1. Understand what is being asked. Read the question two or three times, make sure you understand exactly what is being asked. One of the biggest mistakes students make is writing what they think others want to hear, rather than the issue being asked. Plan. Once you have read the question a few times and you are confident that you understand what is being asked, ask yourself “what do I need to do to answer the question?” Begin jotting down ideas on paper – anything that pops to mind. Start to formulate a ruff plan, then slowly an overall plan for each section will start to emerge. Tell a story. As you make your plan, try to tell a story, set the scene, and introduce the reader with some background info. Take the reader on a journey that ends with a conclusion – a conclusion that answers the question. Ask yourself “so what?” Does your story have a point? As you write your essay, after each section, ask yourself “so what?” Does this paragraph have a point, is it helping to tell the story I am trying to sell? Do something different. Take a risk. Don’t write the essay that everyone else is writing. Imagine you are the marker – after reading 30 essays, the novelty will wear off. A bit of creativity, taking a slightly different angle on even the most boring topic, may be that extra push your essay requires. Remember, even seemingly boring essay topics can sound interesting if creatively approached. “The danger lies not in writing bad essays but in writing common essays-the one that admission officers are going to read dozens of” – Scott Anderson, associate director of college counselling at Mercersburg Academy (PA). Big words do not make good essays. Many students think big words make good essays. Big words are fine, but only if they are used in the appropriate contexts. Grab interest from the beginning. Expect your marker to spend just a few minutes reading your essay. You must use your introduction to grab their interest from the outset. Your introduction needs to do two things; firstly create mystery and Intrigue. It is not necessary or recommended that your first paragraph give away the entire essay. Raise questions in the minds of the reader so that they will want to read on. Appeal to their emotions so that the reader forms a personal connection with your essay. Secondly do not summarize the entire contents of your college essay in your Introduction, if you summarise the entire paper, the marker need not read the rest of your essay! The body is the story. The introduction sets the scene for the rest of the essay so make sure the body of your essay is consistent with the points raised in your introduction and make sure you tell that story. Research. Take the time to research all the information that is required for your college essay. Use a variety of sources – local libraries, teachers/tutors, and friends. With the internet at your finger tips you have access to over 5 billion web pages. Use search engines such as Google to search for information, try a variety of queries, ranging from broad keywords on the discipline to specific queries on the subject matter. Use websites such as Wikipedia and Answers.com. If you get stuck, you can find custom research for your college essay from a number of reputable websites, when using these websites; remember not to plagiarize. For guidelines of what constitutes plagiarism, visit ipassoc.org The conclusion is crucial. It is the logical ending to your essay. Students can quite often find the conclusion to be the most difficult part of an essay to write, because they feel that they have nothing left to say – hang in there, it is important to keep in mind that the conclusion is often what your marker will remember most, your conclusion should be the best part of your paper. A good conclusion should complete the essay and emphasize the importance of the thesis statement outlined at the beginning.

If you follow the above tips, you’re already half way to writing your essay. Before we finish remember that you do not need to write this masterpiece on your first attempt. It’s not possible, and all that pressure is likely to give you writer’s block. For your first draft, write anything that comes to mind. Don’t worry too much about grammar or spelling. Just get it down on paper (or computer screen). If time permits, it is also a good idea to spend a little time (a few days or a week) away from your draft to not only refresh your ideas and thoughts but also decide if you still consider your approach correct.

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Because the majority of scholarships require applicants to write at least one essay, it’s very important that the essay you write speaks to the scholarship judges. Not only must you meet their specific criteria, but you must also make sure there are no spelling or grammatical errors.

Additionally, you need to make sure the quality of your essay is up to par with their requirements, which may seem very intimidating. Many students struggle with the writing process to begin with, and having to craft a well-written essay on another topic may seem like too much work to bother with.

However, if you are serious about obtaining scholarship money for college, then you need to prepare for the fact that you will have to write an essay or two for most of the scholarships you apply for. While many scholarships have writing prompts you are expected to answer in your essay, the primary goal for judges is to gain an understanding of you who are as a person – your beliefs and ideas should show through when you’re writing the essay.

Starting the Essay

Unfortunately, the beginning of your essay is oftentimes the hardest part. How do you begin? Well, there are a few general guidelines to keep in mind when you’re starting your essay.

1. Understand the Purpose

First and foremost, you must gain an understanding of why you are writing this essay. What reason could the judges have had for picking their particular question to base your essay on? Analyze the writing prompt. Figure out why you are writing what you’re writing. You can also write down the essay question and figure out how many parts the question has, and what order you need to structure your essay in according to the prompt.

You can also figure out if the essay question requires any research beforehand, or whether the question can be answered through your life experiences alone. Additionally, because the ultimate goal behind any scholarship essay question is to learn more about you, figure out how the judges will learn more about you through your essay.

2. Goals

Before beginning any essay, you need to figure out what your goals for the essay are. These goals will vary depending on the specific essay question and whom you are writing the essay for. For example, one of your goals may be to show the judges through your writing that you have a healthy balance between your personal life and your academic life. Another goal may be to demonstrate that you were able to succeed despite many difficult obstacles you faced throughout your life.
These goals are only examples, and your goals may be similar or different depending on the essay topic. The bottom line is to formulate a set of goals for your writing and allow your personal character to show through. During this process, you’ll also want to develop an overall theme for your essay that relates you to the subject you are writing about, whatever the topic might be.

3. Create an Outline

While some people choose to begin writing without having a plan in place, for a scholarship essay you might find it easier to begin with an outline in place. With an outline, you can be sure you are covering every point you want to hit on in your essay, and you’ll have a guideline to follow when you’re trying to structure your essay in a logical way.

Once you’ve determined your writing goals, settled on a theme for your essay and created a general outline, it’s time to write the first draft. Notice I said “first” draft – an essay is rarely, if ever, ready on the first try. When you’ve written your first draft, it’s time to go over your essay and see which areas could use a bit of improvement.

Revise

The key to crafting a well-written essay is to show the judges rather than telling them. If there are specific examples in your essay that tell something, jazz it up by showing the judges why that’s important and how that example is relevant to your life and the essay topic. Additionally, remember to keep the essay in present tense as much as possible. It might not always work, but if you can use it, do so!

Another tip to keep in mind when you’re revising your essay is to eliminate as many unnecessary words as possible. You want to be as succinct as you can, which means saying what you need to say in as few words as possible. Sometimes you’ll discover that isn’t always possible, but if you notice a part of your essay that can be revised using fewer words, it’s always a good idea.

Double-check your introduction and ensure it’s captivating enough to gain the attention of the judges. If they aren’t interested by the first sentence, they’re probably not going to read the rest of your essay. In a way, your introduction is the most important part of the paper – it gives your readers an idea of what’s to come next.

Finally, you need to finish up with a solid conclusion. Don’t merely re-summarize every point in your essay. Instead, sum up the main point and keep it short and sweet. Once you’ve revised your essay, set it aside for awhile so you can come back to it with fresh eyes. You may discover it needs more work, and you’ll probably notice a few mistakes you didn’t catch beforehand.

Once you think you have a well-crafted, acceptable essay, you can congratulate yourself. You’ve made it through the hardest part of the scholarship application! Regardless of the essay topic or whom you’re writing the essay for, it’s important to keep the above guidelines in mind in order to create the best essay you possibly can. The important things to remember is to let your unique views come through in the essay so the judges can, ultimately, learn about you through the essay prompt.

Writing the scholarship essay may seem like an impossible task, but with a bit of hard work and the above tips to guide you, you can create a well-written essay that lets the judges know what a unique individual you are.

Andre Alonzo is Owner/Publisher of the Scholarship Talk For more information about college scholarships, scholarship tips

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1. Be sure you are reasonably happy with the essay before you show it to anyone. This doesn’t mean that you think it’s perfect and won’t be open to making changes. Instead, it assures that you will be able to analyze feedback from a position of strength, not insecurity, thus maximizing its benefits.

2. Be very careful about whose opinions you seek, Many people consider themselves accomplished writers or editors and, although their intentions may be good, they simply aren’t. Even worse, they don’t fully understand what makes a successful college application essay. This won’t stop them from offering an opinion if asked so please, choose wisely. Remember, not all opinions are equal.

If possible, ask for feedback from people familiar with the application process, teachers or tutors, professional writers, college students who are attending good schools, or someone whose perspective you highly respect. These readers will offer more perceptive, valuable, and ultimately more achievable input about your essay.

3. Get three opinions per draft. One is too few, more than three will only be confusing.

Generally, if all three of your readers, or two out three, give you similar feedback, then there is obviously an issue in your essay that needs to be addressed. Make your revisions, further polish the essay, then look for three different readers to comment on the next draft. Continue in this manner until the feedback is almost unanimously positive. That’s when you’ll know that your essay is almost finished.

4. Don’t be defensive. Listen carefully to everything your reader has to say, without rushing to defend why you used that turn of phrase or what you really meant in that paragraph. Stay objective about your work, as if you’re discussing someone else’s essay. This will allow you to truly hear what your reader is saying and to decide whether you agree with it, which is still your prerogative, or not.

5. Ask questions. If you think a particular bit of feedback is accurate and valuable, ask the reader why he or she feels that way, what is it in the essay that provoked that opinion? Sometimes a reader will have a feeling about the essay (”something is missing, I’m not sure what”) that he can’t quite articulate. By asking genuine questions, you can often pinpoint what the issue is, and fix it.

6. Trust yourself. Readers will sometimes suggest sweeping changes that are good, but not compatible with what you want to say. They might also be coming from a more adult, rather than a high school student, perspective. Remember that you worked hard to develop an essay topic that reflects your values and personality. While other ideas certainly exist, this is the one you’ve chosen – the one you believe in – and it’s okay to stick with it.

People who give feedback on your college application essay are clearly doing you a favor, and it’s important to be appreciative. At the same time, however, keep in mind that your ultimate commitment is to writing the most effective application essay possible and to do that, you’ve got to use that feedback wisely

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Timothy Brunold, dean of undergraduate admissions at USC said, “we will definitely take a look at the SAT essay if the student scored poorly on the writing section but wrote a brilliant personal essay.”

Lee Stetson, dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, says the essay test will give admissions officers a better feel for applicants’ writing and verbal skills and their ability to perform under “constraint.”

Ted Spencer, director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and trustee of the College Board stated, “The SAT essay will be a first draft, written under timed conditions not unlike the on-demand writing of a college “blue book” exam. It will complement the student’s traditional application essay and give us a better, more complete understanding of the student’s writing abilities.”

Jerome A Lucido Vice Provost for Enrollment Management and Director of Undergraduate Admissions of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said that the SAT writing sample “will make the exam a more relevant and useful tool for evaluating student performance, for predicting college success, and for stimulating the high school curriculum.”

Ben Streetman, Dean of the College of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin said, “This new requirement will be a great help to us in choosing students who can succeed in engineering. One of the most important skills an engineer has is the ability to present his or her ideas verbally and in writing. Virtually every engineering project begins with a written proposal, requires interim reports and culminates in a written summary. Professional success in engineering depends not only on the ability to apply the techniques of math and science to solve problems, but also on the engineer’s ability to write those proposals and reports in a way that helps others understand the work.”

What does this mean for your student?

· It means your student might not get into the college of her choice if her SAT essay is of much lower quality than her admissions essay.

· It means that students won’t be able to fool admissions officers into thinking they have better skills by hiring someone else to write their essays for them.

. It means that even if your student is majoring in math, science or engineering she must do well on the SAT Essay.

· It means that your student might not get into the college of his choice if after reading his essay they don’t think he’ll do well on college essay exams.

· It means your student must do well on this portion of the test to maximize her chances of getting into many top schools.

How can my student do well on the SAT Essay?

As I define it, doing well on the SAT Essay involves succeeding in doing two things at once:

1. Writing an essay that will score well

and

2. Writing an essay that will impress college admissions officers

For your student to score well she needs to learn the five characteristics that all high-scoring essays have in common and develop the skills to put these into her writing in under 25 minutes and during the pressure of test day.

Second, your student must write an essay that shows how insightful and intelligent he is so that admissions officers are impressed by the quality of the writing.

To learn what it takes to write a great essay I recommend the following resources:

The Official Guide to the New SAT published by the College Board and available on their web site College Board

This site has several examples of essays graded by College Board graders which can give you a good sense of what it takes to get a high score.

Second, I recommend the website Rocket Review which has a computerized program to help you grade several essay topics available there.

Third, I recommend my e-book “How to Write Fast and Effectively for the New SAT” which teaches the 6 steps to success on the SAT Essay, includes dozens of classroom tested exercises and many examples of real high scoring essays.

Rodney Daut is a California Credentialed teacher with over five years of experience teaching high school history and writing. He has also taught SAT Prep Courses and helped many students dramatically increase their SAT Essay scores and is the author of How to Write Fast and Effectively for the New SAT available at SAT Essay

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The college admissions essay can be quite a daunting and intimidating task for many aspiring college students. However, the college admissions essay does not have to be so bad. In all actuality though, it seems many colleges do favor an application essay which knocks them off their feet, but in that case, a book on writing essays may help with that task along with a LOT of practice. On the other hand, many colleges and universities just want to know more about YOU…while seeing how well you write.

Colleges and universities WANT you to succeed. They want you to do well on the college admissions essay so they can accept you and make them look great! In order to help you along with this task, I have put together some tips to help all students along with their university admissions essays.

First thing I wanted to point out is that focusing and staying on a topic that you know about very well is key. This will show, through your writing, that you are very sincere and do not appear to be misleading anyone. Write what you now about.

Put a little bit of humor in your writing. Of course, the college application essay is not a stand up comedy routing, but a little humor helps show a more modest side to your self. Remember to stay on topic while modestly making light humor out of some of the subject matter in your college admissions essay topic.

In reference to the last tip, remember that you don’t need to impress the reader with something you don’t really have. Try to avoid using really big words that you normally would never ever use in real life. This will only come across as inflated and a little odd to them. But don’t worry, they read enough of this type of thins in many college admissions essays all the time from others. Be original.

Even though there may be an option to hand write your college application essay, try to type your essay out completely. If you cannot gain access to a computer or simply must write your essay out, then be sure to write as legibly as you can. A messy-looking essay may not show your writing in its best light and may even potentially hurt the reader’s impression of your writing skills overall. So it is just safer to type the essay when applying for college.

Start out with a rough draft of your essay and make improvements as you go along rather than simply writing from the heart and letting destiny do the rest. This will give you an opportunity to look over your grammar and be sure that it is clear, concise and legible (if writing by hand). You are trying to make the best impression possible for this admissions essay so make this shot count.

After you have written the essay and have made corrections on it, have family and friends look at it with a critical eye. Ask friends or family members who have already written a college application essay to take a look at it to see if it does any justice based on their past essay experience.

As I mentioned earlier, different colleges have different requirements for their admissions essays and it would be very wise to read over all of the guidelines the college or university sets forth in regards to your college admissions essay. It is very important to follow directions, especially when you want them to educate you. So be sure that the essay is no longer or shorter than what they require.

These tips and referring to other essay-writing resources can help you, as a student, to really achieve your college goals and getting into that college you really wanted to attend. In many cases, seemingly smaller things such as the college essay for admissions makes such a big difference as it is the only real statement you are able to make in reference to the consideration of your admission to the college. So give it your best shot and show those essay readers the best side of you.

S. Michael Windsor is currently publisher and a writer for BackToSchoolNetwork.com The BSN Online Back To School Guide is a premier college back-to-school information platform that provides individuals with a quality in-depth look at these topics as well as the associated products, services and information available today. Visit us today at http://www.BackToSchoolNetwork.com and get your free subscription our member services.

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Before delving into the nitty-gritties of gathering and putting though formulated and gathered ideas on the essay topic, writers must be sure that they have clearly understood the topic and have sufficiently construed the denotations and connotations of the key terms used in the essay topic of thesis statement. This enables writers to locate essay subject into its appropriate conceptual and philosophical framework. Many writers especially inexperienced students usually falter in the writing of essays due to an abysmal lack of understanding of the defined requirements of the essay task outlined in the thesis statement. Critical terms to watch out for include the imperatives like ‘analyse’, ‘critique’, ‘describe’, ‘discuss’, ‘explore’, etc.

Writers must understand the different requirements of custom essay writing tasks implied by these thesis statement or essay topic imperatives. An essay that analyses is unmistakably different from the one that describes. The former requires a critical presentation of concurrent and divergent perspectives whilst the later requires the outlining and illustrating of the dynamics and dimensions of an issue or any object in focus without necessarily critiquing any aspects.

Failure to correctly interpret the essay task imperatives often results in undesirables like failure or failure to obtain one’s set satisfactory goals and standards and the impact of failure may deteriorate into feelings of dissatisfaction and profound disdain of one’s self.

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