ACE Your College Admissions Essay

College essays are the bane of basically all of our students’ existence for the entirety of their senior year. Honestly, I can relate. I felt the same way not too long ago. I’ve realized though, it doesn’t have to be so hard. Here are some tips and tricks that we use to help our students write the best college essays.

How to write an admission essay

Somewhere in your many, many years of schooling, you must have heard of themes and topics. You may also remember that they are not the same. Make sure your essay has a theme and not just a topic. For example, a topic can be about “War”. A theme based around that topic could be “War does not solve problems”. That distinction is key to making sure your essay doesn’t get forgotten.

The best way to accomplish this is by NOT writing a Wikipedia article. (They always need a lot of help, by the way, so take your awesome technical writing skills and give them a hand.) Most essays have one serious problem: there’s too much what and not enough why. This is your story, write it like one.

What you write doesn’t matter! It’s why it matters to you that’s most important.

Admissions essay tips

There are many aspects of a successful story. The most important one for your essays is the main character. Guess who that should be? That’s right, it’s you!

Here’s how to check if you are truly the main character of your story. Do a word count check and see what percentage of sentences talk about you and what percentages of sentences talk about someone else. As you can expect, most of the sentences should be talking about you!

How to start an admissions essay? Know the W’s

Who was involved ?
When ?
Where ?
What happened and how did you overcome it ?
Why does it matter ?

You might notice that the What is missing. This is intentional because it’s already so emphasized, we don’t want to emphasize it more on a college admissions essay.

Well balanced W’s help even out your essay and convert it from that dreaded Wikipedia article into YOUR story. It also helps illustrate why your story matters. At the end of the day, the admission counselors want to know why they should read your essay. If you’re able to communicate that, then you’re already ahead of most of the submissions.

Additional admissions essay tips: Humanize Your Essay.

Use names — not pronouns

Don’t use words like “(s)he” or “they”. These are words that are used by everyone in almost every essay. It makes your essay seem less unique. If you’re worried about privacy, don’t be. You can always change the first name, without compromising the integrity of your story.

Clarify your setting

Too many times, people start in one place and time in their essay and move to another without updating the reader. If you start in 8th grade and move to the 10th grade, use a transition: “In 10th grade, …”. There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?

What vs Why on an admissions essay

We already discussed the importance of the well balanced W’s. In addition, I also want to talk a little bit more about the ratio between the What and the Why. It’s important to explain what your story is about, but it’s even more important to outline why the story matters and why someone should read it. Here’s a graphic outlining different qualities of essays based on the What vs Why ratio. This ratio is easily calculated by using the word count feature. Just see how many sentences are discussing your What and how many are discussing the Why.

What vs Why ratio breakdown

That’s mostly it for the basics. Here are some final pointers to round out what we’ve discussed so far.

Some final admissions essay tips and pointers

First, always start your drafting without a word count. It’s easier to remove words and content than it is to add it back. When you have to add more, you generally have to force it to line up with ideas that you already have, making your essay unbalanced.

Next, follow the 2-sentence rule. Don’t go more than 2 sentences without using the words “I” or “Me”. Remember, the story is about you, you, and you.

Finally, please read it out loud. I know that it can sometimes be cringey to read out your own work. This is exactly the feeling that you want to get comfortable with. Once you read it out loud, you can feel what your essay is saying and how that’s going to make the readers feel.

Conclusion

I therefore hope that this has helped you start, edit, or even polish your essays. If you want some more advanced techniques, check out our YouTube video here, where we give in depth examples of all of the concepts discussed here and more.

We specialize in youth mentorship and college counseling. From 8th grade to 12th, so we have you covered for any stage in your high school career. Schedule a free consultation with our college admissions essay consultant here.

In conclusion, we are always posting more helpful tips and tricks to help reduce the stress of college application season. Or feel free to schedule a free consultation with

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See you soon!

Sarah Gooch

Essay Editor

Q:How many total years of experience do you have in your current role, including but not limited to ReadyEdgeGo?

A: I have five years' experience in coaching student writing, but this is my first year with ReadyEdgeGo.

Q: What about working with students do you most enjoy?

A: I love helping students find depth and meaning in their own stories—but I also just love it when they make me laugh!

Q: What do you like to do in your free time?

A: In theory, I enjoy painting and writing poetry, but these days I actually spend most of my free time socializing or watching movies with my husband.

Q: What is your one piece of advice for high schoolers?

A: Don't just focus on achieving top grades and credentials because they look good on applications, or your education will be meaningless. The numbers and awards have their place, but stay connected to your sense of curiosity, discovery, excitement, and wonder so that the content you're learning is constantly transforming you—it's something you care about, something you remember after the final exam. Work on the aspects of yourself no one can measure, like integrity, wisdom, kindness, and compassion, so that you're not only developing your academic and career potential but also investing in the type of adult you're going to be, the person you'll have to live with after you clock out every day for the rest of your life. Doing the hard inner work of building your character and learning deeply instead of just earning grades will set you up for a satisfying, well-rounded life. Strange as it sounds, it will also put you ahead in your academic and career goals, because colleges and hiring managers aren't looking for an empty set of data on a spreadsheet; they want a fully fleshed-out person marked by passion, creativity, and a story no one else has lived. So go on studying hard for tests, but also spend some time asking yourself what matters in life and who your role models are. Read up on topics that amaze you, and build something incredible just for fun. Cultivate that spark of joy you feel when you're immersed in a subject that fascinates you. If you can hit that balancing act of doing your homework and meeting deadlines but also investing in the kind of person you want to be, then trust that all the rest will follow: schools will recognize you as a dynamic, all-star person, and you will also build a life of happiness, close relationships, and peace.

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