Hi!! I’m starting my junior year in high school soon, I’m going to wait until the end of junior year to start writing my

Hey Breanna!

It really depends on what college you go to and what for. In your essay you should write about yourself. The whole point is for you to sell yourself to the school. Give them your academics, extracurriculars, use propper grammar, and write with passion. Remember colleges get hundreds of admissions every year and they've seen and read it all, so make sure you write from the heart. Also let them know why you chose that school.

I hope this helps.

Hi Breanna!

I have been wanting to reply to this post, and I even saved the link on my browser :)

First of all, awesome job on thinking ahead! That says something about you. Way too many students wait to write it until the month prior or even closer to applying.

Now for my advice!

As for when to start, end of junior year is perfect. I am a senior, and I am polishing an essay I wrote last spring for a scholarship. My mentor thought it was an excellent essay, and the best of dozens I had written for scholarships. This brings me to one of my biggest tips: prepare now! Write lots of essays. Take advantage of all the scholarship essays. You will get used to writing great essays for various prompts. Save every essay you write, as one may just be the perfect one for college applications! Even if you don’t reuse one, you will have a storehouse of essays that you can reuse in senior year scholarship entries with some tweaking. I have been applying to several scholarships per week often, and it is so helpful to have essays that already address the common prompts. If a whole essay doesn’t quite work, I can mix two together. Get feedback on your essays and refine your writing as you go. Get good at telling stories through your essays. Showing vs. telling is super important in the admissions essay. Like anything else, practice is key!

Advice on topics: This essay is where the college admissions officers meet you. After you write the essay, ask yourself, "Does this really share who I am? What do I want them to know about me?" Is this something memorable? Will your essay stand out?

Also, read it from their POV. These are people who want to see promising things in prospective students. You don't want to give the wrong idea. Also, minimize focusing on challenges; focus on the positive. A big mistake in writing college admissions essays is highlighting the challenge(s) over the growth. Another pitfall is writing about something before high school. There are ways to connect a story from when you were little to now, but again, focus on the present. Yet another area to be cautious about is specific challenges...students write essays about things like moving from their childhood town so much that it is a commonly overused topic.

Here is a video I found SUPER helpful about writing essays: youtube.com/watch?v=lAtFF47Ce4k

And here is a post I wrote a while ago with tips for essay writing: collegevine.com/c/junior/49537/make-your-essay-stand-out

One note about the Thesaurus tip: Be careful with this one. Admission officers can tell when it doesn’t sound like you. Do not use many words that aren’t in your vocabulary. Most of the time, I just use the Thesaurus to help me replace a weak verb or adjective with a stronger one. I still use words I know…the Thesaurus serves more of as a memory jogger, providing me with a list of words that have a similar meaning when I just can’t remember what word I want, but I know the general idea :)

I hope this is helpful and please lmk if you have any questions!