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How to Write a 500 Word Essay That Will Get You Into College
It's college application season. Or at least it is in our house. The current challenge seems to be how a student applying for college can work within the 500-word limit imposed by the Common Application and create an essay that covers a significant event or achievement in the student's life and will, hopefully, set the student apart from tens of thousands of other applicants.
Keep in mind that with the college application essay, you are not writing a freelance article for a magazine where you will be getting paid by the word. Instead, you are trying to capture and keep the attention of the person reading the application essay when they only have a few minutes to read the application and move on to the next application. So your goal is to write an essay that gets you on a university's "accepted" list, not on The New York Times Best Sellers List. Save your longer writing efforts for impressing your professors.
As with all writing projects, these essays are written with a single purpose in mind and should be attacked with a narrowly-focused plan. It's just that most students are not used to writing within the 500-word limit. Frankly, I don't think any of us are.
First step: select your topic wisely. Pick a topic that can appropriately answer the essay question and that can be well-developed without too much background information. Remember, you need to capture the reader's attention and be concise. Pick a topic that represents the real you. Write about something that sets you apart from the rest of the crowd.
After picking a topic that best represents you, make hand-written notes to outline what you intend to write. Resist the urge to sit down at the keyboard and start typing away at your essay. By first outlining with a pen and paper, you will avoid typing something that you think is an instant masterpiece. Too many times, once we see our words typed on the computer screen, they look clean, tidy and ready to submit to the college admissions office. Not the case. Your essay will need to go through several revisions before you can call it complete and ready to send to college recruiters.
Once you have an outline on paper, you may start writing on the computer. But remember what Ernest Hemingway said about You will want to go through several revisions that include having others read your essay and make suggestions. Trust your reviewers, whether they are parents, teachers or friends.
After writing what you think is the second draft, draw a seriously thick line through your first sentence, and perhaps, even the whole first paragraph. Most essays don't start getting traction until the second to fourth line, so force yourself to take a hard look at how you started and consider re-working your lead sentence with something you have already written in the middle of the essay where you really start getting your ideas formed.
Hopefully, you have created a second or third draft with more than 500 words. At this point, you need to start trimming unnecessary words to cut the fluff out of your essay. Kill the adverbs, adjectives and qualifiers. Remember: adverbs modify verbs and end with -ly; and adjectives modify nouns. Qualifiers include, but are not limited to, very, somewhat, still, almost, enough, more, less, and can be culled out of a sentence without losing any meaning.
Avoid complex sentence structure. You want to impress a reader with you succinctness rather than your literary prowess. Use fewer words to say more rather than using more words to say less.
Two articles from The New York Times will also be helpful when tackling this essay. Dealing with the trimming down of the essay to keep it in the 500-word range is . Discussing the matter of the emotional and controversial aspect of the 500-word limit is . This post includes a link to an essay that has been edited down to the acceptable word limit, proving that it can be done without losing too much of the meaning of the story.
Good luck.
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How to Write a 500 Word Essay That Will Get You Into College
It's college application season. Or at least it is in our house. The current challenge seems to be how a student applying for college can work within the 500-word limit imposed by the Common Application and create an essay that covers a significant event or achievement in the student's life and will, hopefully, set the student apart from tens of thousands of other applicants.
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