Six Tips for Your 500 Word College Essay
Writing a 500 word college essay is a part of the college application that lots of students postpone and obsess about. Don’t. Here are some ways to make your college essay more fun and creative, and position yourself to get into your dream college. . .
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- Pick a topic that means something important to you. I know one student who wrote about how hard it was for her to stop studying the piano when she was in high school. Sounds like a downer, right? But the topic was so meaningful to her that she was able to write a compelling essay about making difficult choices and defining her own life priorities. So as you pick a topic, start by asking, “Does this topic really mean something important to me?” rather than, “Will this topic appeal to colleges?”
- Dig down into your topic. I was once tutoring a young woman who wanted to write about her experiences as a cheerleader – how she loved being part of a team and visiting other schools. But as I talked with her, she mentioned that she was one of the cheerleaders who got thrown high into the air during the routines. All I did was express a little interest in that sub-theme, and she was off and running with lots of ideas about how getting thrown into the air taught her about trusting others, bravery, overcoming her fears, caring for others and lots more. So the lesson is, dig deeper into your topic. Don’t write about how your soccer team was a lot of fun. Write about how it was a forum where you helped someone else deal with a problem, or learned to work well with difficult people by playing for a less-than-stellar coach. Don’t skim the surface, dig as deep into your topic as you can for important lessons that you can write about.
- Highlight something positive that you learned. Okay, this might be a little deceptive. But colleges don’t want to read about an experience that made you miserable. They want to see how you overcame a problem, learned something important or absorbed some other positive lesson. If you can’t find a fairly upbeat message in the topic you are considering, think about picking another subject.
- Remember, you are in the driver’s seat. Sure your dad thinks you should write about the time you got moved up onto your town’s traveling softball team and your mom thinks you should write about the time you scraped your knee when you were in the Brownies, but shake `em off! This is your time to be in control. Also: Let your parents or guidance counselor proofread your essay, but not reorganize or edit it. College admissions people read so many essays that they can sniff out those that were cleaned up by adults and it WILL work against you. Remember, an essay that is a little rough around the edges can work better for you than one that has been sanitized by well-meaning adults.
- Think carefully about whether all your colleges should get the same 500 word college essay. Sure, it’s a lot of work to write more than one essay, but remember, colleges use essays to pick students who fit best into their communities. If you’re applying to Oberlin and Evergreen, for example, you might want to write something for them about how you became an environmentalist or an outdoorsy person. If you’re applying to Gettysburg, you might want to let them know about your intense interest in the Civil War. So think twice before you take the easy way out and send the same essay to all your schools. Investing a few extra hours to write something that speaks directly to colleges can be time well spent.
- Avoid these killer essay topics that make college admissions officers groan. You have probably read about these topics somewhere else too. But since they are important, let me restate them here.
- Don’t write about the death of a parent or grandparent, unless you have something extraordinarily unusual to say about it.
- Don’t write about a big life discovery you made while you were high or drunk.
- Don’t write about how you won the winning goal in the big game.
- Don’t write about a wonderful pet that taught you all about life.
And above all, try to have fun!
Unless you are interviewing at schools, your 500 word college essay is your one chance to tell colleges who you really are. So try to have fun with it. After all, you are an unusual and unique person, right? Use your essay to tell the world.
