Need help starting your application essays?

College-bound high school seniors face a double-whammy: the end of summer vacation, the start of the application essay marathon.

Where to begin?

Read some sample application essays from highly selective schools: Connecticut College, Johns Hopkins University, Tufts University, and Hamilton College.

Again and again, these samples drive home a key point: Preach less, describe more. Tell the story with vivid, concrete language.

How to start composing your own essay?  No perfect method exists for launching application essays, once you have your topics. However, here are some ideas to keep you moving forward.

Start writing whatever comes to mind about the topic, using free-writing guidelines such as these. Keep the pen moving or the keyboard clicking for at least 30 minutes. Students using this method are likely to spend 10 to 15 minutes foundering a bit until they discover the experiences they can most successfully employ to develop the topic.

A high school senior once asked me, “What should I write about?” I told her to start writing about an activity she enjoys. About a half hour later she returned with her draft, about her favorite activity, golf. The first half page was filled with random observations about the activity, but midway through the page, she found her groove, you might say. She started writing about why she started playing golf. It was an interesting story. Her big sport had been softball, but she found the pressure from the team and coach overwhelming. So, she switched to golf, a sport that allowed her a much larger role to motivate and coach herself.

Writing is a discovery process. If you have no idea what to write for a college essay, that is fine. In my experience, you won’t know until you start writing about the topic and discover what you have to say. Once you have a draft, you can always shape it up afterward for its organization, diction, clarity, succinctness, and formal correctness.

More tips:

• Divide a piece of standard printing or notebook paper lengthwise. In the left-hand column, briefly describe an incident that relates to your topic. Directly across from the incident, write a comment—your opinion—about what happened.  Fill this page, even a second page or more with such descriptions and comments. See what your comments have in common. What has emerged that you can use for the essay.
• Make a list of words that relate to the topic. Then, describe an experience that relates to each word.
• Don’t know how to start your essay? Well, don’t start it! Write the middle first—or any portion you think you are ready to write. See what happens from there. You don’t have to write the parts of the essay in order. You can piece them together later. In the age of the word processor, strictly linear composition is for the birds!
• Draft a conclusion to the essay. Work back from there.
• Pretend you are drafting the essay as a letter to a close friend ten years your senior. This approach should help you to find the right tone.
• Describe an experience that relates to the topic. Then another.  Then a third. By this point, a workable approach to the essay is likely to emerge.
• Make a list of nouns, action verbs, and even adjectives that apply to the topic. Assemble the pieces into descriptive sentences. Then, sentences into paragraphs.

After your draft is done or significantly underway, then what?

• Edit like mad for brevity. Omit needless words. Replace clumsy noun constructions with action verbs. (“It was my decision to join.” à “I decided to join.”). Also, the more concise your sentences, the less likely they are to have grammatical errors.
• Even though this is a personal essay, avoid overusing the first person. As much as possible, describe events according to their component parts. (“I became afraid.” à “Fear overwhelmed me.” “I noticed that the room was untidy.” à “A sea of clothing, strewn and dirty, covered the floor.”)
• Avoid long-winded sentences. Break some of them up by using phrase modifiers. See http://www.jccc.edu/student-resources/tutors-accessibility/writing-center/files/modifiers-combined.pdf.
• If you are clicking away at your iPad or laptop, take a break from time to time. When you return to your computer, reread your entire essay, from the beginning. Edit as you do. Reacquaint yourself with the flow of the essay.

I pray this advice lightens your essay whammy.