Inspiration and the College Essay
‘Tis the season for holidays, days off school, family get-togethers, and… college applications. If you’re a senior in high school, you’re either camped out at the mailbox awaiting notification of your early application decision or slaving away at your computer trying to think of a brilliant, amazing, mind-blowing college essay that will tell the admissions committee the story of your life, including everything fantastic about you, in a unique and memorable way — in 500 words.
Here’s a tip: stress can be a good thing, but too much of it is not. All those “elders” stressing the importance of the college essay up to now have (hopefully) motivated you to brainstorm, outline and produce drafts on more than one essay topic. And once you’ve got a few drafts written, received comments from a few people, and are now on your 15th straight hour of essay crafting? Try taking a break. Just walk away for a while. Put on some music, have a cup of hot chocolate, watch a funny movie — anything but think about your essay for a few hours.
About half of the successful essays that Abacus sees each year are written, edited, re-written, and finalized over a period of weeks or months. The other half are written in one shot at the last minute. But, that’s not to say that they’re first drafts. On the contrary, they’re usually the kind that come to the author after his/her first several drafts on a different topic just didn’t seem quite right. The key point is that the students who wrote these “last-minute-inspiration” essays usually didn’t expect them. They thought they had their essays basically done. They had let go a little and started living life again. And that loosening up on the reins allowed their minds to put together something really amazing.
Of course, that’s not to say that you have to have a bolt of inspiration hit at the last second in order to write a great essay. But if you’re stuck on an nth draft and frustrated because you really need your essay to have that something extra, go! Leave your computer! Do something else! See if you don’t find the answers in the last place you might have expected.
On the other hand, if you haven’t yet started writing your essays — come! Sit down at the computer! Start writing! Here are some tips to help you get started:
- Writing the Successful College Application Essay
- Essay Skills (from the College Board)
- How to Write an Application Essay (including links to other articles)