how to write a college essay

Summary

In this video, Gohar, an MIT senior, shares valuable insights on crafting a memorable college essay. She emphasizes the importance of 'showing, not telling' to engage readers, using vivid imagery and storytelling. Gohar advises running a 'pick-up test' to ensure the essay's uniqueness and authenticity, avoiding generic statements and maintaining a genuine voice. She also recommends avoiding cliché topics and common grammar mistakes, suggesting a review by a trusted individual. Her personal essay on volcanoes exemplifies how even unconventional topics can succeed with compelling writing.

Takeaways

• 📝 Show, don't tell: Engage the reader by painting a vivid picture rather than just stating facts.
• 🧩 Personalize your essay: Include specific details that make your essay unique and identifiable as yours.
• 🚫 Avoid generic statements: Refrain from using grandiose truisms that weaken your writing and come across as trying too hard.
• 🎙️ Use your real voice: Write in a conversational tone that reflects your natural speaking style, avoiding fancy words and complex sentences.
• 📚 Be original: Steer clear of cliché topics and strive for a unique narrative that stands out.
• 🌋 Embrace unique topics: Even unconventional subjects can work if you can craft a compelling story around them.
• ✍️ Proofread for grammar: Watch out for common grammar mistakes, especially dangling modifiers.
• 👀 Get feedback: Have someone review your essay to ensure it sounds like you and is free of errors.
• 🔗 Utilize resources: Consider using services like NextAdmit.com for professional essay reviews by students from top universities.
• 💡 Creativity encouraged: Feel free to be creative with essay structure and style, as it's not a typical five-paragraph English essay.
• 👍 Make an impact: The goal is to provide admissions officers with a glimpse of who you are, ensuring your essay leaves a lasting impression.

Q & A

What was the speaker's experience with writing their college essay?

The speaker, Gohar, an MIT senior, described the process as stressful, staying up late on numerous nights to perfect their essay and only feeling proud of their work towards the end of the admission season.

What is the first piece of advice given by the speaker for writing a college essay?

The first piece of advice is to show and not tell. This means engaging the reader by painting a picture and telling a story rather than just stating facts.

Why is it important to avoid generic details in a college essay?

Generic details can cause an essay to blend in with others, making it less memorable for admissions officers. Specific details help make the essay personal and unique to the applicant.

What is the 'pickup test' mentioned in the script?

The 'pickup test' is a method to ensure the essay is personal and unique. It involves imagining if a friend could pick up the essay from a pile and recognize it as the writer's own based on the specific details included.

Why should college essays avoid grandiose truisms?

Grandiose truisms, such as 'live life to the fullest,' can weaken the writing if overused. They may come across as trying too hard to impress the reader rather than conveying genuine thoughts.

What is the significance of using one's real voice in a college essay?

Using one's real voice allows the admissions officers to get a glimpse of the applicant's personality. It makes the essay conversational and authentic, as if the applicant is speaking directly to the reader.

What are some common grammar mistakes to watch out for in college essays?

The script mentions dangling modifiers as a common grammar mistake. It suggests having someone review the essay to ensure it sounds like the writer and to catch any grammatical errors.

Why did the speaker choose to write about volcanoes for their college essay?

The speaker chose the topic of volcanoes because they believed any topic could make for a good essay if written well. They connected it to their AP Environmental Science class to create a compelling narrative.

What is the speaker's opinion on cliché topics in college essays?

The speaker advises to avoid cliché topics like sports injuries, death, and divorce, as they often result in similar statements across many essays, making it difficult for any single essay to stand out.

How can a unique or unusual topic be effective in a college essay?

A unique or unusual topic can be effective if it is connected to the applicant's personality and experiences, creating a narrative that showcases their interests and passions.

What resource does the speaker recommend for essay reviews?

The speaker recommends NextAdmit.com, where they have reviewed over 1,000 essays, for students seeking reviews from Harvard or MIT students.

Outlines

00:00

📚 Show, Don't Tell: Crafting a Memorable College Essay

The speaker, Gohar, an MIT senior, reflects on the stress of writing a compelling college essay during the 2016-2017 application season. She emphasizes the importance of 'showing, not telling' to engage the reader and create a vivid, memorable narrative. Gohar advises against merely stating interests or qualities, such as liking biology or working hard, without providing evidence or a compelling story. Instead, she suggests using storytelling techniques to paint a picture and make the essay more interesting. She also recommends avoiding excessive use of adverbs, adjectives, and descriptions, and suggests a balance between storytelling and direct telling towards the middle and end of the essay.

05:00

🔍 The Pickup Test: Ensuring Uniqueness in Your Essay

Gohar introduces the 'Pickup Test' as a method to ensure the uniqueness of one's essay. She advises students to imagine their essay among a pile of others without any names, and to ask if a friend could identify it as theirs based on the content alone. If not, she suggests revising the essay to include more specific details that could only be attributed to the writer, such as proper nouns instead of generic terms. This specificity helps to avoid blending in with other essays and makes the application memorable to admissions officers. She also warns against using generic or grandiose statements and encourages authenticity in writing, as opposed to trying to impress with fancy words or irrelevant quotes.

🎨 Authenticity and Creativity in College Essays

Continuing her advice, Gohar stresses the importance of using one's real voice in the college essay, discouraging the use of a thesaurus to find fancier words or complex sentence structures. She advises that the essay should sound conversational, as if the student is speaking directly to the admissions officer. Gohar also cautions against cliché topics and encourages creativity, sharing her own experience of writing an essay about volcanoes that connected to her interests and showcased her personality. She emphasizes the need for a personal connection to the topic and warns against common grammar mistakes, such as dangling modifiers, which she noticed frequently in essays she reviewed.

👀 Seeking Feedback and Additional Resources

In the final paragraph, Gohar offers her support for students seeking feedback on their essays, suggesting that friends, family members, or teachers can provide valuable insights. She also mentions a service at nextadmit.com, where she and other Harvard or MIT students have reviewed over 1,000 essays, offering a resource for students looking for professional review. She encourages students to comment if they want a follow-up video and signs off with well-wishes for their essay writing.

Keywords

💡College Essay

A college essay is a piece of writing that students submit as part of their college applications. It serves as an opportunity for the applicant to showcase their personality, experiences, and writing skills beyond the numbers in their application. In the video, the speaker discusses the stress of writing the perfect college essay and provides tips to make it memorable and personal.

💡Show, Don't Tell

This is a common writing advice that emphasizes the importance of demonstrating a point through specific actions, thoughts, and dialogue rather than just stating it. In the context of the video, the speaker uses this concept to advise students to engage the reader by painting a picture with their words, making the essay more compelling than just stating facts or preferences.

💡Memorable

Memorable refers to something that is worth remembering and leaves a lasting impression. The video's theme revolves around creating an essay that stands out among the hundreds that admissions officers read. The speaker suggests using storytelling and imagery to make the essay memorable and avoid generic details.

💡Pickup Test

The pickup test is a method to ensure the uniqueness and personal touch in an essay. It involves imagining if someone could pick up the essay from a pile and recognize it as the writer's own based on the content. The speaker uses this concept to encourage specificity and personalization in the essay to avoid blending in with others.

💡Generic Details

Generic details are common elements or descriptions that could apply to anyone and do not add a unique touch to the essay. The speaker warns against using such details, as they can make the essay blend in with others and be easily forgotten by admissions officers. Instead, specific and personal details should be used to make the essay stand out.

💡Grandiose Truisms

Grandiose truisms are broad, sweeping statements that are often seen as cliché or overused. The speaker advises against using such statements in the essay, as they can weaken the writing and come across as an attempt to impress rather than genuinely express oneself.

💡Real Voice

Using one's real voice in writing means expressing thoughts and ideas in a way that is natural and authentic to the writer. The speaker emphasizes the importance of being genuine in the college essay, advising against using fancy words or complex sentences that do not reflect the student's natural speaking style.

💡Cliché Topics

Cliché topics refer to subjects that have been overused in essays, such as sports injuries, death, and divorce. The speaker mentions these as examples of topics that are difficult to make unique because they have been written about so often that they tend to blend together in the minds of admissions officers.

💡Personal Connection

A personal connection is a link between the topic of the essay and the writer's own experiences or personality. The speaker uses the example of writing about volcanoes to illustrate how even unconventional topics can be compelling if they have a personal meaning or connection to the writer.

💡Grammar Mistakes

Grammar mistakes are errors in the structure of sentences that can detract from the quality of writing. The speaker points out common grammar mistakes, such as dangling modifiers, as pitfalls to avoid in the essay to ensure clarity and professionalism in writing.

💡Review

Reviewing an essay involves having someone else read and provide feedback on the writing. The speaker suggests having a friend, family member, or teacher review the essay to ensure it sounds authentic and to catch any errors. This process is crucial for refining the essay before submission.

Highlights

The importance of showing rather than telling in college essays to engage the reader and paint a vivid picture.

The author's personal experience of staying up late to perfect their college essay during the 2016-2017 application season.

Observations from reviewing hundreds of essays to identify memorable and forgettable traits.

The 'show, don't tell' advice reiterated for its significance in essay writing.

Balancing storytelling with a moderate use of descriptive language to avoid overdoing it.

The 'Pickup Test' as a method to ensure essays are personalized and unique to the writer.

The risk of blending in with others if essays contain generic details.

Using specific details and proper nouns to make an essay more personal.

Avoiding generic or grandiose truisms that weaken the essay's impact.

The necessity of using one's real voice in the college essay to sound authentic.

Avoiding the use of a thesaurus to replace words with fancier alternatives.

The essay as a place where the applicant's real voice can shine through to admissions officers.

The freedom to be creative in essay structure and style, deviating from the traditional five-paragraph essay.

The pitfalls of choosing cliché topics and the difficulty of standing out when they are overused.

The author's personal anecdote of writing a successful essay on an unconventional topic—volcanoes.

The advice that any topic can make for a good essay if written compellingly.

The importance of connecting the essay topic to the applicant's personality or interests.

Common grammar mistakes to watch out for, such as dangling modifiers.

The suggestion to have someone review the essay to ensure it sounds like the applicant.

An offer for essay review services by Harvard or MIT students through nextadmit.com.

Transcripts

i remember how stressful it was trying

to write the perfect college essay for

context my name is gohar i'm an mit

senior and i was applying to college

back in 2016-2017

i remember staying up so late on

countless nights trying to perfect my

essay

and honestly it wasn't really towards

the end of admission season when i had a

piece that i was proud of

and also this past admission season i

went through hundreds of college essays

and i found these same mistakes over and

over

and over again i am not an admissions

officer

but once you begin to read hundreds and

hundreds of essays

you do get a sense of which ones are

more memorable and which ones kind of

faded away

so number one my best tip would be to

show and not

tell you have probably heard this piece

of advice hundreds of times already

but it's so important to engage the

reader and to paint a picture in your

essay

if you're just stating facts like i like

biology i like to work hard

you're not providing evidence or a

compelling story to back up what you say

on the other hand if you tell a story

about you in the lab working on a

biology experiment

your essay is going to be 10 times more

interesting

now of course you don't want to overdo

it with adverbs and adjectives and

descriptions

and you do want a little bit of telling

towards the middle and end of the essay

but the point is to tell a story to

include imagery

and to create a very vivid memorable

essay

my second piece of advice is to run the

pickup test on your essay

now imagine your essay was in a pile of

essays on the ground

and also imagine that none of these

essays have any names on them

if your friend were to pick your essay

up would they be able to tell that you

wrote it

if your answer to this question is no

you have to go back to your essay

omit the more generic details and make

sure the details that you include

are so specific that they could only be

attributed to you

and think about it if your essay is

filled with generic details

your piece will blend in with everyone

else's and admissions officers might

forget about your application

for example instead of saying i walked

to the store tell us which store you

went to

where you were why were you walking to

the store something as little as using

proper nouns instead of just staying

store

can help make your essay more personal

and unique to you

number three avoid generic or grandiose

truisms in your essay

for example statements like you should

live life to the fullest you only live

once maybe using these sorts of

statements once or twice is fine

but if your essay is filled with a bunch

of generic sweeping statements like this

it weakens your writing and it almost

comes across as if you're trying too

hard to impress the reader

and this leads me to my fourth point

make sure to use your real voice in your

college essay

don't pull out the thesaurus and try to

replace every word with the fancier word

don't try to flex how complex and windy

and long your sentences can be

and there's also no need to fill your

essay with a bunch of old irrelevant

quotes your essay should be

conversational and it should sound as if

you are actually talking to the

admissions officer

your essays are the one place of your

application where your real voice can

shine through

and all the admissions officers want is

the glimpse of who you

are if you mask their perception with a

bunch of fancy words

they'll feel like they haven't gotten to

know you and therefore probably forget

about your application

and yes you can use contractions you

can't have paragraphs that are only one

sentence long

make sure that the structure of your

writing and the style of your writing

reflects how you speak

this is not your typical five paragraph

english essay so feel free to be a

little bit creative

also be sure to avoid cliche topics like

sports injury death and divorce

mission trips and so on while it is

possible to pull off these essays in a

unique way

a lot of the time most of the statements

that students make in these sorts of

essays

are very similar across the board so

when a college admissions officer reads

20 essays about sports injury

working hard recovering all of the

students really begin to blend together

and it becomes hard to pick out the one

that stands out the most

and in my opinion the craziest part

about college essays

is that even the craziest topics can

work for example when i was applying to

stanford i was super short on time

and i had heard this piece of advice

which was that any topic can make for a

good college essay

all that matters is how you write about

it so i took that challenge literally

and i ended up writing one of my college

essays about volcanoes

i took volcanoes i connected it to ap

environmental science

and i feel like i created a compelling

narrative that showcased my love for

nature and so on

just make sure the topic you choose you

can actually relate to and connect to

your personality

in some way don't just try to choose a

random object and craft an essay around

it

there has to be some sort of personal

meaning or connection to the metaphor

itself

next up watch out for common grammar

mistakes here's a list of the most

common ones that i noticed and

surprisingly dangling modifiers came up

very often next up make sure to have a

friend a family member or a teacher

review your essay

and ask them if it actually sounds like

you and if you'd like me

or another harvard or mit student to

review your essay head over to

nextadmit.com

link in my bio and we have already

looked at over 1 000 essays

best of luck writing yours comment if

you want a part 2 to this video

and i'll see you again next time