College Admission Essays

College Admission Essays Yale students, faculty, and alumni engage issues of local, national, and international significance. Discuss an issue that is important to you and how your college experience could help you address it. Students at Yale have plenty of time to explore their academic interests before committing to one or more major fields of study. Let it sit for a couple of hours untouched or even a whole day where the deadline isn’t close. After catching the new episode of that TV show you love or going a few chapters of the book you have been reading, go through your essay one more time. For strategies for meeting word limits, see our handout on writing concisely. Get it out and revise it again (you can see why we said to start right awayâ€"this process may take time). A well-written, dramatic essay is much more memorable than one that fails to make an emotional impact on the reader. Good anecdotes and personal insights can really attract an audience’s attention. And, one more time, don’t write in cliches and platitudes. Every doctor wants to help save lives, every lawyer wants to work for justiceâ€"your reader has read these general cliches a million times. Hear from Yale admissions officers about putting your best foot forward in the application. Avoid cutesy and colloquial formatting choices as they are unprofessional and immature. Furthermore, avoid humor unless you are absolutely sure of it. BUT be careful not to let your drama turn into melodrama. You want your reader to see your choices motivated by passion and drive, not hyperbole and a lack of reality. Don’t invent drama where there isn’t any, and don’t let the drama take over. Getting someone else to read your drafts can help you figure out when you’ve gone too far. Some beginning writers think the present tense makes for more exciting reading. You’ll see this is a fallacy if you pay attention to how many suspenseful novels are written in past tense. THE EPIGRAPH Many essays start with a quote from another writer. When you have a limited amount of space, you don’t want to give precious real estate to someone else’s words. What is funny to you may not be funny to someone else. A college admission essay doesn’t typically require a title unless it has been specifically mentioned in the instructions. Even after confirming that your essay is as close to perfect as it can get, you need to get it closer still. After rewriting the essay several times, keep it away. Many students either modify their original academic direction or change their minds entirely. As of this moment, what academic areas seem to fit your interests or goals most comfortably? Writing an admissions essay is a chance to break off the standard five-paragraph essay as this gives you a little room to wiggle around. However, just like a five-paragraph essay, you need to wrap it up using a neat conclusion. The language used in the writing of an application essay should be formal and professional. Please indicate up to three from the list provided. When writing about past events, the present tense doesn’t allow for reflection. This happens, then this happens, then this happens.