To all you college students/graduates...

[ThaitaniumGK]

Ok so i'm going to apply to college ... the only thing i have left to do is the college essay... now i've asked numorous teachers on what to base it on.. and they all have given me the same answer.. "your life, yourself, blah blah".. the thing is.. i have an idea of what to write.. but i can't put it all into words.. does anybody here have any samples or layouts on how to write one? how long should it be? what to put and what not to put? The ideas i have so far.. would be me going to school in thailand every summer for 3 years straight learning my language, how it feels to live in the country side, and how different the culture is from america.. and so on.. but i don't know how to start it!! ahhh.. Its pretty late that i just started applying for college since i just graduated like last week.. so idk either.. i'm such a procastinator.. any suggestions>?

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[CdnSilverStreak]

I know how you feel. Getting started is always the hardest part.

I had to do one of those "life story" things as a major assignment here at my Uni. Essentially, I talked about similar stuff that you described; my trip to the Philippines, living out in the country, different culture, meeting family, etc. etc.

M suggestion would be to start off with a brief intro of yourself, and let the ideas flow from there. You'll probably find that once you've cleared the first hurdle, the rest of your ideas will simply flow into words.

Hope this helps dude.

[vietfob714]

yeah... brainstorm... write stuff that'll be interesting that would only apply to u and wat u learned from it .... once u get goin... it'll be cake. I wrote mine on how i wanted to be in the Olympics for tkd... but then i saw a guy die in front of my eyes from a kick to the head... then i concentrated on my studies... graduating from UCI w/ Bio BS SATURDAY!!! WOO HOO!

[monkey]

are you doing a general app? cuz most colleges supply a few topics for you.

mine was about how my childhood goals in life have changed or haven't changed. i wrote about wanting to be a ballerina and then changing over to my current and most long-running goal: to have a dive boat and take people out snorkeling and diving. i'm an english major and i really love creative writing, so i tried to be as unique with my paper as i could be.

that's probably one of the most important things you can do: be creative and set yourself apart. make yourself memorable.

my essay was a mix of narrative, poetry and straight traditional essay. when i got my acceptance letter, on the bottom there was a hand-written note from the woman who reviewed my app and she said she really loved my essay.


anyway, i'd suggest browsing college applications for a good question that would interest all of the colleges you are applying to. that way you don't have to kill yourself just coming up with a question. from there, just do a lot of drafting, and have friends read over it for feedback.

as for length, mine was about 6 pages but that was a little long. I think you can get away with four.

good luck!

[daydreamer]

personally...i would start out with the language...actually use some as an attention getter...iunno though...its just a thought

[ricergribbs]

ok well heres an idea. sit down and start writing. dont think just write about urself. just write whatever comes into your head. then when your done put it away. the next day look it over and fix any errors and edit it etc etc. grammar spelling all that stuff... then send it in.

[white2K2EX]

I hate to be a jerk, but if you just graduated last week, you're going to be wasting your time sending in applications right now. May 1 is the day that basically every soon-to-be college student has to make their final decision as to which college they'll be attending.

At this point, it's safe to assume you'll be taking a semester - or maybe a year - off. Get some applications and they'll have topics. Many of them will have something like "What do you feel is your greatest achievement?" You could write about the things you listed earlier, but there are two important things. 1) ATTENTION GETTER. Within the first paragraph, you have to capture the attention of the reader. If you don't, they're not going to give a shit about reading your paper. 2) Don't ramble. Your essay should be no more than two pages. Any longer, and they'll get burnt out. These people read the essays all day long. If yours is too long, they'renot going to want to read it.