**SHOW THE LESSON**: Make sure your essay gets to the point within the first couple of paragraphs — specifically by showing off why it’s a personal essay as soon as you can. A lot of students write essays that are all setup — they tell a story or share an experience, and it takes a while for the reader to understand how these events helped the writer develop as a person / adopt new values / learn a lesson (you get the idea). It doesn’t always need to be SUPER explicit, but your essay should have both story ***and*** reflection throughout.

**LIMIT THE NEGATIVITY**: Make sure your essay doesn’t read as too “negative.” What I mean by this is simple: essays about conflict, difficulty, mental health, or stress can be hard to pull off because they require the reader to digest more challenging content before getting to the glorious reveal about **why** these struggles have improved you as a person. If there’s too much difficulty in an essay, it can turn the reader off. So a good phrase I use is “more pheonix, fewer ashes” — that is, introduce the problem quickly and then work hard to quickly shift the essay around to focus on how you grew from the experience. This is usually really easy to make happen. Just shift your focus a bit — mess with the ratios of the essay. Cut down on the challenge section and beef up the learnings.

**SHOW ACTION-STEPS**: Your reader should see the concrete actions you’ve taken to address the situation / get involved / help make a change in your community / learn more about the issue… You get the idea! Don’t shy away from details! Your essay should explicitly describe the steps you took to address whatever problem it is you’re writing about. If you aren’t writing about a “problem,” you can disregard this piece of advice — but there should still be action (not just intellectualization) in your essay.

**PROOFREAD**: Proofreading is an important step not to skip. If your language is unclear, then your reader will have a hard time understanding the overall message of your essay. You don’t want that. Read your essay line-by-line and do detailed edits. If you need help with these, then ask for help from a trusted friend or mentor.

**STREAMLINE**: While details are good, some essays are overladen with details. If you’re over the word limit, you likely need to heavily pare things down. Often this happens because you have separate threads going on simultaneously. If that sounds like you, you should try to streamline your examples to focus on a core theme. Too many details can be totally deadly to an otherwise high-quality essay.

**ELIMINATE INCONGRUITY**: College essays should revolve around one main theme. But some essays have a setup that doesn’t match too well with the “conclusion.” Sometimes, essays feel like they’re written about two things: there’s the first “act” of the essay, where someone might be telling a story, and then there’s the second “act,” where the writer suddenly pivots to a conclusion or to discussing a project that… Feels like it doesn’t fit. If you read through your essay and realize that you’re guilty of this, try to ask yourself, “What is the core message I want to express with my essay?” Then dedicate EVERYTHING to bringing home that conclusion. It’s much better to focus on one main theme than to try to deal with too much in your essay.

**DON’T OVER-WRITE**: Numerous essays find themselves to be loquacious in their endeavors to relay a consequential moment of appreciable change a writer underwent. Wait…what?! That’s right, some college essays read like…well…Like you busted out a thesaurus! :) We’re all guilty of it from time to time (or maybe you’re just in the habit of writing at a very high level of diction). Either way, if your essay sounds like you’re trying hard to sound smart, focus on toning down your language a bit. Go sentence by sentence or read your essay aloud to make sure it sounds like your voice, and simplify when needed. If one of your essays is guilty of this, it’s likely that your others are, too.

**FOCUS ON YOURSELF:** If your essay is about how another person has significantly impacted you, then it’s worth making sure that the essay’s focus is ultimately on yourself. You don’t want your readers left wondering about what your story means to *you*. Remember that admissions officers want to know about you, not about your family members or friends. If you notice that your essay focuses too much on someone else, try asking yourself, “What is it that I want an admissions officer to know about me through this story?” You can also look for pronouns–you, he, she, I, etc.--to get a quick idea of who you’re talking about the most.

Does my essay follow the guidelines above? After that does my essay write clearly, incorporate concrete details when it can, and keep the essay’s core theme in mind throughout? 

This is my essay: When I look back at my time in high school, leadership wasn’t a role I actively sought out; rather, small parts of it have found me. It was the last subject pick for our school’s science fair project, chemistry. This was not necessarily out of choice but by default, as every other team had already chosen their subjects and thus, classmates. Even if it wasn’t my first choice, for both subject and members, I wasn’t any less determined to excel. Despite being formed this way, I actually couldn’t ask for more comfortable classmates than us four. 

My role as what you can call a leader, came about more as a matter of fact than something grand; it was about ensuring we all used our strengths to get the job done right. From the start, I was keen on each of us understanding our capabilities and handling tasks that fit us. This was done not just to be efficient, but to build trust and a sense of shared responsibility, which truly mattered in letting everyone feel valued and needed so we can help each other.

Yet, as we progressed, the realization that my delegation skills needed work became apparent. Concerned with meeting our standards within the constraints we faced, I found myself shouldering the majority of the workload. It was challenging to balance my instinct of personal intervention to oversee every detail for reliability against the necessity to trust and open up to my team.

While this approach seemed practical to me at first, it soon became clear that despite my preparedness to take on the project almost single-handedly, there were aspects I simply couldn’t handle alone. The realization that collaboration was not just beneficial but necessary was pivotal.

More importantly, this journey through the challenges of our project illuminated a fundamental truth about teamwork and leadership for me. The prospect of bringing the project to fruition as a team held a promise far beyond the satisfaction of personal achievement. Yes, I was ready to take on much of the work by myself, but the thought of sharing the journey, the stress, and eventually, the success, was far more appealing. The anticipation of sharing laughter and a sense of accomplishment with my classmates—who I was now proud to call my friends—outweighed the solitary pride of individual achievement. That was why I chose to go through journeys together whenever I can.

This project taught me the power of “we” over “I.” While I had initially underestimated this, it became the most rewarding part of our endeavor. The notion of collectively overcoming challenges, experimenting, and eventually succeeding together brought a sense of joy and fulfillment that solo victories could not match. It was a profound lesson in leadership for me: real success was in the shared journey, the mutual struggles, and the collective victory.

The sense of accomplishment and the camaraderie that we developed over the course of the project were incomparable. It was about achieving something together that we initially didn’t know was within our reach. This shared success fostered a sense of community and friendship among us that went beyond the confines of the project. It wasn’t just about the science fair anymore; it was about building relationships, learning from each other, and growing together both personally and professionally.

In retrospect, my leadership journey through this project was as much about managing the task at hand as it was about understanding the intrinsic value of teamwork and shared success. Recognizing that some tasks were beyond my ability to tackle alone was humbling, and it reiterated the importance of each team member’s contribution. Ultimately, the joy and laughter shared in accomplishing something as a team were the true measures of our success, leaving me with cherished memories and invaluable lessons on leadership and teamwork.