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What Do "They"
Look For? |
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Admissions officers review numerous
applications, frequently reading as many as fifty per day. Although it's
impossible to predict exactly what a particular college is looking for
in its applicants, colleges generally want to admit a mix of students
who can handle the academic workload and make a positive contribution to
the college experience--for themselves and for their classmates.
To get a favorable reaction from
admissions officers, your application should demonstrate:
- Serious intent to pursue a
college-level education
- Genuine desire to attend the
particular college
- Correspondence between your
abilities and interests and what the school needs and has to offer
- Ability to think clearly, logically,
and creatively
- Ability to write engaging,
thoughtful essays that keep your reader's attention and
differentiate you from the other applicants
What Admissions Officers Look For
You
The person behind the GPA, the test scores, the extracurricular
activities, and even the mailing address.
Surprise
An unexpected angle on your topic, even if the experience you're
writing about seems ordinary.
Genuineness
Writing as yourself, without pretension and without taking yourself
too seriously; relying on your own vocabulary, rather than the thesaurus
or the words your parents think you should use. Simply stated, lying can
provide grounds for automatic rejection. No matter how confident you are
that you won't get caught, never fudge the facts in an essay or on any
other part of your application.
Thoughtfulness
Consideration of your experiences and their meanings, both to
yourself and to others, and showing through your reflection that nothing
is lost on you.
How To Help Them Find It
Think About Who Your Audience Is
Five or six recent graduates of the college you're applying to and
an experienced director of admissions, all of whom have spent the last
month reading thousands of applications. This is an overworked audience
on whom your essay needs to make a vivid and memorable impression.
Think About Your Purpose
Not ''selling yourself '' or ''getting in,'' but simply being
yourself--which usually means writing about yourself in human, rather
than superhuman, terms. For example, if your transcript reveals that you
are a stellar student of French, you might write about the time a
Parisian pointedly responded in English to your request in French for
directions to the Louvre.
Focus
Instead of generalizing about your experience (e.g. "I enjoy
sports"), be as specific as you can be. Write about the thrill of
catching a fly ball deep to centerfield just before it became a home
run, or of a Little League career spent waiting for someone, anyone, to
hit the ball to your position so that you could stop studying the grass
and watching the butterflies.
Use Precise And Economical Language
Imagine that each word you write costs you a dollar, and that you
don't have unlimited funds. Instead of writing ''On a yearly basis, we
would spend five hours driving to the lake, where I never gave up the
hope of meeting the boy that would be my Prince Charming,'' write
''Every August, we trekked to Lake Apponaug, where I always hoped to
meet my Prince Charming.''
Give Your Essay Momentum
Make the parts work together and move toward a thoughtful
conclusion. In an essay about the summer you spent working in a marine
research laboratory, a paragraph on the unreliable bus that took you
there each day should be eliminated.
Use Correct Grammar, Spelling, and Punctuation
Don't distract your reader from what you're stating by stating it
incorrectly. Misspellings, typos, and grammatical errors--such as
subjects that don't agree with verbs--make the reader's task more
difficult and suggest that you don't care much about the impression you
make. Although nobody's perfect, strive for perfection on your
application. Unfortunately, your reader may interpret your mistakes, no
matter how innocent, to be signs of laziness, indifference, or even
dishonesty.
 Next
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Lesson 2: Brainstorming & Topic Selection
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