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    How to Write a College Application Essay: Expert Advice to Help You Get Into the College of Your Dreams
    How to Write a College Application Essay: Expert Advice to Help You Get Into the College of Your Dreams
    How to Write a College Application Essay: Expert Advice to Help You Get Into the College of Your Dreams
    Ebook114 pages1 hour

    How to Write a College Application Essay: Expert Advice to Help You Get Into the College of Your Dreams

    By Tania Runyan

    ()

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    About this ebook

    For over 15 years, Tania Runyan has guided thousands of students in understanding, exploring, and crafting the college application essay—with winning results.

    This guide explains what the college application essay is all about: why a student has to write it, the nature of this special writing project, when and how a student should start, and what can be learned about writing itself through this milestone process.

    Providing everything a student needs to go from draft to polished essay, the instruction is straightforward, easy to apply, and inspiring. Woven throughout this engaging guide are illuminating quotes from admissions counselors who want to read just the kind of essays this book can help a student write.

    Includes sample essays from students who got into the colleges of their dreams. Also features helpful samples for special situations like transfers. Invaluable resource!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherT.S. Poetry Press
    Release dateMar 18, 2017
    ISBN9781943120185
    How to Write a College Application Essay: Expert Advice to Help You Get Into the College of Your Dreams
    Author

    Tania Runyan

    Tania Runyan has served as an editor for Every Day Poems and is the author of four books of poetry, including A Thousand Vessels and Simple Weight. Her poems have appeared in many publications, including Poetry, Atlanta Review, Nimrod, and Southern Poetry Review. She received an NEA Literature fellowship in 2011.

    Read more from Tania Runyan

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      Book preview

      How to Write a College Application Essay - Tania Runyan

      education is the key to unlock the golden door of freedom

      –george washington carver

      •

      •

      field guide series

      FG

      How to Write a College

      Application Essay

      expert advice to help you

      get into the college of your dreams

      tania runyan

      T. S. Poetry Press • New York

      ts

      T. S. Poetry Press

      Ossining, New York

      Tspoetry.com

      © 2017, 1st Edition, by Tania Runyan

      All rights reserved. Do not reprint without permission.

      This book includes various references from or to the following companies, brands, and sources: Playtex, Playtex Products LLC; Lady Lee; McCormick

      & Company; Volvo, The Volvo Group; Skype, a division of Microsoft;

      To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, J.P. Lippincott & Co. (1960); AP and SAT, divisions of The College Board; ACT; Adidas; Family Matters, ABC; Material Girl by Madonna, Like A Virgin, Sire Records (1984); The New Yorker; The Common Application; Coalition for Access, Affordability &

      Success; Walgreens; Purdue Online Writing Lab, https://owl.english.purdue.

      edu/owl/; The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Scholastic (2008); Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, Chatto and Windus (1932); Saving Tiny Hearts Foundation; Letter From Birmingham Jail by Martin Luther King, Jr. (1963); Black Boy by Richard Wright, Harper and Brothers (1945); Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Holt, Rinehart & Winston (1970); Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, Grove Press (1965); Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food, a trademark of Unilever; Post-it, a trademark of 3M; Steinway & Sons; Shedd Aquarium; Kumon North America; Don’t Stop Believing by Journey,

      Escape, Columbia (1981); The Super Bowl, NFL; Rolling in the Deep

      by Adele, 21, XL/Columbia (2010); Lokeswarananda Eye Foundation;

      Rush Medical Center; Public Allies; Greystone.

      Cover image by L.L. Barkat

      ISBN 978-1-943120-16-1

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

      Runyan, Tania

      [Nonfiction/Writing.]

      How to Write a College Application Essay:

      Expert Advice to Help You Get Into the

                   College of Your Dreams, 1st Edition

      ISBN 978-1-943120-16-1

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2017934530

      for my past students, who in finding their voices

      have helped me find my own

      –tania runyan

      Contents

      An Introduction11

      A Simple Start11

      Canning Tomatoes, by Cathy Warner12

      A Loss for Words, by Aaron Housholder14

      Door, by Lauren Melissa15

      Ghost in the Appliances, by L.L. Barkat18

      1. What’s It All About?20

      First Things First: Take It Off Your Stress List21

      Learn What It’s About21

      You Beyond the Numbers21

      You As a Good Fit for the School22

      You As a Writer23

      2. So, What Kind of Writing is This?25

      Never Ever Do These!26

      Yes, Yes, Always Do These!28

      3. A Closer Look at a Winning Application31

      Blue Jeans, by Ben31

      How Can You Write a Successful Essay Like Ben Did?34

      4. Choosing a Topic38

      Common Application Questions38

      The Coalition for Access, Affordability

          & Success Essay Prompts39

      Open-Ended Questions40

      School-Based Questions41

      Oddball Questions42

      So How Do I Start?42

      Get Organized42

      Choose a Topic43

      5. Starting to Write46

      Freewrite47

      Highlight48

      Outline49

      Write a First Draft52

      6. Revising, Editing, and Proofreading53

      Revising Your First Draft54

      Editing Your Revised Draft56

      Proofreading Your Edited Draft58

      7. School-Specific Essays60

      Preparing to Write63

      8. Final Thoughts67

      Appendix A—How to Write a College Application

      Essay: The Inspiration71

      Appendix B—Common App Open-Ended Essay

      Topic Brainstorming Worksheet72

      Appendix C—Sample Essays74

      Sample Personal Statements74

      Communication in Training, by Eric C.,

               University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign74

      A School to Call Home, by Natalie S.,

               Montana State University76

      A Tightrope Walker’s Final Trick, by Meghan D.,

               University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign79

      It Comes With the Territory, by Ty G.,

               University of Wisconsin-Madison81

      A Knack for Teaching, by Kasia A.,

               Purdue University 83

      Stage Might, by Anvesh J.,

               University of Illinois at Chicago 85

      Checkmate, by Austin S.,

               Clarkson University 87

      Scars and All, by Haley M.,

               Indiana University 89

      Worth My Salt, by Chase F.,

               Colorado State University 91

      Culture from Color, by Nathaniel S.,

               Illinois Wesleyan University 93

      A Blend of Opposites, by Paige W.,

               Duke University 94

      A Symphony from Failures, by Mikowai A.,

               Northwestern University 96

      Sink or Adapt, by Amanda F.,

               Loyola University Chicago 99

      Sample School-Specific Essays101

      Kate Z. (Vanderbilt), Vanderbilt University 101

      Caley W. (USC), Miami University 103

      Meghan D. (Georgetown), University of Illinois,

               Urbana-Champaign104

      Kate Z. (UOI), Vanderbilt University 105

      Special Situations: Programs and Transfers107

      A.D., Northwestern University

                Honors Program in Medical Education107

      Sydney S., Boston University Honors Program112

      Alli V., Notre Dame University

                Honors Program114

      Tyler A., University of Arizona115

      Notes118

      Permissions124

      An Introduction

      I’ve guided thousands of students and parents over the years who believe the college application essay is just another form amidst the dizzying pile of paperwork (or digital fields) that must be filled out, submitted, and quantified.

      Without a doubt, you’ve amassed a lot of data over your high school years: grades, test scores, and activity lists. But the application essay? That’s your time to shine, to truly be you. To—get ready for this—have fun.

      In this guide, we’ll be exploring what the college application essay is all about. Why do you have to write it? What kind of writing is it? When and how should you start? What can you learn about writing—and yourself—through this milestone process?

      Meanwhile, the best way to prepare as a college-bound student—or a teacher of one—is to get a taste for excellent short-form autobiographical writing (often called flash nonfiction or shorts). Still months or years away from your

      senior year? You can start this part of the application process at any time. It’s never too early to get inspired by good prose!

      A Simple Start

      Read and savor the following short autobiographical essays. These pieces were written by published authors, not college applicants, and demonstrate the key qualities of narrative writing that you’ll be developing in your personal statements. Imagine the settings, voices, actions, and people. Go where the writers take your senses. Feel all the feels—sadness, humor, frustration, embarrassment—of the narrators as you prepare to express yourself in a way that will make schools want to nab you. What will make them desire to get to know you better over the next four years? For starters, good prose.

      ~

      Canning Tomatoes

      by Cathy Warner

      My mother and I crouch in a tomato field off Road 98, pulling and twisting red globes from thick hairy stalks, gently setting them into generic black yard bags that we heft down the rows, bumping against our bare calves, which are yellow from the tomatoes’ pollen sweat and the pesticide powder that pours in vapor trails from the belly of the crop dusters early in the season.

      It’s late August in the Sacramento Valley and the automatic harvesting machine manned by its crew of migrant workers will roll through this field tomorrow. Today, the farmer and his wife—parents of my high school friend—have invited my freshly-divorced mother and me to pick our fill.

      So, like post-biblical gleaners in the growing heat, we fill our plastic bags with thick-skinned canning tomatoes and load them into the back of my mother’s Pinto until, wiping the sweat from our faces with the backs of our sticky yellowed garden gloves, my mother decides we’ve picked enough.

      I wince as I sit on the hot vinyl car seat, my dusty thighs burning. My mother starts the car and we thump down the dirt

      access alongside an irrigation ditch toward the asphalt road, the windows open, the dust and tang of hot tomatoes filling our nostrils.

      At home, wearing yellow Playtex gloves, we wash,

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