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Essay Advice from the President of NACAC
Posted by on Friday, October 23, 2009 at 4:16 PM (PST)
If you haven't already seen it, the President of NACAC (The National Association of College Admission Counselors) recently published some great advice about college admission essays. Among his key points:
- Avoid generic topics (like the "jock" essay--"I learned a lot about perseverance through my role on the championship-winning team")
- Don't write about something that is easily apparent from the rest of your application (i.e. don't simply provide a laundry list of your extracurricular activities and accomplishments
- "Show, don't tell." As he puts it, "Don’t tell your reader that you compete in triathlons; instead, let her feel the rush of wind as you pedal; let her heels ache from the pounding as you run; let her shrink from the chill of the water as you dive in."
And finally, he provides some great advice regarding how to know whether your essay will be interesting to the admission committee:
- Try to step into the reader's shoes. Imagine you've already read 683 other essays; is this one going to strike you as interesting and unique?
- Let someone else read it - someone whose judgment you trust!
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