How to Write the Common Application Essays

Most parents and students grapple with how they can come up with the best common application essay. The truth is that completing a common application essay is not a walk in the park. This is particularly important if the student is planning to apply early decision or early action.

Since you want to ensure that your student writes the best common application essay, there’s always the temptation of hiring an essay tutor to have it done. However, if you follow a few tips below you will still be able to write a superb common application essay.
Here are some tips on how you can achieve that:

Begin your essay early

One of the mistakes that most students make is waiting until the final week to the deadline of the common application essay. It doesn’t matter how great you are in writing, starting early is always the best way to developing a good essay.

Starting early means carrying out some small research on how common application essay is done. Try to get several samples and go through them just to get a glimpse of how the best common application essay looks like. Doing so will not only give you great insights for your writing but will also prepare you psychologically.

Think small and don’t be wordy

Many students often feel compelled to try and include almost every detail about their life into the 650-word common application essay. However, this is not possible considering the number of words required for the essay. Besides that, no one has the luxury of time to read about every detail of your life story.

The secret is always to think small. Try to remember something or an event in your life that meant a lot to you. Did you win an award in a competition? Did you participate in or organize a charity event to raise funds for the needy? Was your family stranded while on a vacation without power for four days? These are just examples of life events you can think of and include in your essay.

The idea is to make your common as interesting as possible. It should be able to attract the attention of the reader and excite them in a professional way.

Write first and do the editing later

After you have brainstormed on different ideas and narrowed down to a few of them, it is now time to put pen on paper. However, before starting you should understand that the first copy is just a draft. Do not try to be perfect – because the time for editing will come later.

Try to focus on creating a good introduction for your common application essay. Remember that your introduction is like the face of your entire essay. It is the one that gives the reader an idea of what your essay is all about. That’s the reason why you should spend a little bit more time on it. Don’t pay attention to small minor grammatical mistakes – they will waste a lot of your time.

Be yourself

This is other important thing to note about common application essays. If you are not a funny person, then don’t start it now. If you are not Shakespeare, then don’t try to use jargon that will only confuse the reader. This is your life story – so let it remain that way.

Start editing

After you have written your draft essay, the next part is editing. Go through your entire essay paragraph by paragraph to ensure that it contains all the ideas that you intended.

This is also the point where you can get help form other people. Give someone else to read your essay and point out any mistakes that you were not able to pick out. Get a few of your friends or family members to read your essay and suggest areas where you can adjust.

Proofread and proofread

This is an area where most students often fail when it comes to essay writing. You have already spent a lot of time conducting research and writing more than 600 words. It will be disastrous to submit an essay full of typos and simple grammatical mistakes. It won’t cost you a lot to send your essay to an online copy editor.

In a nutshell, college essay writing is not a difficult affair as long as you follow the above tips and many others you can find online. Always ensure that you start working on your common application essay early and conduct proofread your work several times before handing it in.