Writing Tips And Techniques For Your College Essay

Writing Tips And Techniques For Your College Essay It is my understanding that if essays are required by an institution, they are actually read. There are many different kinds of schools, however, so it would be impossible to know how each of them handles the essays which are submitted. Any longer, and chances are good that you have more than one main idea. In which case, you need to find the other secondary main ideas and give them their own paragraphs. So yes, they are read by all the admissions officers, particularly the ones who oversee your county and region. Claremont McKenna dropped the requirement as of November 2018, and Wellesley finally stopped asking for ACT Writing . Princeton has replaced the SAT or ACT essay requirement by deciding to require a graded essay from a high school class instead. The application essay is a common part of the university and college admissions process. It is still necessary for student-athletes to submit either SAT or ACT scores as required to calculate the Patriot League Academic Index. International students who attend schools where English is not the primary language of instruction will still be required to submit results from either the TOEFL, IELTS or Duolingo exams. Lehigh University remains committed to the notion of reviewing the entire person in its admissions process. As we have historically, we will continue to consider the entire person regarding admissions decisions. A college essay is a composition demanding to research and explore a particular topic and expose your position on it. Essays you write in college and university are of different types and with various requirements. Many large schools don’t require essays at all because they don’t have the personnel resources to process the huge number of admission essays which would be submitted. The essays may form the most deciding part of the application after the student has met basic application criteria â€" grades, standardized test scores, etc. Again, the number of readers for each essay would depend on individual institutional practices. The SAT Essay and ACT Writing continue to pose a conundrum for students. While College Board and ACT have made these components optional, a small number of colleges continue to require or recommend them. I do know that some schools have a group of readers, each receiving one set of essays, with each individual essay being read by just one person. In other instances, each essay is distributed to several readers, who will then compare their impressions when the admissions committee meets to decide upon student admissions. In this instance, the essay would be read by several people. Again, the number of readers for each essay would depend upon individual institutional practices. Students typically must finalize testing decisions well before they finalize their lists of where they will apply to college, so a significant majority of students still take the essay exams each year. Duke provides “recommended” guidance and drops strong hints that the essay is still worth submitting in many cases. The list of holdouts, though, continues to decline. You will also have to learn to bulk up the content of each paragraph. I dislike giving rules or formulas to students when it comes to college writing because nearly every rule or formula has both weaknesses and exceptions. But a general guideline for the paragraphs in your college essays is that they should be about 1/3 to 1/2 of a page. Typically, applications received two reads and a third if the decisions were split. The number of reads and the process for reviewing application essays vary from college to college. Among the top 250, I know my colleagues review essays because some are moved to “check” authenticity or to contact the school source to verify veracity of the context as provided by the student. Top private schools like the Ivies and similar-tier colleges also prefer to use a holistic approach when evaluating students, seeking to understand the candidate and their background as a whole. As a result, essays are extremely important at these schools, even for those with stellar academics. If you send more than the one supplemental essay suggested, there’s no guarantee they’ll read themâ€"unless they don’t think they have enough to go on. That said, if they don’t think they have enough to go on after 2 essays, you’ve got a bigger problem. Based on my experience, we read every essay at the institutions were I served.