When you decide to apply for some top-tier college or receive a scholarship of your dream, your success to a large extent depends on other stellar students applying for the same spot. They all have similar backgrounds, good scores, and, of course, extracurricular activities. When you write an essay in class, your professor is only interested in your writing, your result. Getting an A doesn’t depend on how many students also got an A, there is no limit on high or low marks. However, there are a limited number of spots when it comes to entering college or getting approved for a scholarship. That is why you should take writing a college essay about yourself very seriously. Here, we have collected some tips that may come in handy.
How to write a stellar college essay about yourself
First of all, let’s make a deal — you will not only read these tips, but also try to actually use at least some of them. Often, you just open some articles online and decide that the given tips are obvious, you have read them before a dozen times and don’t want to waste more time on them. However, you should ask yourself — but did you actually try implementing those tips? Did you for real choose one or two tricks and try using them for at least several days? There is a big chance that no. We face the same problem trying to lose weight or lead a healthier lifestyle in general — we all know that to reach such goals we need to eat less junk, to drink more clean water, add exercises, sleep more than seven hours and forget about energy drinks. These are the most obvious and boring tips you can get in life, as well as the most effective ones. And still, people don’t follow them and complain that they cannot get into a needed shape. Don’t fall for the same trick when writing a college essay about yourself — choose the most relevant tips from this list and use them for your benefit.
Don’t waste time on a long planning
Long planning is just another form of procrastination. It is a good idea to plan your writing, to create an outline, but keep in mind that you are not working on a research paper now. Start writing, and see what happens. It is better to have some imperfect drafts, than one perfect unwritten essay about yourself.
Choose a topic you can relate to
Usually, you are given several topics/questions you can write about. Choose not the most popular or interesting one, but the one you can relate to based on your experience. Committee members always prefer reading about real life than about your thoughts about real life.
Don’t be afraid to show vulnerability
You are not a superhuman and committee members reading your college essay about yourself know it. They have to read lots of similar papers with authors exaggerating their abilities, don’t be like that. Show some adequate vulnerability, it will both draw attention to your essay and make a committee member more interested in your story personally.
Show personality without showing off
This tip is very close to the previous one – you just need to focus on being real. That is why all those free samples you can find online don’t work if you really plan to create a quality essay. Show your personality in the field related to the chosen specialty or program.
Don’t lie, don’t manipulate
The top-stupid thing you can do when writing a college essay about yourself is lying about your experience or trying to emotionally manipulate committee members. They are much more experienced than you, and they can easily see through it. Once they do, you have zero chances to land that scholarship or get into that college.
Understand your audience
Of course, you cannot know who will read your paper — a man, a woman, what are their political and social beliefs, etc. At the same time, you know the college or organization they work at, and it is close to enough. Think about principles and ideas valuable to them, and consider that information when writing about yourself.
Spare time for meticulous proofreading
From the very beginning, plan some time for proofreading and editing, don’t leave it to the last hour. No matter how genius ideas you have, how relevant your experience is to the topic of this essay, if you make grammar and style mistakes, you will never achieve your writing goals. That is why it is better to proofread even half-written paper and then continue, than to send some creative piece you didn’t have time to edit.
Make your essay about yourself a success
Think about your goal behind the goal. Do you want to write a stellar essay about yourself? We bet you do, otherwise you would not be reading this article now. Is it your ultimate goal? Hardly. An essay about yourself is just a tool you use to get what you want — to enter college or to get approved for a scholarship. This is your goal behind a goal. Unfortunately, even if you follow all the best tips, you still have lower chances to win the spot, compared to your rivals, who made a different choice on the same path and addressed a professional college essay service for writing help. Some hired tutors, some hired expert academic writers online, all of them have better chances to come up with a better essay than you, working on your own. Samples you can find online are too general and too specific at the same time — you cannot rely on them. That is why it may be a wise decision to hire a professional writer to create an essay you need from scratch, based on the requirements of a particular educational institution. Later, you can use a received well-thought-out original draft as you wish — submitting, changing, adjusting according to the new requirements.