How to Write a College Application Essay: Expert Advice to Help You Get Into the College of Your Dreams
By Tania Runyan
()
About this ebook
For over 15 years, Tania Runyan has guided thousands of students in understanding, exploring, and crafting the college application essay—with winning results.
This guide explains what the college application essay is all about: why a student has to write it, the nature of this special writing project, when and how a student should start, and what can be learned about writing itself through this milestone process.
Providing everything a student needs to go from draft to polished essay, the instruction is straightforward, easy to apply, and inspiring. Woven throughout this engaging guide are illuminating quotes from admissions counselors who want to read just the kind of essays this book can help a student write.
Includes sample essays from students who got into the colleges of their dreams. Also features helpful samples for special situations like transfers. Invaluable resource!
Tania Runyan
Tania Runyan has served as an editor for Every Day Poems and is the author of four books of poetry, including A Thousand Vessels and Simple Weight. Her poems have appeared in many publications, including Poetry, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, and Southern Poetry Review. She received an NEA Literature fellowship in 2011.
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How to Write a College Application Essay - Tania Runyan
education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom
–george washington carver
•
•
field guide series
FG
How to Write a College
Application Essay
expert advice to help you
get into the college of your dreams
tania runyan
T. S. Poetry Press • New York
ts
T. S. Poetry Press
Ossining, New York
Tspoetry.com
© 2017, 1st Edition, by Tania Runyan
All rights reserved. Do not reprint without permission.
This book includes various references from or to the following companies, brands, and sources: Playtex, Playtex Products LLC; Lady Lee; McCormick
& Company; Volvo, The Volvo Group; Skype, a division of Microsoft;
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, J.P. Lippincott & Co. (1960); AP and SAT, divisions of The College Board; ACT; Adidas; Family Matters, ABC; Material Girl
by Madonna, Like A Virgin, Sire Records (1984); The New Yorker; The Common Application; Coalition for Access, Affordability &
Success; Walgreens; Purdue Online Writing Lab, https://owl.english.purdue.
edu/owl/; The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Scholastic (2008); Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Chatto and Windus (1932); Saving Tiny Hearts Foundation; Letter From Birmingham Jail
by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963); Black Boy by Richard Wright, Harper and Brothers (1945); Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Holt, Rinehart & Winston (1970); Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, Grove Press (1965); Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food, a trademark of Unilever; Post-it, a trademark of 3M; Steinway & Sons; Shedd Aquarium; Kumon North America; Don’t Stop Believing
by Journey,
Escape, Columbia (1981); The Super Bowl, NFL; Rolling in the Deep
by Adele, 21, XL/Columbia (2010); Lokeswarananda Eye Foundation;
Rush Medical Center; Public Allies; Greystone.
Cover image by L.L. Barkat
ISBN 978-1-943120-16-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:
Runyan, Tania
[Nonfiction/Writing.]
How to Write a College Application Essay:
Expert Advice to Help You Get Into the
College of Your Dreams, 1st Edition
ISBN 978-1-943120-16-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934530
for my past students, who in finding their voices
have helped me find my own
–tania runyan
Contents
An Introduction11
A Simple Start11
Canning Tomatoes, by Cathy Warner12
A Loss for Words, by Aaron Housholder14
Door, by Lauren Melissa15
Ghost in the Appliances, by L.L. Barkat18
1. What’s It All About?20
First Things First: Take It Off Your Stress List21
Learn What It’s About21
You Beyond the Numbers21
You As a Good Fit for the School22
You As a Writer23
2. So, What Kind of Writing is This?25
Never Ever Do These!26
Yes, Yes, Always Do These!28
3. A Closer Look at a Winning Application31
Blue Jeans, by Ben31
How Can You Write a Successful Essay Like Ben Did?34
4. Choosing a Topic38
Common Application Questions38
The Coalition for Access, Affordability
& Success Essay Prompts39
Open-Ended Questions40
School-Based Questions41
Oddball Questions42
So How Do I Start?42
Get Organized42
Choose a Topic43
5. Starting to Write46
Freewrite47
Highlight48
Outline49
Write a First Draft52
6. Revising, Editing, and Proofreading53
Revising Your First Draft54
Editing Your Revised Draft56
Proofreading Your Edited Draft58
7. School-Specific Essays60
Preparing to Write63
8. Final Thoughts67
Appendix A—How to Write a College Application
Essay: The Inspiration71
Appendix B—Common App Open-Ended Essay
Topic Brainstorming Worksheet72
Appendix C—Sample Essays74
Sample Personal Statements74
Communication in Training, by Eric C.,
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign74
A School to Call Home, by Natalie S.,
Montana State University76
A Tightrope Walker’s Final Trick, by Meghan D.,
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign79
It Comes With the Territory, by Ty G.,
University of Wisconsin-Madison81
A Knack for Teaching, by Kasia A.,
Purdue University 83
Stage Might, by Anvesh J.,
University of Illinois at Chicago 85
Checkmate, by Austin S.,
Clarkson University 87
Scars and All, by Haley M.,
Indiana University 89
Worth My Salt, by Chase F.,
Colorado State University 91
Culture from Color, by Nathaniel S.,
Illinois Wesleyan University 93
A Blend of Opposites, by Paige W.,
Duke University 94
A Symphony from Failures, by Mikowai A.,
Northwestern University 96
Sink or Adapt, by Amanda F.,
Loyola University Chicago 99
Sample School-Specific Essays101
Kate Z. (Vanderbilt), Vanderbilt University 101
Caley W. (USC), Miami University 103
Meghan D. (Georgetown), University of Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign104
Kate Z. (UOI), Vanderbilt University 105
Special Situations: Programs and Transfers107
A.D., Northwestern University
Honors Program in Medical Education107
Sydney S., Boston University Honors Program112
Alli V., Notre Dame University
Honors Program114
Tyler A., University of Arizona115
Notes118
Permissions124
An Introduction
I’ve guided thousands of students and parents over the years who believe the college application essay is just another form amidst the dizzying pile of paperwork (or digital fields) that must be filled out, submitted, and quantified.
Without a doubt, you’ve amassed a lot of data over your high school years: grades, test scores, and activity lists. But the application essay? That’s your time to shine, to truly be you. To—get ready for this—have fun.
In this guide, we’ll be exploring what the college application essay is all about. Why do you have to write it? What kind of writing is it? When and how should you start? What can you learn about writing—and yourself—through this milestone process?
Meanwhile, the best way to prepare as a college-bound student—or a teacher of one—is to get a taste for excellent short-form autobiographical writing (often called flash
nonfiction or shorts
). Still months or years away from your
senior year? You can start this part of the application process at any time. It’s never too early to get inspired by good prose!
A Simple Start
Read and savor the following short autobiographical essays. These pieces were written by published authors, not college applicants, and demonstrate the key qualities of narrative writing that you’ll be developing in your personal statements. Imagine the settings, voices, actions, and people. Go where the writers take your senses. Feel all the feels
—sadness, humor, frustration, embarrassment—of the narrators as you prepare to express yourself in a way that will make schools want to nab you. What will make them desire to get to know you better over the next four years? For starters, good prose.
~
Canning Tomatoes
by Cathy Warner
My mother and I crouch in a tomato field off Road 98, pulling and twisting red globes from thick hairy stalks, gently setting them into generic black yard bags that we heft down the rows, bumping against our bare calves, which are yellow from the tomatoes’ pollen sweat and the pesticide powder that pours in vapor trails from the belly of the crop dusters early in the season.
It’s late August in the Sacramento Valley and the automatic harvesting machine manned by its crew of migrant workers will roll through this field tomorrow. Today, the farmer and his wife—parents of my high school friend—have invited my freshly-divorced mother and me to pick our fill.
So, like post-biblical gleaners in the growing heat, we fill our plastic bags with thick-skinned canning tomatoes and load them into the back of my mother’s Pinto until, wiping the sweat from our faces with the backs of our sticky yellowed garden gloves, my mother decides we’ve picked enough.
I wince as I sit on the hot vinyl car seat, my dusty thighs burning. My mother starts the car and we thump down the dirt
access alongside an irrigation ditch toward the asphalt road, the windows open, the dust and tang of hot tomatoes filling our nostrils.
At home, wearing yellow Playtex gloves, we wash,