How to Write a US College Admissions Essay
The U.S. college obsession is not limited to U.S. students. Top universities across the country are eager to have students from all over the world, and those students are just as eager to study here. If you’re a foreign student wondering how to write the ideal U.S. college admissions essay—even if you haven’t so much as visited the United States before—you’re in the right place.
What the Essay Needs
The U.S. college admissions essay is not going to be the same for any school where you might apply. But there is significant overlap in both prompts and style. A handful of competitive private colleges have returned to using their own proprietary applications, but the vast majority are still accepting the Common Application. Get to know the prompts to help you find the piece of your life story that will be most effective for your essay. And no matter what prompt you’re working with, stick to these guidelines for the kind of essay U.S. colleges want to read.
Tell a Story
The U.S. college admissions essay is not a research report or a philosophical treatise. It’s not just a story, either—but if you fail to include any story at all, you’re going to bore your reader and fail to convey who you are. As schools like to remind you, “real people” are reading your essays. They want to believe that you are a real person, too. Stories—whether long one about a major life event or short anecdotes around a common theme—convey your reality a lot more effectively than a scholarly essay that aims to demonstrate how smart you are. Let your transcripts and test scores tell the story of your academic success. Let your essay introduce you as a person.
Be Personal
You are not unique. OK, I know, you’re the “one and only ever you,” but on the whole, you have a lot more in common with your peers than not. If you are applying to an American university and you’re not American, that gives you a bit of an edge in the unusual department, but still, not remotely unique (that’s one-of-a-kind).
So don’t write your essay in a voice that sounds careful or academic. The reader really does want to know who you are. You don’t need to know or use any slang to sound real or personal—but let who you are come through in the story. If you’re writing in your second language, you will inherently lose some voice in the translation, so do your best to make up for it in personal details that make your story feel real to the reader.
Don’t just say you “played games with your cousins”—say that you had cribbage and Monopoly tournaments. Don’t just say you “loved getting snacks on your way home from school”—describe the sandwich you always bought. These details aren’t “important,” but they’re personal.
Write Naturally
Again, I am focused on language. English Language Learners I have worked with tend to use a more formal written style—which makes sense, as they learned classroom English. They also have a tendency, as much as they are able, to use high-level, sometimes archaic (out-of-date), vocabulary. While using quality language is a great goal, it can also sound overdone. Try to read some American newspaper columns, or articles in magazines like the Atlantic or the New Yorker, for examples of high-quality writing that still sounds relaxed. A U.S. college admissions essay should sound like you could read and listen to it comfortably out loud.
Grow Up
The goal of a US college admissions essay is, in large part, to demonstrate your capacity to grow and change. If you read the essay prompts carefully, you will see that the majority are specifically targeted to a story that shows you learning from your mistakes or growing through challenges. Don’t assume, though, that you need to write from the position that you are now grown up and successful—that your mistakes are all in the past. That wouldn’t be believable! Be honest about a particular struggle and reflect on how that struggle has made you better. You are every day better—but not yet a finished product. If you were finished, you wouldn’t need college.
In Conclusion
The secrets to a solid U.S. college admissions essay are surprisingly simple. Your application as a whole should already be demonstrating that you will be successful at their school. Let your essay show the school the kind of person you are, and why that person will be a perfect member of their community.
