Wed, Mar 20, 2024 11:30 AM

College essays are a chance for your student to show off who they really are to their potential colleges. While some students write about a sports injury or overcoming adversity, other students stand out in a sea of applicants with creative writing that showcases their personality and character.

Your student needs to avoid common essay topics and themes at all costs to stand out against the tough competition. Some of the best college admissions essays are creative stories used to impact the reader’s emotions. Have your student write about something unique to them and use plenty of descriptive language. While the college wants to know who the student is and what their story is, they do not want to read about anything too personal/overused such as: toxic relationships, family substance abuse issues, or a last-minute buzzer beater that kept their sports team from winning the state tournament.

To ensure your student’s essay is up to college level standards, have them get their essay checked by their teachers to ensure it is smooth to read with no grammatical errors. Have your student get feedback from friends and family about what they could potentially add or change. Don’t allow anyone, to over edit the essay because college admissions representatives can pick out an essay that has been polished or worse yet written by someone else. Let your student’s essay showcase the terrific person they are and in doing so, increase their chances of getting admitted to their future college.

With the increase in AI becoming more prevalent, students are starting to use ChatGPT to write their college admissions essays. I can assure you this is not only frowned upon by admissions, but also not your student’s authentic voice and story. Colleges are very aware that this technology exists and are implementing ways to check for it and in some cases will require additional writing samples from a student. Please remind your son or daughter to not use any AI service to write their college admissions essay(s) – believe me – it will not work out in their favor.

Does your son or daughter need help on their essays?  Having read thousands of college essays over the past 18 years – I know a thing or two about what colleges are looking for. Scheduling a FREE 15-minute Discovery Zoom Meeting with me today to help your student get moving on their essay!

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