College admission essay?

Question

What do colleges look for in an admissions essay? Please provide as much detail as possible. If you wrote one, where was it for and did you get accepted?

Answer 1

Personality and creativity. It cannot be just some generic essay. you have to make it personal and have it catch the reader's attention. Colleges are looking for unique individuals.

Answer 2

They look for your personality. it has to be strong and catchy. if your a funny person put a little humor in it. if your poetic put poetry into it. make sure that there are no mistakes and be blunt and honest. also show determination

i did one for Cortland University

i am now a sophmore and starting school for my second year next week :-)

good luck

Answer 3

My daughter and I went to tour a prospective college over the weekend her junior year, and we made arrangements to get a tour- guide- college-student ahead of time with the admissions department. This was Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa.  When we stopped by the admissions office the admissions counselor spoke with my daughter alone.  They were chatting like old friends and he was asking her questions and she was animatedly answering him.  Then she noticed he was writing down her answers, and that this was actually an admissions interview!  Once she was invited to apply, she wrote an essay about the interview, and it's unexpectedness and the flubs she had made--for instance when asked for one word that would describe her, she remembered a teacher who always told her she was incorrigible, so she said incorrigible.  When she described the experience she wrote something to the effect--I searched my vast closet of words discarding over my shoulder this one and that,then out of my mouth flew "incorrigible" and before I could capture it, it was off on it's little wings, never to be retrieved.  The admissions office loved her rendering of the experience and that, along with the scores from her tests, got her in with good scholarships.  Just be yourself, write well, get someone to edit it if possible, and don't write based on what any book tells you--write from your heart. She graduated this year, with three degrees, two majors and a minor!

Answer 4

Colleges will look for whether your voice gets heard in the essay and a good application essay will teach them something that is not in the rest of your application. The purpose of the essay is to show them something about you beyond a bunch of numbers, test scores, and grades.

Good application essays are not jock essays (topics like when you won state competition in Basketball) or about topics like when your dog died.