How to Help Students with the Dreaded Writing Task.

I volunteered to write the NCAC blog entry on college essays. Yes, I VOLUNTEERED…to WRITE.  My students would think I’m crazy.  If I’ve learned anything over the past year in this job, it’s that kids FREAK OUT over the word “essay.” Or they whine and complain. A few might actually enjoy writing, but most of them dread typing two pages of words, even when those pages hold the key to college acceptance.  It’s up to us to guide and steer them in the right direction. 

 As you’re probably well aware, our students have progressed through school during the dominance of standardized testing. I’ve noticed that because of this, a 5-paragraph essay completely in third person is often the only type of writing they know or feel comfortable with.  As a result, writing college essays about themselves can be daunting.

 It is crucial to convey to your students that they can and should write about themselves in their college essays, not about some historical event that happened in 1843 (unless that somehow relates to them!).  Admissions counselors want to know more about the applicant, the individual.  For my students, using the word “I” in a school essay is unheard of, and so I always spend some time talking about how that is actually allowed and encouraged!

 CHOOSING A TOPIC

Depending on the college options of any particular student, an essay may or may not be required.  Most of my students apply to schools that don’t require essays, but have an optional section on the application for some sort of personal statement.  I encourage them to write something, because otherwise all the school is learning about them comes from the transcript.  I’ve found that students tend to struggle with this task because there is no solid prompt. To guide them, I try to provide a few questions they can answer in an organized format.  Why do you want to go to college? What do you want to study? Why do you want to study that? Why do you want to study it at [insert college name]?  What can you bring to the college/what are your three best qualities?  What are you involved in and how has that impacted you?  These questions tend to get them started.   Most of the time, a student can use this essay for multiple schools – be sure to provide a reminder to change the name of the college within the body of the essay!

For schools that do require an essay, guidelines are usually offered in the form of a concrete prompt.  The Common Application writing section is a good example of this.  I think it’s important to suggest to students that they brainstorm.  Stress that it might be necessary to write a few drafts before getting to that perfect essay stage.

I also find that my students struggle to come up with topics, but they don’t need to! Oftentimes, a student might have something really interesting to write about, but it seems commonplace and they don’t realize that it would make a solid essay.  You work 30 hours a week washing dishes to help support your family? You live on a farm and milk cows before school every day? You have a black belt in karate? These are essay-worthy.  One of the best things we can do as advisers is get to know our students and help them figure out what makes them unique, and then help turn that into an essay.  This can all occur just by having a conversation.  

 WORD LIMITS

You’ve probably encountered students who write very little and students who write a whole lot.  Students need to pay attention to word limits.  While you may have a student who only writes three sentences, you may also get the student who writes three times the maximum word limit.  I’ve learned the hard way that it is important to help students identify those word limits before they start writing and talk about how to achieve them, and what is too little or too much.  It’s way easier to add words than to try to eliminate extras. Sometimes, a student might think it is okay to exceed the limit, but on many of the online forms, it will cut the typing off at the specified length. 

EDITING

I can’t stress enough how important it is to PROOFREAD! Spelling and grammar mistakes are going to be judged and detract from the overall application.  Students need to check their essays for these errors.  I always tell my students I’m more than happy to read over and edit their essays.  I tend to be pretty brutal, and when I return crazily-marked papers with lines and arrows and see the shock on their faces, I always say, “Better me than the admissions committee!”  If you don’t feel comfortable editing papers, partner with a few English teachers for help!  

 If you’ve made it to this point, you now know that I don’t have any trouble filling up pages.  I could go on and on about this topic, but I’ll stop.  I hope this was in some way helpful for you, and I’d love to hear your best practices on college essays so that I can add them to mine.  Good luck with essay-helping!

About Kaitlin:

I am a second year adviser with NCAC, Keystone Region – go Team Bob!  While not a first-generation college student myself, I discovered my passion for college access work through three summers as an Upward Bound counselor, and am thankful that NCAC has given me the opportunity to continue working with high school students in this capacity.  I love reading multiple drafts of essays and personal statements, writing kids’ names on my “college acceptance list,” unveiling the secrets of the SAT, and gazing out my office window at the mountains, farms and cows!  I’ve probably attended more high school sports events in my tenure as an adviser than I did in all 4 years of my own high school experience.  I’m planning on grad school next year for school counseling, and am savoring every minute of my last year with NCAC!