Forget what your English teachers told you!
Writing the dreaded college essay might be just as much fun as your routine trip to the dentist. Here are some general tips on what we as your readers would like to see in your final copy.
1) Restating the Resume
We know that you are all talented and exceptional individuals with dynamic personalities. Therefore, let us know what makes you special! For example, if you are an outstanding field hockey player, the majority of your application will likely provide us with details about your many athletic successes. After reading the awards section, your resume section, and the school counselor’s synopsis of your talents, we will likely know a great deal about your athletic endeavors. Take the time in your essay to let us know something different about yourself. It could be your secret love for choreographing routines to Western musicals, the fact that you spend Saturday afternoons clogging, or express to us the passions you have yet to satisfy on the high school level. Let us know what makes you tick without restating your resume!
2) Leave Grandpa out of it
A great deal of the applications we read detail the extraordinary life of a family member. While essays describing how heroic your grandfather was or how loving your aunt can be are obviously moving topics, they can also leave us with little information about the applicant. At the end of reading many “grandpa essays” we tend to agree that the individual is awesome, but unfortunately, your grandparent or loved one is likely not the one applying to W&M. Don’t use all of your valuable 500 words describing your loved one’s life accomplishments. Instead tell us how the lessons you learned from he or she changed your perspective, your goals, your actions, your interests, and your dreams.
3) Changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes
Giving students’ generous nature, many of our applicants have participated in some sort of service trip during their high school careers. These often life changing experiences inspire students to describe the backbreaking work required to improve the local conditions, how dilapidated the living situations are, and the locals’ inspiring attitudes. These essays can be moving accounts and provide insight into the social, economical, and cultural differences between regions. However, students run the same risk as in the traditional “grandpa essay” in that at the end of the 500 words we still do not know much about you! Instead of chronicling the daily work and conversations had during the service experience, explain to us what you gleaned from the relationships formed and jobs completed. Better yet, tell us how you plan to change your community with this insight, how you did improve your home situation, or how you plan to make a difference on our campus if admitted.
4) College: The best four years of your life
Spending four years at a place as special as W&M is not only an exciting and life changing experience, but also a privilege. Let us know what you would do with the opportunity to grow and mature within these historic walls. Detail your passions, your interests, your dreams, your goals, and your potential. Help us understand why the person YOU will become is a future W&M grad we cannot wait to have as a member of our community.
I can also recommend proofreading, making sure you upload the correct essay to the corresponding university, and to have another person read the masterpiece before hitting submit. Most importantly, we simply want to hear about you from you. The bottom line is that we are interested in learning as much as possible about you as a person. Show us what you got! Go for it….and good luck!
– Amanda Norris
Comments are closed on posts older than one year, but we still want to hear from you. If you have a comment or question for us, please email admission@wm.edu.
Dear Amanda, I just wanted to say thank you for the tips. I have listened to teacher and advisors talk about how our essays should be jam-packed with the emotions of our lives, but they have never explain what not to do. Well at least for me, writing about myself can be difficult. I know I belong at W&M but I worried how I could convince an admissions councilor such as yourself of that. Hopefully your tips help in my admission to W&M. I look awesome in green and I can’t wait to wear the school colors proudly.
Dear Amanda,
THANK YOU! I can now breathe a little bit easier knowing that William and Mary really cares about the person I am. Writing a college essay is indeed daunting, but after reading this page, I definitely feel better. I’m adding the finishing touches to my essay right now and your advice is extremely helpful. I hope that I can share my talents and personality with William and Mary! If it’s meant to be, it is meant to be. Thanks again and take care!
Sincerely,
Nicole U.
Nicole,
Congrats on placing the finishing touches on your essay. Enjoy the rest of your holiday season. You are completely correct; que sera sera. Good luck!
Best,
Amanda
Dear Amanda,
These tips were very helpful thank you! I do have a question though. I saw that you advised for us to leave out stories about our family members. I was wondering if it would be alright to write an essay about how an experience that happened to you that made you who you are today. The reason I’m asking is because one of my essays is about I am a strong person and i used an example of the passing of my mother and how i became the person I through dealing with that tragedy. Is that alright? Thanks.
Sincerely,
Samantha
Samantha,
I’m answering for Amanda since the Office is closed and I’m on the one who monitors our blogs.
The topic you’ve suggested sounds fine becuase the subject appears to be you and not your mother. What Amanda was saying is that someone else should not be the primary topic of your essay. For example, I always tell my information sessions that you might be able to write a wonderfully eloquent essay about your grandfather, and, at the end of reading it, I may want to admit your grandfather, but that doesn’t tell me anything about you. So as long as your essay is about you and your own personal growth and simply incorporates your mother for purposes of sharing your story, that’s fine.
Good luck.
Wendy Livingston
Senior Assistant Dean of Admission
Thanks for the advice! I’m thinking about writing mine explaining how I came to not be so fond of my assistant principal. It sounds mean, but it’s more humorous. I was thinking of focusing on my thought process that day and how my perception of events has changed from that day. Do you think that would be okay?
Katie, this topic could certainly be unique. Two thoughts: 1) we would just caution you not to come across as disrespectful or bitter in any way and 2) keep in mind that a fairly cliche topic is when people correct a misperception about someone so just avoid that cliche moral.
You may want to check out our recent blogs on essays (http://blogs.wm.edu/2011/07/07/eeeek-its-the-essay/ and http://blogs.wm.edu/2011/07/15/you-never-get-a-second-chance-to-make-a-first-impression-or-how-i-continued-venting-and-learned-to-despise-the-college-essay/)