There are many good books on how to write effective college essays, and there is no point for me to create a new one. Later in this post, I provide links to two books that I particularly recommend.
However, I do have the following important advice about college essays:
- Start Early: I can’t emphasize this enough. You want to start working on your college essays during the summer after your junior year.
- Finish early: You want to have all of your essays done by mid-December.
- More specifically, you want all your essays completed before you receive any decisions back from any colleges you have applied to for early action or early decision.
- Suppose you don’t have your essays completed and get bad news from your early schools. You will be deflated and unsure of yourself, and this may get reflected in the new essays you write. You will also be under severe time pressure as most regular applications are due on Jan 1st. This is not how you want to spend your Christmas vacation.
- On the other hand, if you get good news back from your early schools, you will be too happy to care that you “wasted” effort in getting all the applications done.
- Don’t focus just on reaches: It is common for students to spend most of their time writing essays for their reach colleges, and rush through the rest. Don’t do that. Instead, after you finish the essays for a reach college, next work on the essays for a match college, then a likely college before doing the next reach college. This will ensure that you give enough attention to every college you are applying to.
Book Recommendations
There are two books on college essays that I particularly recommend. The first is College Essay Essentials by Ethan Sawyer. The second is On Writing the College Application Essay by Harry Bauld.
