Khoi Le
1st
5 Characteristics for an Excellent College Essay
College applications aren't all about test scores and your GPA. They want to know about your personality as well. College Essays provide you the opportunity to show colleges your personality. It also gives them knowledge about your writing skills. Knowing this, it's important to show all your quality traits as a student while writing your essay.
The first characteristic of an Excellent College Essay is having three parts to the essay. The first part is the introduction. The introduction is to hook the college into your essay. You must grab the reader's attention. It's also good to write as you are talking to them. Remember, the purpose of the essays is for colleges to get to know you. Typically, the next portion is the body paragraph. It's important to go into detail and tell a story to the essay reader.
Lastly is the conclusion. This format is typical and you should be able to follow the 1st characteristic easily. The second characteristic is being descriptive and specific. Rather than saying, "I love animals." Be elaborate and write something such as "Whether a tiny, slithery salamander or a magnificent Arabian horse, I am simply nuts about animals. Since I was very young, I have spent a lot of my time rescuing, raising, caring for and loving them." Looking at the last sentence, you can tell I used 1st person. Using first person is a major issue for students today. From school, we are taught not to use 1st person when writing essays. However, colleges want to know if you can right authentically. Also, colleges want to know about you, not someone else. The next characteristic is to offer a story that displays all your traits and personality. Stories help illustrate points...