The Best College Essay Length

The Best College Essay Length Once you have written your college application essay, your job isn’t done â€" you need to keep working on it to improve it until you can improve it no further. It is a great idea to have someone else read your essay to provide feedback. In fact, the more people who read your essay, the better. One rep said the general rule of thumb was no essays on the Four Dsâ€"Drugs, dating, death, and divorceâ€"but you get the idea. If you want to write about a personal challenge, emphasize what you learned and how you grewâ€"if you dwell on the details, the essay will not achieve its purpose. Ask your readers whether the essay provides an accurate depiction of who you are and ask whether it is clear, concise, and easy to read. If you were given a prompt by a certain school, make sure that your essay actually addresses the prompt. Even if you don’t have anyone else who can read your essay, you can review it yourself â€" just take a day or two off after writing it before you read it back so you can view it with fresh eyes. Experts say supplemental essays tend to be short, but St. John’s College bucks that trend, requiring a minimum of 400 words. That’s because the school is interested in seeing students write at length on a chosen topic. No college application is complete without the personal essay, which can be daunting for many students to write. Essays on negative life events can be very tricky. Unless enough time has passed since the experience, the essay can be too personal, too much of a rant, or just too hard to read. Good writing, even when describing complex topics, should communicate each point simply and clearly. Revise, as needed, with attention to word choice, sentence structure, and flow.Does the essay provide new insight? Good college essays typically take several drafts, requiring modification with each shift in voice, tone, or sentence structure. Write, rewrite, proofread, polish, and read aloud. The college essay is your child’s story, and it should be written using their words, in their voice. Your son or daughter is a high school senior, and the essay should sound like one. And certainly not one of the most revered writers of all time. The College Essay Captain helps teens overcome their fears and limiting beliefs around writing college application essays, so they are free to authentically share their stories with admissions teams. While no lives are riding on your college application essays, this is a great time to revisit some of the rules of writing well. One of the best opportunities that you have to introduce yourself to admissions counselors is through your college essays. Many local students want to write about growing up in a diverse environment and how they have been enriched by that environment. While celebrating diversity is great, the problem is that these essays risk falling into truisms. Students write about the diversity of their schools or their city, but not enough about who they are. Although juniors may feel like they have a lot of free time right now, the reality is that most high school students are still taking classes â€" they've just shifted into an online format. Therefore, Sawyer says, this may not necessarily be the right time to start working on essays. The minimum length of the college essay is 250 words. Imagine an admissions officer, at the end of a long day’s work, getting ready to digest his or her 37th “why this college? Picking up your essay, the officer learns that you want to attend their school because it is “great” and “has a stellar reputation.” Yawns ensue. After being reminded for the 37th time today of their school’sU.S. News and World Reportranking, they take another sip of coffee and move on to the next file. After pouring their heart and soul into the Common App essay, students often run out of gas by the time they encounter any remaining supplemental essays. While supplemental essays may ask you anything from “What is something you can talk about endlessly? ” to your thoughts on time travel , the most important question in this section will, in some form, ask you to explain why this school is the perfect postsecondary home for you. ” essay, in whatever permutation, lulls students into spewing clichés, empty hyperbolic proclamations, and other vapid, “let me just fill up this space” commentary.