There is no doubt that there are plenty of attributes that admissions officers look for which indicate a good candidate for a university. For the most part, these include competence; competence, however, comes in many forms. Some of these forms are easy to spot –as we’ve analyzed in the archive of successful clients’ papers—and can be replicated with the right wording and writing style. There are a few rare yet useful college essay tips and tricks an applicant may pull from their sleeve.
In this article we will focus on some of said college essay tips and tricks you can implement in to give you a competitive edge in the application process. Note, however, that “tricks” are rare and few in the world of college admissions; you may want to consider application editing services as well as consulting to ensure you’ve executed these techniques properly.
- Unusual: The novelty that comes with an unusual topic usually make the applicant stand out from the rest of the application pool. Try to do the mental arithmetic. While there are an increasing number of applicants every admissions season, many of whom are highly intelligent and competent enough to be strong competition, there needs to be something about your application that would make you stand out among the rest of the application pool.
Being able to stand out among he rest will provide a major advantage to remain competitive in the application pool (even with a high GPA and Standardized test score). For those with low scores, these sets of college essay tips and tricks are especially important.
Unusual topics are generally anything that invoke a sort of shock factor; the most impactful things to write about are genuinely unusual topics such as weather disasters or family tragedies. Understandably, not everyone goes through these things. In order to give the same impact that a topic such as a weather disaster would in the application essay (even if the applicant lacks one) is to hyperbolize the severity of the topic in the descriptions of the application essay. Note: you should not lie in the application essay, but you should be hyperbolizing it enough that it seems more severe without breaking the truth.
Here is an example of how the application essay description can have hyperbolized details to add unusualness (even without a unique topic to talk about)
Example: “The ball, spinning dangerously at a speed that seemed to be faster than my eyes could catch up with, sliced through the air and buried itself into the ground; without a second to spare, the ball changed trajectory upon impact and came crashing right between my eyes. I was struck in the face by a backhand slice.
This was my first time practicing tennis. Fortunately, after many mandatory classes which I am eternally grateful to my family for, I was able to grind hours into honing my skill in hitting the ball accurately with the racket without breaking my glasses. The later…”
Remember, make use of strong imagery and hyperbolize the action to make your experience your own. Surely there are plenty of sports players in the application pool who will be applying, but there are often experiences in tennis that make your experience unique. You may have hit the ball, ran after balls, and had the fine opportunity to be a seat warmer, but it is how you describe the experience felt like to you that makes or breaks the success of the application essay.
For most of our clients, we’ve found that only some people are able to replicate a hyperbolized description to add unusualness and novelty properly. If you’re not a confident writer or feel you can’t execute this properly, have your college essay checked before it is turned in.
- Leadership/ taking command
Before we dive right into the nitty-gritty aspects of how to write leadership experience and roles into the application essay, we’re going to cover two concerns first. The first is how writing leadership into the essay can be advantageous and boost the application success rate. The second is how one could write about leadership experience even if they do not have any experience through implication.
But first, a disclaimer: for those who have leadership experiences or positions, the ones that have value are the ones that have made you complete a project or event such as fundraisers for dance clubs, startup launches for a business club, or successful petitions for a community. For those who do not have leadership experiences at all, the important thing to keep in mind is implying (leadership characteristics) in your application.
With that settled, the following will cover the two considerations to keep in mind for writing the leadership element into the college application essay.
The reason why people would want to demonstrate leadership experiences (or characteristics for those without recognizable experiences or accomplishments) is because it is one of the few characteristics which happen to encompass a well-matured individual. It is one of the main factors which determine highly successful people in the future and is associated as such. Therefore, admissions officers who see applicants with leadership experiences or find leader-like attributes will oftentimes choose them to be accepted to the university.
As for how to demonstrate leader experience without having any, here is what is needed. We know not everyone can be a leader of a field or a hold a strong position in an important club. Thus, the question may be how an applicant may possibly ever hope to write about leadership when they’ve never held a leadership position in school clubs or other activities. How does one optimize this trick when they are not even qualified?
The answer to that is simple: Everyone is, to some extent, a leader or has had a position as a leader; the problem is that most people are not aware of it and do not how to put it in words to begin with.
If it’s not fully clear what an applicant’s leadership experience even is, would it not be better to not write about it at all? To some degree, yes. However, this would be a MAJOR opportunity missed in optimizing the application essay success rate. The ONLY time an applicant should avoid writing about leadership experience is if they quite literally have no experience taking command of anything (which is rare; usually applicants can find something when they look deep enough.) Even so, if they did not write about it they should imply in their writing about their experiences a certain degree of taking control of the situation. In essence, imply you leadership essence by demonstrating that you took control in a situation that most other people cannot take control over.
We will demonstrate how to imply that you have an air of leadership essence below as an example. If you have literal leadership experience already such as being president of a club or captain of a sports team, great. If you are not but want to demonstrate other forms of leadership experience in a different way to optimize your admissions chances, that works just fine.
The first way to demonstrate leadership position is to imply it through the right words placed at the right time. This usually emphasizes the importance of the applicant and their competence and importance to the movement of the situation. In other words, things move because of the writer and things do not happen to the writer. If you struggle to make implications of the elements of leadership characteristics in your paper, consider hiring an expert to advise and edit your application as necessary.
Bad Example: I had to be a leader in the family. I had to take the reigns of the situation and declare independence from my family in order establish some control among the chaos that has ensued; the job was not easy, but it was a responsibility that I was willing to shoulder for the sake of a better future.
What’s wrong with this one is not the meaning behind the words; in fact, the meaning is rather nice. The problem lies in the way the meaning is articulated. The applicant clearly is attempting to appear more responsible and mature to the admissions officers; they are also trying to demonstrate samples of their having taken the lead in a stressful situation. This can be more less blunt, however, in order to look humbler. Remember: leadership skills and positive attributes are implied and not flaunted.
Good Example: After having struggled with establishing what little normalcy was left after the second marriage in my family, I finally had enough. With all the motivation and strength I could muster, I dragged everything in my room where it needed to be; I tried to establish a domain that I could call “a neatly-organized room”. It worked. I had independence from the chaos of the house. No longer did the house seem claustrophobic and messy like the rest of the house; I finally felt as if I was in control and the finally shone through the window as if to bring attention to my success. With that control, I braved a new goal I never thought of even daring to try: I wanted to be the adult in the family.
This example works since the applicant attempts to draw a picture of what their struggle was like rather than emphasizing directly how they exhibited leadership characteristics. By taking a subtler approach, the applicant’s use of the words “strength” and “braved” and “control” paint an image of a person who is more reliable and sturdier with leader-like attributes.
