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

revision

Develop Your College Essay like Spreading Peanut Butter

December 8, 2019 by Sara Nolan Leave a Comment

You develop an essay like you spread peanut butter.

Americans eat something like a billion pounds of peanut butter per year--and most students feel, at their most eye-roll-y moments, like they write about a billion college essays (all those supplements!). If you want to develop a good essay, however, we could learn a thing or two from our popular staple peanut butter. The Peanut Butter /Writing Process My older stepson, K, is a bit obsessed with pb&j. Turns out it's also the #1 choice of pre-game meals for the NBA (though they could afford caviar!), and most non-allergic elementary school kids (who scoff at caviar!). As soon as K walks in the kitchen, the possibility of pb hijacks his decision-making process. He pulls out the bread, the oversized jars of pb and local honey, and gets to work. His heart throbs. The thing is, it's torture watching him make it. Because he takes so very long, spreading that peanut butter. He runs the flat edge of the butter knife over and over the bread until there are zero lumps. The pb is exactly smooth. And 10 minutes have passed, maybe more. He devours it in three bites. Develop, delete; create, destroy; produce, consume; repeat. Why this makes me want to lose my mind is a good question-- it's not my time or my sandwich. Your college essay is not mine either. And I don't lose my mind over it, nor should you (except in the healthy way that sometimes we need to lose ourselves to find ourselves). However, I think we could consider K's approach to peanut butter spreading as one of the perfect metaphors for a common problem-- the essay that a writer did not develop evenly sometimes misses the mark. So what do you need to consider to develop a strong essay? Not a flimsy, disappointing sandwich? How to develop your college essay (quick & dirty): don't over-expend on the intro include enough backstory vivify with scenesmake some meaninghave realistic aspirationsconnections should be freshin conclusion, DON'T SAY IN CONCLUSION!--but give me a gift! Put it  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Essays, Integrity, Revising, revision, Solutions, Uncategorized Tagged With: Backstory, College essay writing process, conclusion, introduction, scenes

5 minutes in the bathroom to write your college essay

November 17, 2019 by Sara Nolan 3 Comments

Sometimes, you bump into the subject of your writing when you're not trying-- like in the bathroom. The classier version of this is called the "shower effect"-- it's a real thing. You only need 5 minutes and faith. Often the trying itself keeps your topic at arm's length, stiffly.But not straining in trying? And simply being available? That woo-woo stuff? It often works far more effectively. GAH. How annoying and wonderful is that? JUST FIVE MINUTES? As my mentor Rick Benjamin says, "It's really five minutes + your whole life leading up to this moment." DETAILS. Give Your College Essay a "Quick Change" in the stall This afternoon, I went to the single-stall bathroom at a non-profit where I teach personal essay writing to (some of NYC's most awesome) 7th and 8th grade public school students. The door was locked, but within minutes, my student came out, fancied up: a maroon dress over a filled, collared shirt, black knee socks, and black patent leather pointy toe shoes. She was ready for her upcoming school interview. Moments before, she'd been hunched over her math worksheets, solving equations, chewing her lip and eating her sweatshirt string nervously. (Side Fact: I haven't solved an equation since puberty settled in, so I always salute students doing such worksheets, though in my case eating strings would be more productive than isolating the variable and so on. <---WHAT I RECALL FROM ALGEBRA BUT I DIGRESS.) What's I'm recommending here is, despite the number 5, not mathematical-- but you do need structure in the end. little time, big difference Thing is, I was surprised to see my student emerge from the bathroom so changed. It struck me I'd never seen her dressed up, and her whole persona and body language had shifted with the outfit. "You got this!" I told her (likely true), which is maybe the only thing worth saying right before someone has an interview. Especially when you can assume they've already done the most  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: revision, State of Mind, Students, Uncategorized, Wisdom, Writing Tips Tagged With: college essay crunch, college essay writing, revision, shower effect

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