3 Easy Ways to Strengthen Your College Essay
by Michelle P.
Whether you are working through the flurry of UC essays or jumping between one supplement to the next like Mario collecting coins, there are many steps in writing to get your college application drafts to a strong final version.
When you reach the revising stage, below are some past EssayNarwhal posts you may consider reading, just to refresh your memory!
But beyond these posts, if you only have 10 minutes to revise, what would be 3 easy ways for you to instantly strengthen your college application essay?
1. Did you clearly state in your essay why the experience or story you are telling is important to your growth, as your main point?
It can usually be as simple as including 1-2 sentences in your essay just to highlight it. Did learning mountain climbing teach you about trusting in others? Or did dealing with a limited club budget help you learn better flexibility when planning?
2. Checking over your introduction and conclusion.
You may not need to change your entire introduction or conclusion, but again, sometimes even just taking a couple minutes to tweak even 1 sentence to be more descriptive or different can make your introduction or conclusion go from okay-but-average to more engaging to read.
A too-simple introduction: I packed sandwiches and sodas for my weekly picnic with friends.
A more fun introduction: I packed assorted sandwiches—chicken salad, pickles and cheese, and peanut butter and jelly—and bottles of fizzy lemonade for my weekly picnic with friends.
3. Run-on sentences
Wordy, run-on sentence that is hard to read: It is easy to make a mistake with run-on sentences like if they are a little rusty on how commas are used, it is important to break up a sentence with punctuation and transitions to fix comma splices, it happens a lot more than students would think.
Better example of sentence that is not a run-on: Run-on sentences happen a lot more than students would think, especially if they are a little bit rusty on how commas are used. Comma splices are usually to blame in these cases, but can be fixed with punctuation and the right transitions.
Look over such sentences carefully and see how you can break it up for an easier reading experience. This guide has some great examples on how to fix run-ons: https://writingcenter.unc.edu/tips-and-tools/fragments-and-run-ons/
Whether you have ten minutes or even more time to revise and rewrite your college application essays, see how you can use these EssayNarwhal tips to create the best final draft you can possibly writing!
