The Perfect Essay

It doesn't run much longer than 500 words, shorter than most high-school English assignments. Yet for so many students the essay remains the most daunting part of the college-application process, perhaps because it is the only part over which they can exert almost total control. As a result, they procrastinate, assuring that the anxiety will ratchet up to fever pitch.

 

Buy the Guide

Learn More About the SAT and ACT

Take Free Practice Tests, Quizzes and More

Build a Great Application Package

Find Out More About Online Degree Programs

Join the Conversation About College Admissions

Kaplan Guide on Facebook

Enter to Win $25,000!

For Newsweek's Full Coverage, Click Here

 

So how best to approach the essay? I sought advice from experts with, collectively, more than a century of experience in the admissions game: Susan Case, former director of college counseling at the elite, private Milton Academy outside Boston; Charles Deacon, dean of admissions at Georgetown University; Karen Kuskin-Smith, retired head of college counseling at Brookline High School in suburban Boston; Jim Miller, dean of admission at Brown University; and Nanette Tarbouni, who just retired as director of undergraduate admissions at Washington University in St. Louis.

There is no such thing as a perfect essay: OK, maybe Mark Twain or John Updike wrote one. But you don't want to use those (or anyone else's, for that matter). If your essay is a masterpiece, you'd better have the credentials to back it up. Mostly, admissions folks want to see that you can forge a beginning and an end—and between the two carry coherent thoughts through several paragraphs.

Start early.
You have plenty of time to think during the spring, when you are traveling to 25 different campuses, or the summer, while you are performing some brain-dead job. The weight of the essay grows exponentially the longer you wait. Coming up with the essay topic is one place where parents may actually be useful, helping you recall experiences and reflecting on your special qualities. Tarbouni suggests writing a few sentences for several prospective essays. Let them percolate for a few weeks; then whichever makes you want to read the next sentence is the winner. Or, as Miller says: "Pick something you know, trust your instincts, write about it, and get on with your life."

Avoid the clichéd.
Some experiences that are important to you may be all too familiar to the admissions folks. Avoid the big trip where you learn it's a small world after all, or the big game where you learn it doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. Even a death or divorce, as tragic or sad as it may be, can come across as emotionally stale if all it reveals is how you persevered. Avoid big issues—"Too many people save the world," says Kuskin-Smith—unless you really are on the verge of a solution to global warming.