Tip Sheet: An Admissions Dean Offers Advice on Writing a College Essay - NYTimes.com - 30 views
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begin contemplating their college essays this summer
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Jenna Frowein on 12 Sep 11I think that beginning your essay early will help.
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it is one of the few things you can still control.
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If you try to cover too many topics in your essay, you’ll end up with a resume of activities and attributes that doesn’t tell me as much about you as an in-depth look at one project or passion.
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simple things in life that make the best essays.
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Tell me something I couldn’t know just from reading the other parts of your application.
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Show me why
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Don’t rely on “how to” books
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This advice is really, really helpful. I agree that it's important to focus on something specific that you're passionate about. At the same time, it's hard to expand on this and be detailed/focused throughout the entire essay. I like the advice of being humble and not showing off because the way you write and your topic can tell a lot about who you are as a person.
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The two things that I liked the most about this article, was that it told the importance of showing a side of you and not telling it. I think that writing a compelling and vivid story is an extremely effective way to make your essay memorable. Second of all, I liked how the article said not to talk about the things already mentioned in the application. I think that its important to portray a side that the admissions officers would never be able to get out of simply reading statistics (scores, gpa, extracurriculars, etc...).
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I think this was really helpful. It was really interesting when it said that this college essay is one of the only things you have control over and it made me change my view of this essay. At first, it just seemed like something that the college board reads to brighten up their own day, but now it made me think that this could actually be beneficial for me. I may not have control over what questions go on the SAT or if I can change my GPA, but I have total control over what I write. I also thought it was interesting to read that students shouldn't write to impress the college board. I would think that students would want to write about personal events that make them look good for the college.
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I think the best bit of information i took from this article, is showing how the struggle of overcoming some great difficulty. On a general sense, if I were to do an essay on some type of failure, I think the best way to continue the essay would be to show how I was able to push past this downfall, and learn from it. It's important to let the reader understand the hardship you went through and show them how you made the best of a seemingly terrible event.
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I think this tip sheet really summed up most of the other articles into a concise, helpful article. Overall, I learned that, in terms of the essay, colleges don't really care about any particular achievements. Instead, the colleges are looking at your voice to see what type of person you are. You should stray from writing about others and focus more about your own feelings and thoughts. Finally, college essay readers have seen all of the generic essays before, so there are more pros than cons in taking a risk by saying something controversial.