The Best College Essay Length

The Best College Essay Length Don’t be afraid to ask your friends, teachers, or a trusted adult for advice. Action taken, related it back to your own experience. This is what I’d consider “bare minimum” for making a solid point as to why you and a school are a good fit. Luckily, I board my train with seconds to spare, and without being turned into a pancake â€" always a plus. Teachers, friends and parents can all be helpful proofreaders, but experts note that the student voice should remain intact. It is what motivated me to read about 2D kinematics to win a projectile motion challenge, and understand the chemistry behind qualitative analysis of cations for a lab. Specificity, clarity, and brevity are your keys. Summarize, in 1 or 2 sentences, what you think the unique fit is between yourself and the school. Treat these sentences as a hypothesis you need to prove. Now, set a timer for seven minutes and don’t stop typing until the alarm goes off. Type up an honest page about someone you admire or the moment you discovered your favorite word or why you don’t trust anyone who doesn’t like macaroni and cheese. Even very simply put, you can find patterns in your own behavior. In my hometown of New Haven, Connecticut, where normality was…well, the norm, I tried to be a typical student â€" absolutely, perfectly normal. I blended into crowds, the definition of typical. I became a person who refused to surprise people. I feel like I should feel disturbed, but I’m not. I read the last page and close the book, staring out the window at the shining fish ponds and peaceful rice paddies. I feel like a speck of dust outside the train, floating, content and happy to be between destinations. Unsettled, I turn to my ever-present book for comfort. Today it is The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, already worn and slightly crumpled. They say the best books tell you what you already know, resonating with your own thoughts and emotions. Instead, make a few well chosen points and back them up. What are the two or three things you, personally, MOST need from a college? This, by the way, is ALSO the reason nobody can do this work for you. Ultimately, you’re the one who really knows your priorities and the things you most need in order to grow. Start by creating a ‘headline’ for each of your target schools. It has been my experience that the way to ANYONE’S heart is through the stomach. The time that I spend in my kitchen, the effort and care that I pour into my confectionary creations, is a labor of love that brings me just as much satisfaction as it does my hungry friends and family. Okay, maybe I’m overreacting â€" but I cannot for the life of me understand that award. “Most Original” always let me down, and as a result, I hated to be original in any context. Once you have your first draft, you can move on to the revision process. Sit down and write about a project that you’re proud of. Talk about organizing an event or participating in a community service project that opened your eyes. Categorizing the charity or community service events you’ve participated in can also shed light on what you should write about. If you’re dead-set on a specific major, you can trace back where your interest began. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the mindset ofthis-must-be-donethat we forget the primary reason for the presence of a personal essay. These papers, which usually clock in around 700 words, are designed to add some color to your transcript, which is pretty much all numbers and facts. They say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. As I read, it is as if the tempest of my thoughts is spelled out on paper. The overflowing sense of hyper-reality in Tim O’Brien’s words of warfare spills into my world. His words somehow become my words, his memories become my memories. Despite the high speed of the bullet train, my mind is perfectly still â€" trapped between the narrative of the book and the narrative of my own life.