Today many of the top colleges require that you write a college admissions essay. More so, they require that you write the essay online via an on-prompt timed essay test. It is not a prewritten essay, but a real time essay. The admissions essay topics that you may be have to write about are often limited in scope, however, depending on the colleges you apply to, the essay can require you to write just about anything. This means you will have to be well researched, a good writer, a fast thinker and be able to write about any number of topics, quickly and without hesitation. Although you may be tempted to focus your writing practice on common college essay admission topics that should not be your sole focus. If you want to attend a specific college, achieve academic, career and life goals, your focus should also be on the research and writing skills needed to do well in all your courses, your career and your life endeavors.
Looking at essay test overviews that colleges publish online, one will find the most common college admissions essay topics. On the essay test prompt you could be asked why you selected your school and major, or to describe your personal life, hardships, successes and failures, and how you coped. On the other side of the coin, the question might be how you will contribute to the college’s mission, its social goals or values, or other topics in the venue of not only academics, but synergy. Will your attendance result in an outcome greater than the sum of the parts? Colleges want students for many reasons. They do want students that will do well, but colleges also want students that will help the college reach its goals. They want students that will make important discoveries, form successful businesses and also help the local community, their fellow students and further the college’s academic and community status. There is nothing that shines brighter on a college’s reputation than an alumnus that has become well-known in the academic, technology, business or political world.
Many colleges may consider how well you wrote the essay the most important item. On the other hand, your essay may also be judged on your own ambitions, your achievements and on how well you fit into the college’s social fabric. In other words, how you expressed the alignment and synergy of your values and the colleges values. The essay may well require that you know yourself, the college and one of many of your life plans. Even more importantly the essay may want you to answer the question why? Here you will need evidence that supports your answer or claim. Or more directly, are you not only a good writer, but a well thought out thinker, a person that can substantiate their claims, reasons and explain how you will achieve your goals, quickly
That is not an easy task, especially for many high school seniors. During your school years you need to have been trained to write and think about almost anything regardless of what your main academic focus has been. Being great in computers or business doesn’t exempt you from having to think and write about about the arts, the economy, alternate careers, present day society, politics or history.
The one that reviews your essay may first evaluate if you are a skilled writer, one that substantiates claims, has varied sentience structure and can interest and persuade. The reviewer may look at your essay and ask, is this someone that most likely has read continually their whole life? Or has this applicant spent hours researching the college, researching college essay topics and questions? Finally the reviewer might ask, does the applicant essay indicate that the applicant is skilled in the art of writing under pressure on just about any topic that is put on front of them? The answers to these three questions might very well determine if your college application is put into the “to accept” or “to reject” basket.
There are many different ways to prepare for a college admissions essay test. You can practice writing college admissions essays, you can read and study classically successful college essays, you can create targeted lists of typical college essay topics, and you can research the specific values, curriculums and demographics of the school you want to attend. Often, the college will publish a short brief about its essay admissions test. These briefs give the essay topic, the essay question, and the required essay word length, often a 250 word mandatory essay and another 125 word optional essay. Another way to prepare is to take scores of timed essay tests. Here the goal is to find out if you can consistently write good copy on any topic in just five minutes or less. You can also voraciously review popular writing style guides like the Associated Press Style Guide or the Essentials of Style. This will help ensure your essay stands out above the crowd in terms of grammar, structure, logic and style.
All in all, preparing yourself for your college essay entrance exam takes a short lifetime. In fact the essay measures just how much effort you have been put into reading, writing and educating yourself and how effective you have been. But don’t despair if you feel you need more practice and more time. An effective teacher or tutor can save you a significant amount of study, practice, research and overall preparation time. High quality essay tutors and teachers can take a lot of the busy work out of the preparation process and direct you to the critical facts and information you need to know to become a great writer and researcher. The best college admission essay teachers do not just prepare you to write a college admissions essay test. They prepare you to write for your academic courses , your career and more importantly for your own needs, in other words, your audience. All of which ensures much better grades, better career opportunities and a better chance at a self-rewarding life.
