The short answer is, yes, it is permissible to have others read and edit your college admission essay for you.  With that being said, the ideas must be your own, and the voice must remain unmistakably yours.  While admissions officers differ on whether or not they are able to determine if a student has actually written the essay, there is no question that a 30 or 40 year old writes with a much different voice than a 17 or 18 year old writes with.

That being said, a college admissions essay should represent a students best work.  The best writers are those who rewrite and carefully hone their message.  The essay cannot possibly be the best work of a student unless it has moved through a few drafts with steady improvement.  Often times, when we write something we become too connected to the writing to be able to objectively edit.  Unfortunately, I see this in my own writing, where I will edit a letter and send it out only to realize later that it still had a mistake.  However, when I pick up writing for one of my coworkers, I can easily identify the mistakes.  Having someone who has no emotional connection to the writing helps to eliminate some common mistakes such as having a word spelled correctly, but it not being the right word and sending the wrong essay to a college (think of an essay finishing with, “…and that is why I want to go to your biggest competitor.).

It is important that you have two different types of people edit your essay: those who know you well and those who don’t know you well.  Why is that important?  You want someone who knows you to read your essay and finish it and think that the essay accurately portrays you.  Further, you want someone who doesn’t know you to finish reading the essay and get the feeling that they do know you.  This means you need to start your essay early enough to allow time to have people review your essay for you.

AdmissionHook.com Advice on How To Write The Best College Admission Essay

In this video James Maroney and Guy Milone discuss what makes a good college admission essay. Guy gives tips on telling the story and some examples of essays he has read in the past that truly resonated with him.

In this video topic, James Maroney founder of AdmissionHook.com discusses good admissions essay topics and how to carefully choose your topic in order to write the best college application essay.

In this video, James Maroney of www.admissionhook.com interviews Paul Brower, Associate Director of Admission at Nichols College, about the personal statement.  Paul gives examples of his favorite essays as well as some advice on what not to do when writing the college essay.

In this video, James Maroney of AdmissionHook.com interviews Matt Beirne, Director of Admission at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University, about the college admission essay.  The cover tips on how to write the essay as well as some examples of Matt’s favorite essays over the past couple of years.

]]> http://www.admissionhook.com/Blog/63/spotlight-essay-advice-with-matt-beirne-of-the-college-of-st-benedict-and-st-johns-university/feed/ 0 http://www.admissionhook.com/Blog/60/choosing-an-essay-topic/ http://www.admissionhook.com/Blog/60/choosing-an-essay-topic/#comments Fri, 09 Jul 2010 17:08:17 +0000 admin http://www.admissionhook.com/Blog/?p=60

10 percent of Nichols College graduates are either the CEO or President of a business or owns their own business. Win a $1,000 bonus scholarship to Nichols College from CollegeTreasure.com.

You have everything that you need: clean notepads, pencils, pens, and your computer. You’re ready to write yourcollege application essay. Just open Microsoft Word and let your ideas flow.

It’s too bad that writing a college application essay isn’t actually that easy. However, with a few tips, you’ll be able to pick a good topic and smooth-out the process.

Have you ever felt egocentric? If not, you soon will. Your college admission essay should focus on only one person:  you. It can, and probably should, include other characters, but the core of the essay must describe you – your feelings, what you’ve learned, how you view yourself, how you see yourself fitting in the world. Three primary sorts of you-based topics exist: events, routines, and descriptions. Events constitute life-altering experiences. When listing events, don’t think of things that happened during your life; think of those that happened in your life. They should be things that affected you and your future. Routines and descriptions are a bit more complicated. In a routine-type essay, the author writes about a routine or aspect thereof in the same way as he or she would write about an event, describing his or her qualities and values in the process. In a description-type essay, the writer describes an important person or object and uses metaphor to relate it to him or her self.

After you’ve thought about the significant events, relevant routines, and important figures in your life, you can begin to narrow your list of potential topics. First, think about your best qualities, the ones that you want to feature in your application, and select the topics that would best feature them. Next, consider the uniqueness of your topics. Each college admissions officer will read hundreds of essays throughout the spring and will only be able to remember the most interesting few (if you think that it’s easy to remember essays, try to read every entry on this page then summarize them, in order, without peeking). Make especially sure to avoid cliché topics and those conducive to platitudes. Of course, you should stay away from potentially controversial issues unless they truly intersect with your core values. Finally, remember that colleges don’t admit students retroactively. That is, they don’t really want to read about your past unless it has some bearing on the present or future.

If you still have a long list of potential topics, simply begin to write. Finish a few rough drafts, read through them, and figure out which one best represents your qualities and values. Sometimes you just can’t determine how good a topic is until you actually write a draft of the essay.

Wading through the plethora of potential essay topics may seem impossible; however, with a few pointers, anyone can pick a good one.

This article was contributed by Dakota Meyers, who just completed his freshman year at Yale University and is a regular contributor to the CollegeTreasure.comandAdmissionHook.com blogs. He is a 2009 graduate of Hoisington High School in Hoisington, KS. At Hoisington High, he won varsity letters in debate, speech, scholars’ bowl, and band. He won the 2009 3A Kansas State Championship in extemporaneous speech.

At Yale, Dakota intends to major in Economics and Mathematics. He writes for the campus publication Business Sphere and is an active member of the Yale chapter of Nourish International. He also participates in the Yale Political Union as a member of the Independent Party.

As a current college student, Dakota has recent first-hand experience with the college admission process.

I realize that it is a very intimidating task to sit down and try to wrap up your life in a nice little bow and between 250 and 500 words. Don’t worry, they aren’t expecting you too. However, you do need to give them a reason to accept you, and just as importantly, do not give them any reasons to reject you. Recently, there was a great guest post on The Choice, a college admissions Blog. I highly recommend reading it. Martha Merrill, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at Connecticut College wrote about what she was looking for in an essay and gave some general tips. One of the most important tips she gave was that there is no formula for a good essay. In fact, since it needs to be your voice coming through, it should be an essay that only you could have written. Another piece of good advice she gave was to pick a mundane topic and bring it to life. Read the full text of her post here.

If you are having trouble getting started, view some of our previous articles on brainstorming the essay and our big list of questions. You will also want to view advice from a former director of admissions and possibly read some sample essays and his comments. Remember, when you are reading the sample essays you are just trying to learn how an admission officer views those essays and not use them as a template for your own essay, since the best essays are intensely personal and you could not just copy the form of another essay. Most importantly, just get started. You need to write something, and then you can revise it and make it in to a good essay. Your first attempt should not be your final attempt. You may want to write a few different essays, and then pick the one that you like the best. Most likely you will need to write a few different essays anyway, as many colleges have supplements where they ask you specific questions or for an additional writing sample.

When you are done with the essay, put it down for a couple of days and then reread it with fresh eyes. Also, be sure to have someone else read it. Do they get a good sense of what you are like as a person? If one of your friends read it, would they say, “Yeah, that’s you.” While it is important to have others help you edit the essay and give you suggestions, ultimately, it is your essay and needs to be in your voice. Accept constructive criticism, but don’t let others rewrite your essay. This fall is going to be a very stressful time. Get started on your essay now. When September and October roll around, you will be glad you did.