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

Brown University

First write a bad college essay draft

August 3, 2023 by Sara Nolan Leave a Comment

Write a bad college essay to get to a great one

First write a bad college essay draft to write a great essay I spend a lot of my time helping students unfreeze, and accept that if they first write a “bad” college essay draft, it might be THE most important step to a great draft. This blog came from a bunch of “you can write your essay” pep talks I gave to students over the past few weeks (and years!).  ** It’s very paralyzing if you think you have to have a finished product before you even really started your college essay!** Most students don’t know how to write a narrative essay– I didn’t either, back when. But fretting about a lack of a skill never taught it to you. If it did, we’d all be amazing at things we never tried, but fretted a lot about. :) In fact, anxiety about the essay is exactly what will stop you from writing a great personal essay. You need to understand, hack, and tap into–  the organic writing process.  What’s the solution? FLOW.  (Too Impatient for a pep talk? Cut right to getting expert help writing your college essay draft HERE.)  A few essential reminders about writing college essay DRAFTS  BTW: Even though I use the term “bad” throughout, I’m just using the language my students use. We should NOT call it a “bad” draft! There is nothing good or bad about it! It’s just… a draft!  You might not even know the best college essay topic before you start writing! The search for a great college essay topic and totally great essay is noble and important, even critical. However,  in my experience, you often have to write into a topic idea before you can be sure if it will work well or not.  This is true for the supplemental essays and the Common App essays. It’s also true for…basically all writing! What sounds like a good idea while scaffolding might be less evocative (as in: not work) in execution. THAT IS A NORMAL PART OF THE PROCESS.  The order goes: bad draft, good draft, great draft (but it can take way way more than three attempts!). And the writing might  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Essays, Solutions, State of Mind, Students, Uncategorized, Writing Tips Tagged With: Brown University, college essay process, freewriting, Naropa University, St. Ann's school, writing process, your voice

The college essay that got me into Brown

June 27, 2017 by Sara Nolan

I wanted Brown badly I wanted to go to Brown University because all my favorite people from high school went there, many of them writers; I wanted to go to Brown because I knew there students had autonomy over course selection and I was used to picking for myself.  I wanted to go to Brown because...it felt like a natural fit. And because I drank the elitist cool-aid, sorta. I didn't exactly approach the process with an open mind, more like a targeted mind that was open to me getting what I wanted most... "I can see myself there!" I said.  And so said everyone else.  Sometimes, everyone else's predictions for you feel annoying.  But it's most annoying-- and probably also most accurate-- to imagine that all of that conviction could be irrelevant.  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Destiny, Parents, Stories, Uncategorized, Writing Tips Tagged With: Brown University, college essay, finding a topic, meaning, my story, writing process

My college essay got me what?

April 6, 2016 by Sara Nolan

My college essay got me in....to this It's 8AM on a Wednesday. I am 19 years old, drinking my 14th cup of weak college cafeteria coffee, staring at an ancient Greek verb. Eistha. I'm supposed to know something about this.  I have clocked in exactly three hours of sleep. I know about as much as you do, reading this, right now. The verb stares back at me, equally uninformed. My life looked like this chart. My professor, Alan Boegehold (who died this week, 17 years later) is looking out at the two of us expectantly-- because, you got that right, there are only two of us in that class--, a map of Sparta under his thumb. The map is fuzzed at the edges, to appear antique. This is the battle that would change everything. If that everything means anything to you, now, thousands of years out. (But for you battle nerds, this.) Boegehold is recapping for us where all the warships are, waiting to attack a certain strait. He's so into the heated stakes, a scholar's video game. At this moment, the minor things matter the most-- is the verb in the future? Is the ship pointed a hair to the right? I'm wishing I had bought a Starbucks.The kind as black as night should be if you don't live in Brooklyn and if there is no moon. My college essay is to blame To get here-- this school, this class, this major-- I wrote a very very very (apparently) convincing personal essay for my college application essay-- BY HAND.  That's right, by hand. In hand-writing. It was about a junior-year school trip to Spain, where I stayed with a family in Barcelona. On the first day there, I confused two nouns-- mariscos (seafood) and maridos (spouses, husbands)-- and so informed my host mother that I don't eat a lot of things, but I do eat maridos.  Meaning, husbands.  Instead of mariscos, meaning seafood. The car went silent. I have no idea how I concluded the essay, what lesson or trait my personal essay took pains to show. Maybe the importance of detail, the weight of a  Continue Reading …

Filed Under: Destiny, Grammar, Integrity, Stories, Students, Uncategorized Tagged With: Alan Boeghold, Ancient Greek, Brown University, college essay, Joseph Pucci, Lyric poetry, personal essay, Thucydides

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 authenticity brainstorming college acceptance college admissions essays college application college essay college essay tips college essay writing Creativity Essay Writing exercise feedback 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

  • First write a bad college essay draft
  • Core Traits? Text Your Bestie!
  • Sample Common App Essay: Believe in Yourself Harder
  • Avoid these 5 college essay mistakes!
  • When Should I Start My College Essay?

Subscribe below to receive new posts in your email

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn