High School Sophomores and Juniors! How to Prepare to Write All Those College Essays
As you walk through the halls at school, scroll through social media, perhaps even as you sit at your kitchen table, you are undoubtedly hearing a lot about college. Applications, acceptances, rejections, and all those essays. It’s hard not to feel a little stressed with those conversations swirling around.
I know that you are already studying hard, participating in meaningful activities in school and out of school too. Perhaps you have been able to begin visiting campuses. But, what else can you do to prepare NOW for the application cycle to come?
Start planning for your college application essays!
To write a successful, impactful college essay, you will need to be able to write about yourself. And this can be difficult to do. Most students have a great deal of experience writing academic essays for their classes. But many do not have experience crafting the kind of personal writing that your college essays will require.
To make this process even more challenging, writing about ourselves can feel uncomfortable. To write a personal essay you need to be willing to reveal a bit about yourself, to observe yourself, and to really understand what moments and events in your life enabled you to grow into the person you are today.
So, I recommend that you get started now. How to do this?
Live your life. Be an active participant. Engage. Participate fully in your activities. Take the time to get to know other people — especially those who are different from you. Get a job. Try new things. Be willing to learn and admit you don’t know something. Read — books, articles, anything. Listen to podcasts. Watch movies and tv shows. Have conversations with people you are close to and really listen to what they have to say.
Pay attention to what resonates with you. You may be surprised to see where your essay ideas ultimately come from — because essay topics don’t need to center around big, huge moments in your life. The day-to-day events that make you see things differently, teach you something new, show you what you are capable of, make you a better person, leave you feeling stronger or wiser, or set you on a new path — those are the topics we want to examine for ideas.
Get a notebook or use the Notes app on your phone and start keeping a list of possible topics for your essays. Don’t edit yourself. Write down details. Who said what? If you were to observe yourself from the outside, what would you see? Try to focus on events in your life that happened fairly recently — keeping in mind that the admissions readers want to see who you are NOW (not who you were in elementary school, for example).
Keep in mind that while you will likely have one “main” college essay, you will likely also have supplemental essays for individual colleges and universities. So, you will need more than one idea. Topics that you may ultimately decide against for your main essay may make an exceptional supplemental essay. Having a good list will help make writing these supplemental essays much easier.
A common supplemental essay prompt is “Why this school?” Campus visits — whether in person or online are great opportunities to prepare to answer this question. When you visit a campus or interact with anyone at a college or university, take good notes. Did you meet anyone who influenced your decision to apply? What did you see as you toured campus? Did anything particularly impactful happen? Your notes will be very helpful in prompting your memory when you begin to write.
So, let’s get started. Want help? I am available to meet with current sophomores and juniors to have a one-on-one conversation about possible topics. But I have a warning: I will ask LOTS of questions — but the answers will help us find topics that work for you and will uncover the details that turn an idea into a great essay. I think you will be surprised to find out just how much you have to tell the admissions readers about yourself. When we meet, I will also share some of my students’ essays and topic ideas from recent years that were personal, beautifully written, creative and successful in helping students reach their goals.
Interested? Contact me and we will get a meeting on the calendar!
