Interested in College Application Essays to Publish!
It been a little over five years since I published my best-selling collection of sample college application essays, called Heavenly Essays.
Most of the essays were published by former students, although I also included a handful by other students which submitted their pieces to me.
Now, I would love to add about a dozen new essays to this collection to keep it fresh and timely. (Mainly personal statement essays useful for the normal App, Coalition App, Questbridge App among others core essays.)
Anyone is welcome to send in essays. Of course, I especially love hearing from former clients, but i am aware a number of other students have written excellent essays as well.
In Heavenly Essays, I included the essay, combined with student’s name, city/state/country, and school attended. At the end of each essay, I have written a short analysis where I shared my thoughts on what worked well and why, and what writing devices, a few ideas or methods the writer used effortlessly. My goal is for students which read these essays, and my analyses, to learn just how to craft their own narrative essays.
I really believe one of the best methods students can learn how to write engaging and meaningful personal statement essays for their college applications is to read what others have written.
Not only can they get a sense of how these story-telling style essays are structured, and notice the more casual style and authentic voices, but students can also find inspiration for their own topic ideas.
Which knew you could write a killer essay about collecting trash, or messing up a food order while waiting tables, or coming from a family with big hips?
Those of you that have worked with students on their essays college admissions counselors, English teachers and even parents are all welcome to distribute essays for my collection. Of course, you need to get the student’s permission.
You can either copy and paste them in an email, or attach them as Word or Google docs, and send them to my email: EssayHell@gmail.com
Please feel free to ask me any questions, too.
I think, I think this is usually a great opportunity not only to share students’ work and inspire others, but publishing a personal piece of writing is a nice accomplishment.
I’m also very happy to send a free copy of my collection of Heavenly Essays to anyone who desires to distribute essays for these additions. Again, just send me an email.
My Step-by-Step Guide
(I also possess a long-standing offer to anyone who buys any of my writing guides on Amazon, either digital or paperback version—Escape Essay Hell, Heavenly Essays or The Writing Survival Kit and makes a short star-rating and commentary on its Amazon sales page, is welcome to a free digital copy of my guides. Just let me know if you left a review and what book you would like.)
So that you have thought of a topic you wish to write about in your college application essay.
I’m guessing it will fall into one of these three categories: the Good, the Bad or the Ugly.
If so, here’s tips on how to approach them so they make effective essays.
# 1: How to come up with the GOOD in Your College Application Essay
Of course colleges want to hear about all the GOOD stuff you have done in your life to date, specially during your high school years. And it’s natural to stuff your college application essays with all those glowing details about your achievements, your accomplishments, your shining personality and your stellar character.
Stop right there! The last thing you want to do with your essay is cram it full of lists of every good or impressive thing you have done. Not only would your essay be dull as dirt, but your application will already be loaded with details about your impressive grades, extra-curricular activities, awards, internships, etc.
Also, an essay that only talks about your good side can simply tip into a tone that comes across as boastful or arrogant, which will be off-putting to readers (aka admissions officers).
Then how do you write about anything good about yourself in your essay?
Easy! Start with something not too good about yourself.
If you are showcasing an accomplishment, start with a time when you were just starting to work towards it. Look for obstacles or challenges that were in your way. Share your frustrations, defeats, mistakes, conflicts, missteps, etc. After that, you can shift into the method that you overcame them and ultimately conquered your goal.
The point of sharing an accomplishment, achievement or something good about yourself in a personal statement essay isn’t only to let schools know what you did or how wonderful you are but the method that you did it or got that way, why you did it, and what you learned in the process. That is what should make up the bulk of your essay if you want to write about the Good in your essay.
You are going to strike the right tone if you were first humbled by the challenge or obstacle. When you share the method that you worked toward your achievement, accomplishment or personal growth goal, you are going to indirectly reveal your impressive qualities.
Best of all, your college application essay will be interesting to learn! What good is an essay if no one wants to read past the first sentence or two?
Start with the Bad and then move into the Good! Works each and every time!
# 2: How to come up with the BAD in your College Application Essay
I think topics about your Bad stuff usually make the strongest essays. They are the most interesting, and also give you the best platform to shift into all your Good stuff.
RELATED: Find Your Problems
I write lot regarding how problems make awesome topics. If you think about problems you have faced in your past especially the everyday, mundane ones you will discover your little mini-stories, incidents, moments and experiences to power your essays. When you face a challenge (challenge, obstacle, change, mistake, phobia, flaw, conflict…), it means that anything happened. If anything happened, then it’s interest to learn about. You can also show the method that you turned that problem in to a Good thing because you dealt with it and learned anything in the process.
When brainstorming topics for your essay, trust the times you had to take care of problems. Just about any kind can work. You are terrified of the dark. You spent too much money at Target. You got caught gossiping about your best friend. You spilled coffee on a consumer during your Starbucks job. You forgot your mom’s birthday. You got off the bus into the wrong area. You broke your dad’s favorite power tool. You dyed your hair orange by accident. You couldn’t afford the cost of your school trip to France.
Maybe you can’t believe you could spin a effective essay from a bad thing that happened for your requirements. Won’t it be a giant downer and turn off your target schools?
Nope!
Don’t believe me? Take to reading some sample essays and see if you can spot some Bad stuff and determine how the writer turned it into an interesting and meaningful essay that ended up showcasing a lot of Good stuff. (Just put Sample Essay into the search box on this weblog to locate some. I also possess a collection of sample essays available on Amazon, called Heavenly Essays.)
# 3. Just how to Write about the UGLY in Your College Application Essay
When I say Ugly, I’m talking about the extreme Bad stuff. If you are lucky, you don’t have any Ugly in your life. That’s great!
Nonetheless, many students have faced some really challenging realities and experiences. These can range between financial hardships to prejudices to illness, injury, death and other personal tragedies.
Should they write about these if they were so horrific?
I say YES. How could these circumstances or experiences not have shaped who they are, likely in really Good methods?
That said, these highly dramatic or sensational topics can be tricky to write about.
What you want in order to avoid is an essay that describes all the Ugly stuff and only the Ugly stuff. Even though these details can be very moving and interesting, the essays have to be mainly regarding how the students handled these issues, and turned them into anything positive as best as you can.
In fact, the most intense, tragic or Ugly the ability or situation, the less the student needs to write about it. Typically, a paragraph or two will convey enough for the reader to understand how hard it was. After that, time and energy to shift into how the student dealt with the Ugly or handled it, and then what they learned from that process.
Another trick to handling a highly sensitive and painful, emotional or tragic topic in a personal essay is to look for a smaller piece of that topic. Look for an example of the larger issue to share at the start of the essay, and then describe later the larger challenge. For instance, in case a student writes about losing a parent, look for a moment, incident or experience that shows a related problem due compared to that loss. Maybe the student needs to find a resourceful solution to get to school because no-one is there to drive them. Or the student has learned just how to buy groceries to feed the family now that mom is gone. ( Notice that these are smaller ‘problems’ that relate genuinely to the larger Ugly ‘problem.’)
Writing about these types of highly personal and often deeply painful topics can be extremely challenging. I think they can make powerful topics for college application essays if the student feels ready to explore and share them. Give it a try. Whether it’s too hard, bag it. There are many other topics out there!
Again, read sample essays to see how other students handled all these types of topics the Good, the Bad plus the Ugly.
Here’s a url to several essays from Heavenly Essays to get you started ( the second one, by Alex Segall is an excellent exemplory instance of how to write about the Ugly): Sample Essays
All the best! Remember, it’s not what you write about, but what you have to say about it that matters the most in these essays!