By
CampusNut Staff
, CampusNut.com
Writing the Perfect College Essay
Okay, the title of this piece was to draw you to this article. The truth is that it was a bit gimmicky and led you to believe something about this article that probably won’t be true. Let’s be honest. Unlike the SATs where there is a perfect score of 1600 or the transcript that has all As, there is no such thing as a perfect college essay. Like figure skating and gymnastic, your essay performance is up to the judges. Perhaps, these admissions officers have some mysterious scoring system where the high score and low score get eliminated (damn, that admissions officer from Hungary always gives low scores), but the truth is that you cannot write that perfect essay.
The college application essay is probably one of the more intimidating parts of the college application process. But it is probably one of the most important facets for admissions to a competitive school. By the time you are a high school senior, you hear stories about a borderline kid who gets into some Ivy League school because he submitted a blank essay to the question, “Can you define the most courageous thing you have ever done?” Gee… that is mighty original. Believe me, that doesn’t happen.
Remember that there were plenty of great gymnasts who never scored a perfect 10. That doesn’t mean that they didn’t take home the gold medal. No matter how well you write your essay, it is not going to be perfect. If you submit 3 essays to a school that receives 10,000 applications, that’s 30,000 essays. That being said, you can make your essay stand out and improve your chances for admissions.
The essay should be an opportunity for you to display the personal side of you that is not reflected by other aspects of your application process. This doesn’t mean that you should submit a diary. No matter how interesting your life may be, the admissions officers don’t need to know your whole life story. However, you should have a main idea or a thesis to your story. Like all essays, there should be plenty of evidence to support your thesis; your story should be coherent, concise, organized, and grammatically correct.
