10 Successful Harvard Application Essays

10 Successful Harvard Application Essays Be sure to keep the focus of the essay narrow and personal. Don’t tell your whole life story, but tell enough of it to answer the question. As you are telling your story, be honest, be yourself and do it in the most concise way you can. You may submitup to two optional letters of recommendationwith your admission application. These letters may be from teachers, mentors, or people who know you well, either within or outside of your high school. The letter should be able to give additional context or information to support your admission that is not already provided in your application or other submitted documents (résumé, transcripts). Before penning down a word of your admission essay, it is important that you understand the question and what it expects from you. At the end of the essay, the question that was asked should have been answered fully and in detail. Afterward, take the time to think about it before brainstorming on the different ways to answer it. What is funny to you may not be funny to someone else. A college admission essay doesn’t typically require a title unless it has been specifically mentioned in the instructions. Even after confirming that your essay is as close to perfect as it can get, you need to get it closer still. After rewriting the essay several times, keep it away. Let it sit for a couple of hours untouched or even a whole day where the deadline isn’t close. After catching the new episode of that TV show you love or going a few chapters of the book you have been reading, go through your essay one more time. Correct any mistakes you find, but be sure not to rely on grammar and spelling checkers as they cannot put your words into context. Jacob Imm is a communications specialist in the North Central College Office of Marketing and Communications. He has 10 years of collegiate communications experience and has worked with hundreds of college students. He has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s degree from Northern Illinois University. At the same time, don’t go against what you’ve written on the rest of your application. Keep the details straight, and if there’s something you want to reveal in the essay, just be sure it’s about your thoughts and feelings, not an important fact you left out elsewhere. If you find that your essay is too long, do not reformat it extensively to make it fit. Making readers deal with a nine-point font and quarter-inch margins will only irritate them. For strategies for meeting word limits, see our handout on writing concisely. Get it out and revise it again (you can see why we said to start right awayâ€"this process may take time). A well-written, dramatic essay is much more memorable than one that fails to make an emotional impact on the reader. Good anecdotes and personal insights can really attract an audience’s attention. BUT be careful not to let your drama turn into melodrama. You want your reader to see your choices motivated by passion and drive, not hyperbole and a lack of reality. Every doctor wants to help save lives, every lawyer wants to work for justiceâ€"your reader has read these general cliches a million times. The quality of your essay will determine your admission to the college. Don’t invent drama where there isn’t any, and don’t let the drama take over. Getting someone else to read your drafts can help you figure out when you’ve gone too far. And, one more time, don’t write in cliches and platitudes. Avoid cutesy and colloquial formatting choices as they are unprofessional and immature. Furthermore, avoid humor unless you are absolutely sure of it.