Writing a good essay can require a lot from us — we all know the strain of writer’s block, or of painstakingly crafting the perfect sentence. The college admissions essay, however, is its own type of challenge.
To the average high school student, it can feel like their entire future hinges on how well it’s written, or on whether or not it included the ‘right’ information. The biggest challenge that these essays pose is that they are asking us to write about ourselves: a topic far more complex, nuanced and interesting than those assigned for an average history paper. It’s a task that necessarily asks us to draw from our lessons and experiences in life — a bigger and far more dangerous arena than the classroom.
The key with these essays is to distill our life experiences into something clear, concise, and digestible — by and large, these are the ones that hit the mark for admissions offices. They’re successful because they’re easy to read. Many college essay prompts are intimidating in how broad their reach is, and it’s all too tempting to either write about everything (and in effect, nothing), or get lost in the minutest details without zooming out for the bigger picture. There are many pitfalls that slow us down when we’re trying to find the right words on our own; a little bit of organization and mentorship can go a long way in simplifying this task.
As a tutor, my job is to help students find their unique writing voice. While a good college essay will certainly have some universal attributes — a solid theme, good pacing, grammar, etc — the best essays are the ones that are authentic, and achieving this takes some guidance. Together, my students and I suss out what they’re really trying to say through dialogue and writing exercises, so that their individual inflections, diction and tone are loud and clear on the written page. This is what makes any individual’s writing stand out.
Achieving this can seem very difficult any many students end up putting undue pressure on themselves to be ‘unique’. In truth, the difficulty lies in how deceptively simple it is to be ourselves, and in trusting our most natural and mundane thoughts to point us in the right direction. My role is to simply coach and encourage while my students are on that path. After they’ve written what seems to be a solid draft, I help them organize their thoughts, determine which ‘darlings to kill‘, and highlight where I think their writing feels the ‘realest’.
Via Google Docs, I edit and revise these essays online, and I provide extensive comments, recommendations and insight. If you’re a parent who is interested in learning more about how my online tutoring process works, please go to the contact page to reach out to me.
Henrik Herb - Education Consultant 