Writing a stellar college essay is an incredibly important part of the college application process. It’s a moment when you can pull back the curtain and really show admissions officers who you are and how you’ve become the person you are today. In those 650 words, admissions officers are looking for a chance to better understand you besides what they see in your transcripts, test scores, and recommendation letters. So when should you start writing it? Since there is such an emphasis on the essay, procrastination can truly set you up for failure, but starting early can increase your chances for success.
In general, the heavy lifting of the college process starts at the beginning of the junior year. That’s when you start doing some serious research into the types of schools that you’re interested in and really start learning about what you need to have in order to be a competitive candidate. The three main focuses through the majority of junior year are maintaining good grades, researching schools, and taking standardized tests, such as the SAT and ACT. Towards the end of your junior year, though, we really want to start shifting focus to the college essay. This isn’t always the easiest undertaking because you’re trying to distill years’ worth of experiences into only 650 words, but starting early is your friend. We recommend that students start working on the beginning stages of their essays after AP exams are finished, typically around mid-May. Starting that early allows you to really dive deep into what you want your essay to say and make changes as necessary.
Because writing a profound and meaningful essay can take some time, it also helps to break it down into smaller stages to avoid procrastination and unnecessary stress. First, list out some of the meaningful experiences in your life. No memory is too big or too small. You want to think about moments in time where you learned something about yourself or moments that reflect who you are or hope to become. After you’ve listed out your memories, look for any potential patterns. Have you noticed that many of your memories revolve around a specific passion or hobby of yours? What do your memories reveal about you? You want to use your memories to distill a central theme for your essay – a character trait or learned lesson that each paragraph of the essay references. After you’ve settled on the central theme of the essay, now you want to create an outline for yourself. Where will this story start? Where will it end? What happens in the middle? Your essay should make sense chronologically and be easy to follow. Constantly jumping forwards and backwards in time doesn’t make for a seamless essay and will lose readers who may have trouble following the story line. Once your outline is in place, start fleshing out the details. For your first draft, focus more on making sure each detail is on the page rather than staying under 650 words. Cutting down the essay is part of the editing process, but your first goal is to write down everything that needs to be said in your essay.
You’ve finished your first draft. Fantastic! Let’s start the editing process. This can be daunting, so just take it one step at a time. You want to start by evaluating whether your essay stays on topic. Have someone else read through your essay, and ask them what they learned about you from that essay. If their takeaway is the same as yours, you’ve made great progress! If not, take time to really sift through the essay and identify where you may have strayed from your main point. If you notice that there are places that don’t have much to do with your central theme, it’s time to consider whether or not they should be deleted from your essay. The only details that should make the cut are the ones that continually move your story forward – ones that give the reader greater insight into who you are. Continually reevaluate your essay until you are satisfied with the story that you’ve crafted. A word of caution though: don’t spend too much time editing at once. Hyperfocusing on the minute details of your essay will make you nitpicky and can do more harm than good. Set aside a couple hours at a time to work on your essay, and then take a break. Do something else that’s unrelated to your essay and then come back with fresh eyes.
Starting this process early gives you significantly more time to go through the editing process and take breaks when you need to. Procrastinating, however, severely reduces this window of time. Waiting to get started over the summer shortens how much time you have to pick a topic, write an outline and draft, and edit the essay. Since the Common App opens on August 1st and many schools start preseason sports in late August, waiting to get started in June or July means that you’ll have to rush through the essay writing process before the beginning of the school year causes a bottleneck. For example, I had a student heavily procrastinate writing their essay. I was optimistic that we could put in focused work and finish the essay by the time the Common Application opened, but this seriously struggled to focus, and we lost valuable time. It set us back quite a bit and forced this student to rethink whether or not they wanted to apply early to their schools. Rather than finishing their essay before the opening, we didn’t finish until mid-December and missed all of the early application deadlines. They were also much more stressed out because they also had to contend with deadlines for schoolwork and had to divide their attention. It’s not an easy position to be in, and it can be easily avoided by starting early and breaking the process down into smaller, more manageable pieces.
The college essay is a fundamental part of a complete, competitive application, and starting early is the key to avoiding undue stress and procrastination. It’s crucial to take time and artfully craft a story that allows admissions officers to get to know you on a deeper level – to pull back the curtain and show them who you are outside of the classroom and outside of your studies. Create a schedule for yourself that allows you to break the essay writing process down into manageable pieces. Start by just deciding what you want an admissions officer to know about you, and create an outline for that essay that will allow you to really showcase yourself. Then you can flesh out your essay, including all of the details needed to really tell your story. Finally, it’s time to start the editing process. Take small pieces each day and focus on weeding out any details that don’t move your story forward or that start to move off-topic. Stay focused, keep your eye on the prize, and you’ll have something truly beautiful.
