Lesson 6: Writing Your College Essay Rough Draft
In Lesson 5, we talked about how to develop your college essay story. I’m going to assume you did the homework assignment, even if you didn’t email it to me 🙂
If you haven’t done it yet, go back to that lesson and make sure you know the main points you want to share with the admissions committee.
Now, it’s time to brainstorm, write, and edit. But don’t try to finish the entire college essay in one day.
Give yourself time to write and refine your college essay over several days.
Breaking up the writing process lets you view the essay with a fresh perspective each time you work on your application.
It’s not just the topic of the essay that matters.
Equally, if not more important, is HOW you write it: your tone and style.
You might write in short sentences with strong, descriptive words. Or you might mix up your sentence length.
Whatever your style is, make sure you grab the reader’s attention with the first sentence and keep it throughout the essay using both the content and style.
It’s especially important to use the active voice. I’ll give you a few examples.
Example #1:
Passive: “I was awarded first place in the science competition.”
Active: “I won first place in the science competition.”
In the first, someone else (the judges?) gave you the award. The reader is left wondering.
In the second, you actively won the award. This is more exciting because we know who is performing the action.
Example #2:
Passive: “I was forced to make a difficult decision between trying to boost my SAT score and organizing a service project.”
Active: “My busy schedule forced me to make a difficult decision…”
In the first, we’re left wondering why you were forced. What forced you? A person? A thing?
It’s extremely important that you write your essays in an active voice. With all the essays they read, admissions staff prefer this. It’s far more exciting. By using the active voice, you’re far more likely to keep them engaged. This is one of the many techniques you can use to write a persuasive and focused essay.
YOUR ACTION STEP
Write a rough draft of 1300-1500 words, wait a few days, then aggressively reduce its length so that it will be short, but full of content. Print draft after draft. (It’s much easier to make revisions on paper than on the computer screen.)
Also, make sure you show your college essay to others so that you can get feedback from them. Ask your readers to help you cut any unnecessary words and sentences, and have them make sure you’re using the active voice whenever possible.
If you’re looking for feedback on your college essays, I invite you to join the small private online community I’ve created. You can get help from other students who are going through the process, and you’ll also get feedback on your college essays from me, personally. This private community is just one of several resources I’ve put together. They’re all part of a premium course I’ve created to help you write effective college essays. Sign up to join at collegeadmissionstoolbox.com/essaycourse
Talk soon,
Steve
P.S. Don’t worry if you don’t love your rough draft. After all, it’s just that, rough. Very soon, I’ll be giving you plenty of tips on editing, revising, refining, etc. to help you write the best final draft possible.