Never Do These 10 Things In Your College Application Essays

Never Do These 10 Things In Your College Application Essays Parents can become emotionally involved and/or try to influence the content of the essay, which is something you DON’T want. No matter who helps to edit and proof your work, it’s essential that your writing remain your own. They can help catch spelling or punctuation mistakes or help a student better clarify an idea that isn’t fully fleshed out in the early draft. It is NOT okay for parents to WRITE their child’s essay or influence it unduly, however. Be sure to pick readers who have strong skills in grammar and usage. If your parents fit the bill, there’s no reason they shouldn’t help you polish your essay, but students often find it easier to work with a teacher, counselor or other adult. However, they should not write or re-write the essay. Essay’s should always been seen by someone else to look for grammatical and spelling errors. Many students do need help selecting a topic and organizing the essay. The Common App asks students to submit one long essay, no more than 650 words. Some Common App schools will require additional supplemental writing. The reason that teachers don’t assign a number of pages anymore is because it’s too easy to manipulate pages. When students used to write on typewriters, it was common for teachers to assign essays in number of pages. In most cases, we suggest writing your essay before you lock in a title. It’s much more likely that something will come to mind after you’re done writing. A lot of students think that the title of their essay needs to be something profound, thematic, and influential but it’s almost impossible to write freely with something like that looming over your head. Simplify the process by asking yourself “what is my essay about? Think of 1-2 word responses and write a few options down. Parents can help their child brainstorm topics, encourage them to write multiple drafts, and help him or her meet deadlines. Some parents should not even read their kid’s essays as they want to change too many elements that make the essays lose their unique adolescent voice. I know this is the touchiest of topics, but I always beg parents to believe in their child. And then they are pleasantly surprised when admissions officers write acceptance letters with personal notes about their child’s fabulous essays. He or she isn’t a full-fledged literary genius and the admission officers who read the essays are well aware of this. They are okay with thoughts and phrasing that sounds like it’s come from a teenager; they understand that not all of the ideas will be fully formed. But the main idea behind any essay is that it should reveal something of the writer’s (in this case, the student’s) character and parents can easily hinder that process if they edit too much. You absolutely should have a second and even third set of eyes help you edit and proofread your essay. Editing is a part of the writing process, like development and revision, where another person can be helpful. There is nothing theoretically wrong with that person being a parent if they are skilled and sensitive to helping while allowing the student’s own voice to remain dominant. Many times however, when a parent tries to help, they do more harm than good. It is very easy to spot an essay that has been overly edited by a parent and that is not good for the students chances of admission. Good grades and impressive test scores are certainly helpful on college applications, but colleges also want to see students take initiative beyond the classroom through extracurricular activities. Whether they’re sports, clubs, or community service, it’s always good idea to stay involved with extracurriculars. In fact, if you’re reading this blog post as a junior or senior and you have a college essay to write, you can do something about that right now. It is certainly okay for parents to help edit their child’s essay â€" with the key word in that sentence being EDIT. With the adoption of computers in the classroom, teachers switched from pages to work count because it was too easy for the computers to manipulate the font size and page size. By assigning a word count, teachers get a more accurate length of essay than they would if they assigned homework by pages.