Here's a scary thought: Adding an essay to the admission requirements at Swarthmore College this year is the likely culprit for a 16 percent drop in admission.  
   Yep, your college essay -- the very thing that's supposed to set you apart from the crowd, show who your really are and give you the chance to shine -- was scary enough to actually turn students away.
   At the same time, the University of Pennsylvania, which asked for one less essay from this year's applicants, saw a 15 percent increase in applications.
   “Twice as many essays at twice the length was too much,” one student who decided against applying told the Philadelphia Inquirer.
   Swarthmore plans to require only one 250-word supplemental essay next year, the newspaper reports.
   There's a lesson to be learned here. (Yes, there's "a lesson to be learned" everywhere.) Your college essay certainly is important -- it's critical, some would argue -- and it's worth the effort. For those students who might have applied to Swarthmore, and gotten in, they've lost a significant experience in their lives that they can't ever reclaim.
   I counsel students all the time to shun cliches in their essays, but I'll break my own rule here. It's worth the effort to really go for something you really want. Sure, some of those students won't ever miss not attending Swarthmore, but some will. They'll miss the life experiences, the campus activities and the lifelong friends they would have made there.
   Something worthwhile is worth going for, working working for, worth making the effort for. Writing a quality college essay is hard work. But for some, it was a cop-out to skip their Swarthmore application over an additional essay.
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   "Starting college essays with a bang is fundamentally important."
   Insightful words written on The Ivy Coach blog.
   "You need to grab that college admissions counselor by the shoulders right away and let them know that you’re different, that this college essay isn’t going to be like the previous 200. This college essay is going to be different."
   I earned my "editing chops" in the newspaper business, where editors -- my editors when I was a young cub reporter and then me when I began editing others -- would stress the beginning of an article, the lead (or the "lede," in newspaper jargon). It's got to grab the reader, I'd say, If you don't grab the reader from the beginning, if he or she reads the first couple of words and then turns to another story, they're lost, no matter how important that article is.
   Same with your essay. No matter how good it is, no matter how well it's written or what window it opens on your true self, if that admission counselor is bored after the first sentence or two, your odds of getting into the "yes" pile just dropped dramatically.
   "Most college applicants just don’t know how to do this," according to The Ivy Coach blog. "They don’t know what’s compelling. They don’t know how to change peoples’ emotions through their writing. They haven’t honed their craft enough to understand just how to do that."
   Those are the things you need to learn to do.

***
   Beware of the pitfalls of college-essay writing, advises Carol Barash.
   Barash -- founder and CEO of Story To College, a college-prep service -- uses her blog to warn of 10 traps to avoid when writing your college essay. Here's a sampling:

• Don't rehash your academic and extracurricular accomplishments. "Your school work and out-of-school work already show up in your transcript and lists of awards and activities. Essays provide another dimension."
• Don't pontificate. "Do not ever tell other people what they should think. Don’t plead your case. Don’t be right or make someone else wrong. It’s great to be engaged in activist work, but show yourself doing the work rather than using your essay as a platform to make your case."
• Don't show your essay to too many people. "Share prudently. Students often show their essays to teachers, counselors, parents and friends. Each person has a different idea about what you 'should' write, and before you know it you’ve lost the heart of the essay that’s your unique spirit."

Arnie Rosenberg is the founder of The Center for Essay Excellence. He writes regularly about college essays and their importance to the college-admission process. Contact him at [email protected].

                                                                                                                      
                                                         © 2014  The Center for Essay Excellence

   "A robot's not reading your essay," David Richard tells us in a recent video. "An actual person is reading your essay."
   In a way that sounds silly, of course, but he makes an important point. Richard, speaking on his David Richard's Admission video blog, stresses that you need something to set yourself apart, something that grabs the attention of an admissions counselor.
   "A lot of students write essays that are boring and are way too conservative," he says. "It could be the perfect essay, but if it's not exciting, if it's not readable . . . just think how you would respond from reading that essay. Would you be engaged? No."

Watch the video here:

***  
   Just like David Letterman, Allen Grove has a Top Ten list.
   Writing on his College Admissions blog on About.com, Grove provides not only an insightful list of the Top Ten style mistakes students make in their college essays, he follows each with helpful examples. Here's a glimpse at his list (with my italics for his highlights)

• Wordiness and repetition: I have to admit that theater did not come naturally to me, and I remember that I felt remarkably self conscious and nervous the first few times I set foot on the state.
• Clichés: My brother is one in a million. If given a responsibility, he never falls asleep at the wheel.
• Overuse of flowery language: The game was spectacularly wonderful. I didn't score the defining goal, but I did manage dexterously to pass the ball to my amazingly talented teammate, who adroitly kicked it between the goalie's desperately reaching fingers and the rigid frame of the right-hand corner of the goal.

   Whew! Check out the rest of the list on Grove's blog.
***
   "A great essay takes you from being just another kid among many with great qualifications and moves you to an applicant an admissions officer will lobby for."
   That's the opinion of Kevin McMullen, founder and head of counseling at Collegewise, a division of The Princeton Review. Writing on the Collegewise blog, McMullin argues that college essays do matter, but how much depends on both the school and the student.
   If your application speaks for itself and the admissions officer envisions you on campus -- and there's room -- then your essay is less important. But the more selective college, the more qualified applicants there are in the poll, McMullin says, and "admissions officers have to make distinctions about students that go beyond those qualities listed on an application."
   "Essays rarely change an admissions officer’s mind if your qualifications aren’t up to the college’s standards," he writes. "When essays do sway the vote in those cases, it’s usually because they reveal a significant hardship or other life circumstance that explains the inconsistencies."


Arnie Rosenberg is the founder of The Center for Essay Excellence. He writes regularly about college essays and their importance to the college-admission process. Contact him at [email protected].

                                                                                                                      
                                                         © 2014  The Center for Essay Excellence

     As many of you struggle to find the right subject, title, topic and tone for your college essay, take to heart these simple words from the Undergraduate Admissions office of Johns Hopkins University: "The most important thing to remember is to be original and creative as you share your own story with us."
   There's a lot contained in that one sentence, so study it, particularly four key words. There are endless subtleties to the words "original," "creative," "share" and "story."
   Make your essay your own work; let your creative juices flow, and don't let anyone -- parents, teachers, counselors, friends -- push you into doing your essay their way; think of "sharing" your experience, your activity, your life, with the admissions officer; and remember that you're telling a "story." This isn't a book report, an academic paper or a thesis. Think of your essay as a story you're telling a friend, and open yourself up with a voice that reveals the real you.
   The Johns Hopkins Admissions office has offered up four "essays that worked," essays that helped get students be admitted to the Class of 2017.
   "These selections represent just a few examples of essays we found impressive and helpful during the past admissions cycle," the admissions office writes.
   I certainly agree that there's some impressive work here. But don't read these as templates to "follow." Instead, use them to get your own creative juices flowing.
   Check them out.
***
   Lee Bierer has a simple formula for success on your college essay: 2+2=4. Well, I simplified it a bit, but the concept is straightforward and quite uncomplicated: Come up with your topic, what you want to say and how you want to say it; peruse the five Common App prompts to see where it best fits; put the two together and you've got your essay.
   Certainly easier said than done, but it's a reliable road map to success.
   Writing in her Countdown to College column in the Charlotte Observer, Bierer, president of College Admissions Strategies, urges rising seniors to get started now.
   "Their grades through junior year are set, and while they may be able to improve their test scores in the fall, it’s the essay where they can truly put the spotlight on their personality," she writes.
   Step 1, she says, is brainstorming: Find a quiet place where you can think and write, away from distractions. Free-write some thoughts on different or defining moments you’ve had. Have you moved? Did you choose to become vegan? Ask yourself, “What do I want colleges to know about me?” This is a great time to think about what is important to you and how you have changed or matured over the last several years.
   Step 2: Read the prompts and see where your writing fits. "Think beyond the literal interpretations for each prompt, i.e., something so central to your identity doesn’t have to be your race, family background or your socioeconomic level. It can be a value or a characteristic that truly defines who you are."
   It's as simple as that.
***
    Your college essay, according to The Princeton Review, is "a unique opportunity that can make a difference at decision time." Sure.
  But the the test-preparation and college-admission services company doesn't pull any punches, either, in describing one of the biggest pitfalls rising seniors face when they begin (seriously) thinking about this daunting task.
    "Admissions officers have to read an unbelievable number of essays, most of which are banal and forgettable," The Princeton Review writes on its College Essay page. "Many students try to sound smart rather than sounding like themselves. Others write about a subject that they don't care about, but that they think will impress admissions officers."
   Don't fall into that trap.
   "You don't need to have started a company or discovered a lost Mayan temple," the company writes. "Colleges are simply looking for thoughtful, motivated students who will add something to the freshman class."

Arnie Rosenberg is the founder of The Center for Essay Excellence. He writes regularly about college essays and their importance to the college-admission process. Contact him at [email protected].

                                                                                                                      
                                                         © 2014  The Center for Essay Excellence