Heres What Admissions Officers Look For In A College Entrance Essay

Here's What Admissions Officers Look For In A College Entrance Essay And this experience opened up a whole new side of reading for me. Discussion, for me, is a natural part of the reading process. The written word isn’t meant to be a solitary thing; it’s meant to be shared. For a long time, I bombarded my family with a constant but ever changing stream of chatter on my book of choice. Then, in eighth grade I was introduced to annotations. This just means the one you are going to explore first. Remember, while you want your essay to make an impact, your topic does not need to be earth shattering or include the biggest hardship. The best essays are often built on seemingly ordinary experiences like shopping at Costco or baking a cheesecake. Don’t let the prompts constrict your thinking on what is appropriate for a college essay, however. One brainstorming technique is to identify several tangible objects that have special significance for you. Consider this your hook to grab the admission officer's attention. Starting with an anecdote that puts the reader in to the action right away often works best. This can be a scene at the beginning of your story or you can jump right to a crucial point in the middle. Once you lay out the challenge you faced and built suspense, you can flashback to provide the necessary background and context. After you have narrowed down your topics, decide which is best for you. I want to spend the rest of my life becoming a better reader, and just maybe, becoming a better person because of it. This is a perfectly acceptable way to read books for fun, but it is not way to enjoy a truly great novel. When I undertook the task ofLes MiserablesI thought that I had prepared myself. I had already read two different unabridged versions and done some research. I will forever be aware of myself and others, and I hope to never act on an unconscious bias. I know that Descartes was thinking thateverythingtold to him by his senses might be wrong, but I think his revelation applies more usefully to behaviors and biases we learn from a young age as well. However, my reading material has changed since elementary school. I appreciate nonfiction more than I did as a child. Immerse yourself in a comfortable workspace, free from distraction.Some students work well at home or in a library, others love to work in cafes. Be honest with yourself and where you will work best. Set a writing schedule.Allocate a specific and significant amount of time each week for writing. Drive your essay’s success by drawing the reader into your story with a great first line.If not immediately a scene, consider using a jarring fact or statement that requires explanation. It turned into a great essay topic for a student interested in studying diplomacy. There are so many in my room I think they’ve started breeding. I’ll move a chair or look under my bed and a pile of books will have mysteriously appeared. No force on earth could keep me from books, and I hope that my breakthrough withLes Miserablesis just one of many. If you dig deep enough there is almost always a great and revealing story in one of them. Considering which prompt aligns best with your overall story, brainstorm by asking yourself what are the strengths, personal qualities or values you want to highlight in the essay. The goal is for your essay to illustrate the development of them by showing you both in action and in reflection. One student I know loved maps and also had somehow memorized the flag of every country in the world. It didn’t occur to him that this was particularly unique until he talked with a teacher who pointed it out to him. I know it took some people years to finish, but I was dedicated. It wasn’t until I realized that the main character was first mentioned nearly eight pages in that my traditional reading style wasn’t going to work. I slowed downâ€"It wasn’t like I was racing anyoneâ€"and tried to hear every characters voice, hear the nuances of the words, and imagine how it would sound aloud. The book took me a full two weeks to finish, the longest it has ever taken me to finish a book in my life. At first I thought they were tedious and annoying, but given time, I grew to appreciate the exercise. Now, instead of tiring our ears, I work away pencils, marking when I find something powerful, noting my thoughts in the margins of the pages. Then, when I’ve finished, I go back and read my own insights. It would be all too easy to let my constant busyness and the distractions of daily life keep me from trying to understand the world and my place in it, but I won’t let that happen.