How to Jumpstart Your College Application Essays

If you are headed into your senior year of high school, you are probably about to start writing your college application essays. Not so fast.

At this point, your time would be better spent preparing to write the essays. In fact, you can save a lot of time (not to mention avoiding an argument or two with your parents) by taking stock and planning the essays before you sit down at your computer to write. This can also help demystify and simplify what can be a dreadful task.

Below are five tips to help you get started: 

• Keep a journal. The goal of the college application essay is not simply to impress admission officers but to give them insight into who you really are and what’s important to you. Since most teenagers aren’t prone to introspection, keeping a pen and paper on hand to jot down ideas and observations can help you get used to writing about yourself.

• Create a resume. List all of your academic achievements, extracurricular activities, volunteer and paid work and any other accomplishments, however small. Another helpful tool is making a timeline of momentous occasions in your personal life, family or school career.

• Say it out loud. I videotape students who are having trouble coming up with ideas because speaking comes more naturally than writing for most people. Completing worksheets about your values, relationships, interests and personality can also be useful in figuring out what you might want to write about.

• Make a list. Review your resume, timeline and notes to make a list of topics or themes, then choose the one that best describes you to answer one of the five essay prompts for the personal statement on the Common Application, which is accepted by nearly 500 colleges and universities. You can use any leftover ideas for supplemental essays (these should be tailored to each school).

• Give it time. You will not complete this task in a couple of hours, a day, or even a week, if you do it properly. But if you start in July, you’ll have time to prepare and plan the essays, and when it comes time to begin writing, applying to college will be an easier, less daunting process.

Michele Turk has worked as a writer and editor for two decades. She is an adjunct professor of journalism at Quinnipiac University and the author of Blood, Sweat and Tears: An Oral History of the American Red Cross, and co-editor of Ink Stained, a collection of essays published by members of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Class of 1992.

Michele teaches college essay tutoring privately in Greenwich and she is the college application essay coach at the Westport Writers’ Workshop. For more information about upcoming classes or private tutoring, email MichelePTurk@gmail.com.