichés, even phrases such as ‘learned my lesson’ have no place in professional college writing.
No thesaurus. There is a temptation among prospective college students to break out the thesaurus and use a lot of big or sophisticated words when the simple words would do just fine. Don’t say you did a plethora of extracurricular activities when you could say you juggled many extracurricular activities. Use your own voice. If you would not normally talk a certain way, then you should not write that way. You will seem stiff and as though you are trying too hard.
Don’t be wordy. Be concise in your essay. Wordiness wastes time and paper, and can irritate admissions officers who have to read thousands of essays each year. Make sure to go through your paper and delete any extra words, and make sure you do not sound too verbose.
Be interesting. Nothing is worse than falling asleep mid-sentence while reading someone’s college admissions essay. And don’t think you had to travel the world or backpack through Europe staying in hostels to be interesting. You can design video games alone in your room and still make that seem interesting if you let your passions come through in your writing.
Use transitions. Transitions make your essay flow, seem intelligent and conversational. Using the same types of sentences over and over can also make your paper seem choppy and hard-to-read. College admission essay tips will direct you to use varied sentences as well. Make sure your sentences are not all long or all short, and make sure they start differently.
Revise. If you end up writing for a newspaper or a magazine, you will see your work cut from 1000 words to 200 words in no time flat. Take the same attitude with your admissions essay and cut, cut, cut.
Answer the question. Of all the college admission essay tips for dummies, this is the most important. It is easy to get off track when writing, editing, and revising, but make sure you check at the end and make sure the original question is clearly answered.