Building A College Portfolio: Traditional and Nontraditional College Essays That Get Applicants Noticed
In last week’s post, we shared some ideas for a variety of creative works that students can include in their college portfolios to display their creativity and originality. Likewise, college essays are a great opportunity for students to make a solid impression on their prospective college’s admission committee. Advise your clients to produce a well-crafted, expressive personal college essay in their college portfolios to really make their applications stand out from the rest.
What is a College Essay?
A college essay is an essential part of the college application process. Admissions officers use college essays to evaluate a student’s character, writing skills, uniqueness, and ability to self-reflect. A personal college essay is an applicant’s chance to show the admissions committee what they will add to the academic community. Their college essay may be the deciding factor in their college application—especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurriculars. The whole idea is to create a memorable college essay that makes their application catch the eye of the admissions panel of their dream school.
Traditional Style: Tips for Writing An Exceptional College Essay
Writing a traditional college essay is a great way for students to showcase their personality, experiences, and interests while demonstrating their writing skills. A well-written essay can help them differentiate themselves from other applicants and increase their chances of getting accepted into their choice school.
Here are some tips for writing a stellar traditional college essay:
Start early: Students who start on their essays early have plenty of time to brainstorm, write, and revise their essays long before the submission date. The last thing they want to do is wait until the last minute to start!
Keep it focused: A college essay should have a clear, defined focus and a central theme. Advise your students to avoid trying to cover too many topics or ideas; otherwise, their essay may just become a word salad. Are they applying to a liberal arts college with their eyes set on the journalism program? In this instance, they’ll want to keep their essay focused on their writing and communication skills and highlight every skill and achievement that bolsters that central theme.
Be yourself: This is solid advice to give your students. They need to write their essay using their own unique voice and not be afraid to be honest about who they are—schools are looking for authenticity!
Show, don’t tell: A good college essay uses descriptive language and specific examples to illustrate key points. This type of writing will help their essay stand out and make it much more memorable. Remember, college admissions are reading thousands of essays; they want to be WOWed!
Proofread: Their essay must be clean—free of spelling and grammar errors. Advise them to use spell-check and grammar-check tools to avoid silly mistakes that could easily cost them dearly.
Revise, revise, revise: Remember we said to start early? Students need to take the time to revise their essays multiple times. This will allow them to ask others to read it and provide feedback so they can keep workshopping it until it shines!
Follow the guidelines: Guidelines are provided by colleges and universities on college applications. These guidelines include word count, formatting, and other requirements. Students need to follow these guidelines to a “T;” any questions regarding the set guidelines should be directed to the admissions committee.
Remember, a college essay is an opportunity for students to showcase their personality, academic achievements, personal experiences, and interests. They need to use this opportunity to tell their story and make a lasting impression on the admissions committee.
Outside the Box: Ideas for Creating A Unique College Essay
In some cases, colleges want to see students show off their creative sides—especially if they’re applying to a creative/visual arts college or program.
There are several ways a student can create a college essay that stands out from the rest of the applicant pool, including using unique formats such as photos or videos. Submitting a nontraditional college essay is a great way to demonstrate to a college admissions committee that the applicant can think creatively. However, it’s important to keep in mind that not all colleges accept multimedia submissions, so students must do their due diligence and check with their prospective college’s admissions office before submitting anything other than a traditional essay.
For nontraditional college essays, students should still follow the advice we gave for writing a traditional college essay—they’ll need to start early, keep it focused, be themselves, and revise!
That said, here are some different formats students could consider for making their college essay really stand out:
Photo essay: A photo essay is a collection of photographs that tell a story. These photos would need to illustrate the student’s academic achievements and personal experiences while showcasing their creativity. For example, a student who wants to study photography could create a photo collection that tells the story of their high school career while demonstrating their photography skills at the same time; now that’d be impressive!
Video essay: A video essay is a short video that tells a story. In this case, the video would exhibit the student’s high school career while displaying their personality and originality. A student wouldn’t necessarily need to be a hopeful videographer to create a video essay, this could be as simple as a video of the student telling their story or being interviewed by someone off camera.
Infographic essay: An infographic essay is a visual representation of information. Infographics are a unique way for a student to present academic and extracurricular accolades, even data and statistics for athletic achievements, in a visually appealing way. An infographic essay could even supplement a traditional essay!
Interactive essay: An interactive essay is an essay that includes interactive elements such as quizzes, polls, and games. This would work best during an interview—as long as the admissions committee is game to play! Interactive elements can help the student to engage their audience, demonstrate their ability to think outside the box, and make their essay very memorable! Bonus points if the interviewer(s) have fun during it!
Comic essay: A comic essay is an essay that is presented in a comic book format. Comics can tell the student’s personal and academic story while showing that they can think divergently; it’s a great way to show off their imagination as well as graphic design and/or drawing skills!
While using unique college essay formats can help a student’s essay stand out, it’s important to make sure that their essay is still thoroughly planned, well-constructed, and follows the specific guidelines set by the college. Submitting a personal college essay that is lackluster or confusing to the viewer will only hurt the student’s odds of getting accepted.
Remember, the college essay may just be the deciding factor in a student’s college application—especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurriculars. Advise your clients to take the time to craft a memorable essay that makes their application really stand out!
Next week, we’re talking about letters of recommendation—what types students should be looking for and how many they should ideally have. Also, we’ll talk about best practices for tutors when asked to write letters of recommendation as well as tips on how you can write an effective letter of recommendation for your clients. Subscribe to stay in the know!
From the Clear Choice family to yours, we wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving! We are very thankful for you!
A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
Related Posts:
5 Best Ways to Help Students with College Admission Essays - Part 1
5 Best Ways to Help a Student with a College Admission Essay - Part 2
We Are Ready for the Digital SAT®! Are you?
We Are Ready for the Digital SAT®! Are you? As the SAT® and ACT® transition to all-digital testing, we are ready to support your tutoring business with the first and best custom-branded, fully digital test-prep courses. Our white-label, all-digital, adaptive Digital SAT® practice tests include accurate, algorithmic scoring. This gives your tutors and clients access to the actionable data they need for tailored instruction and score optimization.
Ready to take your test prep to the cutting edge? Schedule a free demo and try it for yourself!