Successful College Essay Exemplar

          Today we further analyzed what makes a really great college essay. The class was about how to make our college essay successful in the eyes of colleges that we want to admit to. Throughout class we came up with around 5 ideas on how our essays can be successful using the sample essay that the girl had wrote that got her accepted into 5 ivy league schools. Some of the things that we had chosen as a class was 1) Show personality, 2) Hook the reader, 3) Use experience, 4) sophisticated word choice, and 5) Tell a story. The last is my favorite because despite people being able to do the first 4, they need to incorporate everything they know and be able to tell a story that is worth reading. Use experiences and show the abundant personality that you have as an individual so colleges can think they you are perfect for their campus. Despite these great ideas to follow the teacher had more. 1) What is the purpose?, 2) use concrete realities to show abstract qualities, 3) Zoom in on the exact moment!, and lastly 4) use active and sensory details. It's pretty much the same as what we as a class had came up with. However, there is one very important one that is an outlier compared to the rest. This was to zoom in at the exact moment. At first, I didn't believe that was all that important however, after showing us an essay that didn't have that quality made a huge difference in the quality and substance of the essay. Hopefully using what we learned in class can help us to write a really well worded and successful essay to take the next step into another milestone in our lives.
           Using what we learned today can greatly help us in the future. With us almost being seniors, college admissions are basically around the corner and essays are going to start being due. We can use the techniques that the teachers have taught us in order to be more successful than others in our hunt for college. Also the exemplar was a very good way for the students to see what needed to be done in order to write a great successful college essay that hopefully will influence us into writing a great one as well.