5 College Admission Essay Mistakes To Avoid

5 College Admission Essay Mistakes To Avoid However, after really thinking it over, I finally curated a body of words that I am extremely proud of. By the end of the summer, I wasn’t ready to leave the research that I was doing. Through this summer experience, I realized my ambition to pursue a career in research. I always knew that I would want to pursue a future in science, but the exciting world of research where the discoveries are limitless has captured my heart. Overall, the college application process can be a stressful and daunting time, but the college essay is something that should somewhat be a fun personal project. The rest of the college application is solely based on numbers like your test scores, transcripts, and more â€" but the essay is your chance to shine and show that you are different from the rest. One thing about writing your college essay the first time is that you have to know it is not going to be perfect. You will have to write multiple drafts, but the first draft is vital because it is finally putting all your ideas and planning into fruition. After trying to start essays, only to give up on them a quarter of the way through, I stumbled upon an old essay I had written in 8th grade. The prompt of the essay was to talk about something that you struggled with and overcame. The writing piece itself should display your character, goals, and accomplishments. When I was going through the process of writing mine, I struggled because I didn’t think I had a story good enough to tell. To me, that was the language barrier between my grandfather and me. My grandfather speaks fluent Vietnamese, while I only speak English, so throughout my entire childhood communication was lacking. Although he spoke broken English, the opportunity to tell anecdotes, give advice, and more were nonexistent. Programs Rice supports include the College Prep Conferences and the National College Match program which runs October through December. Citizens and Permanent Residents OR students, regardless of citizenship, currently attending high school in the United States. All of these essays rely on connecting with the reader through a heartfelt, highly descriptive scene from the author's life. It can either be very dramatic (did you survive a plane crash?) or it can be completely mundane (did you finally beat your dad at Scrabble?). Either way, it should be personal and revealing about you, your personality, and the way you are now that you are entering the adult world. I reread that essay four to five times before I decided that it was going to be my college essay topic. Your college essay is something that you should not only be proud of, but also something that you genuinely want to showcase to college admissions offices. Living on the Notre Dame campus with other REU students, UND athletes, and other summer school students was a whole other experience that prepared me for the world beyond high school. For 9 weeks, I worked, played and bonded with the other students, and had the opportunity to live the life of an independent college student. For writing the actual essay, because I had planned and articulated my thoughts so methodically, words just flowed out of my fingertips into my computer. I told in detail the vivid memory I had, gave an example of a time during school I lived by my mantra, and talked more about how the language barrier affected my life, and made me who I am today. The hardest part of the process was coming up with an idea. I wanted to pick a moment, or a story, that really stuck with me throughout life. The best of these include dozens of essays that worked and feedback from real admissions officers. In this case, your reader is an admissions officer who has read thousands of essays before yours and will read thousands after. Use interesting descriptions, stay away from clichés, include your own offbeat observationsâ€"anything that makes this essay sounds like you and not like anyone else. College Essays That Made a Differenceâ€"This detailed guide from Princeton Review includes not only successful essays, but also interviews with admissions officers and full student profiles. If you're looking for even more sample college essays, consider purchasing a college essay book.