After putting all the effort into resume building and test prep, it is finally time for the dreadful essays. You will spend days brainstorming, researching, crafting your essay, and still wonder if you are on the right track. So how do you tackle this major aspect of the application?
#1 Start with a Strong Introduction
On an average, an admission officer spends less than a minute on one essay, so you need to entice them, with a compelling introduction, and grab 100% of their attention. Try and open with a personal anecdote or an amusing narrative to show your personality and engage the reader. Make sure it is something that tells them more about who you are apart from your resume!
#2 Tell Your Story
Through these essays, universities are looking for your inner voice—a story about how you grew as a person or tackled a situation. Don’t try and be basic. Show your beliefs and authenticity through the essay. They want to know your quality of thinking. How did a certain situation made you change your beliefs or made them stronger? How did a particular activity make you more interested in a particular field? How did you tackle a major problem in your life?
#3 Use Specific Examples
Capitalize over real-life experiences. If you are talking about how you tackled a situation, don’t just state the issue and how you tackled it. Talk about how it helped you and what you learnt from it. They want to know how you used your creativity to come up with a solution, what did you achieve out of it, and how you felt after the problem was resolved.
#4 Give Yourself Time
You definitely have to give yourself plenty of time to, firstly, think about what you want to write and, secondly, to revise and edit. You may have writer’s block on certain days or may not feel like working on your essay on particular days. You may also discover that you want to write about something else instead. So start early and give yourself time for such days!
#5 Proofread
It is important to have multiple revisions of the essay. Read over your draft, again and again, to make sure there aren’t any grammatical or syntax errors. This will showcase your attention to detail and the amount of time you have put into perfecting your write-up. Try and read your essay out loud to make sure it sounds fine. Once you have exhausted all possible ways to improve your text by yourself, ask other people to read it. The second set of eyes always helps. You will also get another person’s perspective and know how engaging your essay is!
EZ Scholar is a premium admissions consultancy and test prep organization which works with bright and ambitious students seeking admissions to Ivy Leagues, Oxbridge and other top global universities. Our experts have mentored thousands of students with their profile building, research papers, extracurricular and co-curricular activities, test prep and admissions essays.
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