Tips for Applicants Writing Admission Essays
admission essays
Tip 5: Collect Material that Illustrates Your Sketch
Stories help others share our experiences. They connect us with one another and help our audiences see who we are.
In this tip, I suggest you collect personal stories, experiences, and perspectives that illustrate each element of your verbal sketch. Later, I’ll recommend that you integrate the best of these stories into your essays to transform your verbal sketch into a multi-dimensional, carefully composed self-portrait that touches your readers.
Identify Your Unique Material
Review the key elements of your identity. Consider each element individually, and ask yourself: “Which of my personal stories, experiences, and perspectives relate to this aspect of my identity?”
If an element of your sketch is your heritage, gather material that illustrates the role your heritage plays in your life. Your material might be about how you connect with those who share your heritage and the nature of these bonds. Or the way your heritage has shaped your perspective on something that matters to you. Or the way it brings your community together. Or something else entirely. Be creative here.
And because these are admission essays, be sure to collect content that relates to learning, education, and academics.
Capture and Save Your Material
Copy your verbal sketch into a new document or note.
Under each element of your sketch, jot down stories, ideas, thoughts, experiences, and perspectives that illustrate that element. Don’t write out anything in detail. All you need for now are short, memorable descriptions that will help you recall, consider, and evaluate each item, like “The moment I discovered that I love to ____,” “Why we moved here,” “What I think about ___,” “When everything changed,” “How I overcame ___,” “What transports me into a flow state,” and more.
Keep in mind: right now, you're just collecting and saving ideas. Gather more ideas than your essays can contain. You'll make decisions soon about which ideas to include in your essays.
Put a reminder in your phone to do this regularly. (I suggest ten minutes a day, every day for a week.) Be ready to capture the great ideas that will inevitably pop up at random times.
