Help! My college essays are due in two weeks and I haven’t started yet. What do I do?
It’s mid-December, you’re a high school senior, and you haven’t started your college essays yet. What do you do?
First, don’t panic.
Yes, it would have been nice to have started back in August. But you can still turn out fantastic essays that will help you get admitted to schools where you will flourish.
I know this, in part, because I’ve seen it happen. Several years ago I had a student come to me in December after applying Early Action to Yale. Despite excellent grades and stellar extracurriculars, he had written terrible essays and was rejected. Not deferred — rejected.
So over Christmas break he started from scratch, writing an entirely new set of essays for his regular decision applications. His holiday was very stressful, but he gave it his all, dug deep, and turned out some fantastic essays.
That spring he received admissions offers from a number of schools. He ended up going to Brown, where he was extremely happy. (Ironically, as these things often turn out, Brown ended up being a much better fit for him than Yale would have been.)
So yes, it can be done. If you’re starting your college essays in December, here are some tried-and-true suggestions for writing well under a deadline.
Step 1: Start with the Common App Essay
Nearly every school will see a copy of your main personal essay, the “Common App Essay.” It’s the keystone that holds your application together, 650 words that show the admissions committee who you are as a person.
While it may be tempting to start with the supplemental essays, start with the common app essay. You’ll use the other essays to talk about things that are not in the common app essay. Start here, then move onto the smaller fry.
Step 2: Brainstorm the Prompts
The common application gives you six prompts for your essay topics (actually seven, but the seventh is “write about whatever you want”).
Use them. Brainstorm 2 to 3 topics you could write about for each prompt.
Be brief. Use bullet points: “Student government,” “Band camp,” “That time I got lost in the woods.”
You may find that some ideas come up in more than one prompt. If so, great! These could be good essay topics.
Spend no more than 30 minutes brainstorming. Just be sure to write down at least ten ideas. Even if they seem silly, write them down. The goal is to generate ideas and get the creative juices flowing. You’ll evaluate these ideas in a hot minute.
Step 3: Freewrite 1 or 2 Topics
Now you have some topics. Good! The next step is to pick one or two topics that seem promising and freewrite about them.
There are only two rules for this freewriting:
- Keep it short: 2–3 paragraphs per prompt. Don’t write the essay yet.
- Each freewrite must have a beginning, a middle, and end. Tell us what things were like at first (beginning), what happened (middle), and what they were like afterwards (end).
The goal of this freewriting is to test out your brainstorming ideas and see if there’s a story there. For example, you may have played basketball all four years, but if all you have to say is that you love basketball, it’s not going to make a good college essay. If, however, becoming captain of the basketball team last year was an unexpected challenge that forced you to change your approach on the court and ultimately helped you become a better leader…well, then you might be on to something.
Write quickly – this should take no more than an hour, ideally less. After you freewrite, share it with someone. Ask a friend or adult to look at it. Instead of saying “Do you like this?” ask these questions:
- Is it engaging (or potentially engaging)?
- Does it show who I am as a person?
Listen to their answers, and recall what it felt like to do the writing. Did you feel bored or disinterested as you wrote? If so, your reader will probably feel the same way when they read it. If, however, you felt like you actually wanted to tell this story, it might be a topic worth writing about.
Step 4: Write the Essay
Now it’s time to write.
Fortunately, however, you’re not starting with a blank page. Instead, your task is to expand the most promising freewrite into a personal essay of around 800 words.
Why 800 words? The final essay will be 650, but I find that if you try to write a first draft at 650 words, you’ll stifle yourself before you get anything meaningful out. This is because, as a dance teacher once told me, “You can’t drive with your foot on the gas and the brake at the same time.”
Give yourself space to play. Make sure that your essay has a beginning, a middle, and an end, but don’t worry about grammar and mechanics yet. See where the story goes, and have fun telling it. Hold off on editing and worrying about word count until the next stage.
Step 5: Revise
After you write the first draft, put it away for a bit. Ideally overnight, but if time is tight, an hour or two is fine.
Then, pull it out and read it aloud. Share it with someone else. Ask yourself and them:
- Does it flow? Are there parts that are unclear?
- Where could I cut, and where do I need to expand?
- Does my story have a beginning, middle, and end?
- Is it clear what challenges I faced, and what steps I took to move through them?
- Am I being vulnerable?
That last question begs some explanation. Vulnerability, you may be asking? WTF? The whole college admissions process is about putting your best foot forward, so why be vulnerable?
The answer is simple: a good story is one where we see the hero struggle. Reading an essay, I’m interested in the captain of the cross-country team who was so bad as a freshman that she almost quit, or the talented artist who struggles to express their vision. I’m not interested in the person who magically achieves great things without even trying, because I can’t relate to them. We all struggle, and anyone who acts like they don’t is either lying or very, very shallow (Pro tip: lying and shallowness are not qualities college admissions officers are looking for!).
To be clear: don’t turn the essay into a list of your perceived flaws and shortcomings. It’s a college essay, not a journal entry. You probably want to end on a high note, and you definitely want to highlight your strengths. Yet no one is perfect. It’s the essays that show highs and lows, successes and failures, that truly “sing” for an admissions committee.
Step 6: Write the Supplements
After a few revisions your main essay will be in solid shape, so it’s time to move on to the supplemental essays. Here are two ideas to keep in mind as you work on them:
1. Build a portfolio
Approach the supplements like an artist putting together a portfolio of their paintings. Ask yourself: How can I use each essay to show a different side of who I am as a person, beyond what I’ve written in the common app essay?
If the common app essay was about your family, maybe you write a supplement about your track team, your passion for social justice, or your love of science. Or, if your main essay highlighted your intellectual curiosity, use supplements to show you relate to your community.
2. Recycle!
You’ll find that many schools ask similar questions in supplemental essays: talk about an extracurricular activity, a community you care about, or the perennial “Why is our school right for you?”
Feel free to recycle! You can write one activity or community essay and reuse it for multiple schools. Even your “Why our school” essays can be adapted for subsequent schools, though it will take more revision. The only caveat is to keep in mind that prompts between schools will vary slightly. Be sure that you’re tweaking each essay to address each prompt.
Step 7: Proofread Everything
Proofreading, your final step, may seem minor, but it’s incredibly important. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors are easy to fix. It looks really bad to submit sloppy work in an admissions process. That, more than anything else, will make it seem like you applied at the last minute.
My recommendation? Print everything and proofread the hard copy. You will invariably notice errors in print that you didn’t notice on the screen. Read your essays aloud – you’ll catch mistakes that you didn’t pick up on when reading them in your head. Have someone else proofread your entire application. Finally, check each supplement carefully before submitting, and make sure you’re submitting the right essays for each school. You’d be surprised how often people mention the wrong school by name in a supplemental essay!
Hang In There
Writing is a process. It takes time, and even though you’re embarking on a marathon that will probably feel more like a sprint, it’s going to be OK.
Take it one step at a time. Give yourself space to play, tell your story, and write well. Then, have the courage to edit closely and ask for feedback from others.
Keep in mind, too, that the goal is not to write a perfect essay. That is impossible. Instead, your task is to do some writing that shows your character, highlights your strengths, and offers an honest sense of who you are as a person. That kind of essay will help you get admitted to a college where you can flourish. It’s also something that you are fully capable of doing, just as you are, right now.
Good luck, and hang in there. I wish you all the best!
