Want to find your best material to start your college essay?

x

Enter your email address, and the guide is yours, free!

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Essay Intensive

  • About EI
  • Services
    • Admissions Essay Support
    • Tutoring & Coaching Plus
    • Applying to High School in NYC and Admissions Writing Help for your Middle School Student
  • Featured Essay
  • What They’re Saying!
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Login

Revising

First line, first impression

November 4, 2015 by Sara Nolan

Your first sentence of your essay decides if you have a future... That is, if your college essay has a future in the eyes of your reader. There, got your attention.  See? First impressions matter.  Your college essay is no exception.  And your first line of your personal statement is your first impression, so here's how to make it good and have the adcom begging (well, maybe not begging, but ready) for more. Consider Context You wouldn't go for a job interview with tomato sauce rubbed across your face, go on a first date in a stained shirt, show up for the first day of school with a busted notebook from last year. Don't start your essay without thoughtful craft-- you want it to entice. In fact, make that first line work for you so you have the best chance at getting the prize-- that is, the adcom's attention. Figure out the techniques Here's Stanford University's sample first lines from admitted students. If you take a few minutes to study each first line, you'll see that A) there is a range of winners and B) there is no formula and C) each line has a reason it's successful.  We'll look at a few different ones to give you a primer on why they work. First Lines of college essays we love "I change my name each time I place an order at Starbucks." First, clever, and why not, do you have an obligation to be you?  Second, the reader is given a fact, but no explanation for it: perhaps the writer likes the freedom to swap out identities in low-stakes situation; perhaps the applicant hates his or her first name; perhaps something traumatizing happened with a Starbucks employee -- point is, we have just enough information to be intrigued, but not enough to be satisfied. Simple sentence, but big opening. "When I was in eighth grade I couldn't read."  Again, simple fact, but begs the biggest question: Why?  (Especially, perhaps, because we know this student was submitted to Stanford at least partially on the strength of the essay). "On a hot Hollywood evening,  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Practice, Revising, Solutions, Uncategorized, Writing Tips Tagged With: a twist, adcom, attention, college essay, college essay tips, first lines, good impression, reader, Stanford University Magazine, student sample writing, subvert expectations

Procrastination got your college essay? Try this!

October 28, 2015 by Sara Nolan

Is your college essay due this weekend, or next week, and you've been procrastinating epically?  Here's how to beat the procrastination paralysis and crank out a college essay by deadline. Note & Plug! The photo featured above shows gung-ho participants in a customized Essay Intensive college essay writing workshop, Just Write, at The TEAK Fellowship.  They beat procrastination, just like you will, and punched out some quality personal essays!  So, speaking of-- back to you. The moment is Now It's beyond crunch-time. You're panicking that you don't have time (because you screwed yourself) to be all that you need to be in your college admissions essay: insightful, creative, authentic, reflective, and thoughtful.  (You're wrong-- keep reading). You're seriously considering writing your college essay on your dog's midlife crisis as you watch him limp after spastic squirrels. And ending it with a line about the pointlessness of striving in this world. Think again. Let your dog have his own crisis. Seize your loaded moment for what it's worth, and use our tips to write.  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Practice, Revising, Solutions, State of Mind, Writing Tips Tagged With: audience, conclusion, first lines, freewriting, good topics, introduction, positive traits, procrastination, prompts, Stanford magazine, topics, writing tips

Supplemental Essays and Online Dating

October 21, 2015 by Sara Nolan

The match has to be right Successful supplemental essays for college admission, just like successful dating and mating, but you're not there yet, are all about the suitability of the particular match made. After much skepticism and playing hard-to-get, I was matched with my amazing husband online--score! A good algorithm found the overlap in our particulars.  By contrast, I've read about 600 mediocre supplemental essays in the past month that demo a weak match at best. A primer on better verbal flirting with educational institutions in these important supplemental essays is clearly needed for college applicants who are eager to be passionately and appropriately paired. False starts can be fixed Not the writer's fault: these essays, like dating, can be full of false starts. But here's how intentionally approaching the supplemental essays like you would online dating helps you produce convincing writing and persuade the target schools you're a good match. (And  those of you more interested in dating than writing, remember this supplemental fact: wherever you enroll, you'll likely wind up in romantic relationships too...so consider the pool you enter!)  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Revising, Solutions, State of Mind, Uncategorized, Writing Tips Tagged With: dream school, fit, match, specifics, supplemental essays, writing tips

Which Common App prompt should I answer?

September 8, 2015 by Sara Nolan

I can't pick! College Application season is all about picking-- not apples, not your nose, not lottery numbers, no: on top of picking schools and hoping they pick you, some students stress about picking which Common App prompt to answer. Unless you like having extra things to stress out about (and far be it from us to take that from you), let's clear that up right now. It's actually simple-- write your essay, then select the Common App prompt you think it matches most closely.  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Revising, Solutions, Uncategorized, Writing Tips Tagged With: college essay, Common Application, prompts, revising

Finding the best reader for your college essay

September 1, 2015 by Sara Nolan

You've done the grunt work writing your college application essay draft and you're not sure how you feel about it. Moment of truth: who is the best reader for your essay now, before it's time to submit the application? Who should vet your ideas? It matters who you pick, and here's why. The obvious possible candidates In some cases, the reader is decided for you: you have to turn a draft in to your English teacher, your guidance counselor, your college counselor. In other cases, a family member wants to weigh in as a reader-- your well-intentioned parents, your I've-gotten-you-this-far guardian, your brother who's already in college and should know, and so on. In still other cases, you've hired someone, supposedly for their skill at reading and evaluating your essay: your college coach (if you have one), your essay coach (if you have one). DIY? Whatever your situation looks like, when it comes to writing, it's rarely a good idea to do it all on your own.  You already know what you meant to say in your essay, and it can be hard to have critical distance necessary to see its flaws and omissions.  You're apt to be predisposed to love or to hate it, to cling to your ideas whether successful or not, and to supply background information that a reader ignorant of your life story won't be able to. All of these things cloud your ability to be your own best reader. So while you must reread to revise and edit well (Never submit an essay without doing this, duh!), you should NOT be your only reader. Recruit family, friends, and flatterers? Your parents and guardians, because they have loved you for so long, and probably changed all your poopy diapers for months, might have their own agendas about what they think would be the best topic, given that they know so much of the history of your life, and may also assume (rightly or wrongly) they know you better than anyone.  But they are usually not experts in the requirements of this genre and, beyond that, it's important  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Feedback, Revising Tagged With: admissions officers, audience, college essay, feedback, getting started, parents, readers

  • « Previous Page
  • Page 1
  • Page 2

Primary Sidebar

About Our Conversations

At Essay Intensive, we are listening for the Big Challenging Questions to arise–physically, mentally and emotionally. We jump, word-ninja style, at the chance to be stimulated and engage in a true conversation.

Our bodies are holistic, courageous homes with a singular mission (in a multi-faceted world): live! It’s up to us to realize and share the rich outcomes of that drive. “A conversation” is a place for members of our community to do just that.

Think, feel and write deeply. Question. Sweat. Speak.

Find a topic

Tags

admissions officers advice anecdote anxiety attitude authenticity brainstorming college acceptance college admissions essays college application college essay college essay tips college essay writing Creativity Essay Writing exercise Free-writing freewriting ideas inspiration Letter from Birmingham Jail love Martin Luther King Jr. meditation parents personal essay perspective poetry prompts revision sample essay self-awareness stress stress reduction student stories supplemental essays teachers topic choice topics voice writer's block Writing writing process writing prompts writing tips

Recent Posts

  • When Should I Start My College Essay?
  • (no title)
  • (no title)
  • What do you want to be when you grow up? No-BS Brainstorming
  • Your college essay should be a work of art

Subscribe below to receive new posts in your email

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn