Community College Academics – How to Write a College Essay

by A Guest Author

College essays are a necessary part of everyone's academic career. Potential schools want to see what you're all about and want to know what it is that separates you from the rest of the pack. Your grades may be important, as well as your extra curricular activities, but if you don't have a solid college essay, you'll probably get declined. So, how do you nail your college essay to make sure that you stand out from everyone else?

Grammar Skills

Before you jump into an essay that could determine your future, it's important that you have your grammar in order. Nothing else stands out more to schools than poor grammar skills. You may have the best idea for an essay ever, but if your grammar is sub par, chances are your essay will be thrown straight into the trash. Here are some common things that you should review before writing your essay.

  • Comma Usage
  • Sentence Punctuation
  • Capitalization
  • Idea Structuring
  • Book/Website/Newspaper Citation

Writing the Essay

There are two general approaches to writing your college bound essay. Sometimes colleges will give you topics to write about. One of their favorites, which is the one you should be hoping for, is to write about a defining moment in your life. This is the most popular college essay topic around and it's safe to guess that at least half of the schools in the United States will use some variation of this question to ask incoming freshmen.

This essay should be more like a story than the essays you're used to writing. Start out with an introductory paragraph explaining why you were moved or changed forever by the life defining event you're describing. This will set the stage for the paragraphs to come. Follow up that paragraph with your actual story. College essays are usually word restricted and unlike high school where you were able to add a few words here and there and break the word limit, colleges don't like it. Stick to the limit. It may help to write a draft of your essay to try and truncate it down to length. Essays usually have a 500 word limit to adhere to. Your introduction should be no more than 150 words, the body no more than 300, and the conclusion 50. The body will probably last 2 paragraphs, which should be more than enough to get everything in.

The other type of essay that colleges like to have you write is a topic of your choosing. Colleges that employ this option are going to be inundated with run of the mill essays about why people think they're more qualified than their counterparts. If you are given the ability to do a topic of your choosing to describe yourself, the life defining moment is still a good essay choice. It will give you an edge on other kid's as they're lost in the pile. Giving a humbling story of how you were forever changed by something is much better than flaunting your talents and achievements in front of the admissions board.

Tips

Don't Ramble: Rambling on about something shows that you don't have much to say and are trying to squeeze as much as you can out of unimportant dribble.

Bullet Points: You don't want to use actual bullet points in your essay, but if you can directly tie an event mentioned in your essay into why that makes you qualified in a sentence that directly follows, you can make it easier for the readers to read. Make your points known.

Language: While you shouldn't use big words if you don't know what they mean, they're still a good thing to throw in every once in a while. Big words and colorful language gives the impression that you're educated.

About The Author:

Will is the owner and chief editor of Entrepreneur Support. He has a bachelor degree in computer science and runs an online business from home.

This post was written by A Guest Author

This post was written by a guest author. If you have high quality, useful information to share with students, send us an email or click Write For Us to learn more. And in case you're wondering - yes, you can promote yourself in this fancy author byline.

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