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Through our very own editors and guest writers, this blog will discuss the INSIDE scoop on the admissions process of various schools and programs. If you wish to ask a specific question, please write to us, and we will make every attempt to address your questions in our future blog discussions.
Monday, August 22, 2016
In Your Admission Essay, Be Willing to Color Outside the Lines
In today's hyper-connected world, there is no shortage of information available to students applying to college. Few aspects of the admission process fill students with more dread than the admission essay. Unlike all of the sharp metrics like grades and scores, the essay is shrouded in mystery.

For better or worse, most students start the essay process by asking a single question: What can I write that will impress these readers? What this immediately does is to shift the focus from a creative-writing venture into an interview on paper. And what is more nerve-wracking than an interview?

Writing advice is hard to give. I might tell a student to "write from the heart", but what does that mean, really? Especially to a student with writer's block?

This recent Washington Post article offers essay advice from a handful of admissions officers. The Washington Post

The main take-aways for me are "beautiful, clear writing" and a willingness to color outside the lines. It takes maturity and experience in writing to trust that simple words are more effective than complicated phrasing. Big words won't make a mediocre essay sound better; it will simply sound clunkier, and harder to follow.

Coloring outside the lines takes courage. It may mean choosing not to write about your Model United Nations experience but about your dog having cancer. It may mean not mentioning a single grade or test score or sport or community prednisone online without prescription service event but instead writing about the creek at your grandparents' cabin in rural Idaho.

Don't ever buy into the idea that 650 words will encapsulate everything about you. It can't. But it is an opportunity to place a magnifying glass over a tiny part of you; that could be the place where your writing finds its magic.

Take a leap. What have you got to lose?

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