How to write an essay that gets you in.

Write to impress, not to inform.

The essay is not icing on the cake. It is the sales floor: your achievements are the raw material, and the essay is their presentation.

Stay with facts.

Admissions decisions rest on what you did, not on what you hope, claim, or feel. Every sentence carries evidence.

Generalizations are your enemies.

Detail is credibility. Support every claim or cut it.

Answer the question.

You cannot hijack a prompt. A deviant answer tells the reader you are a poor writer or hiding something. Read the question before you write, and once more after.

Minimize ‘we.’

Heavy use of ‘we’ tells the reader you either did little or want credit you did not earn. ‘I’ carries the essay.

Mechanics are not optional.

Periods and commas go inside closing quotes. Never use ‘this’ as an unattributed pronoun. Avoid a ‘which’ clause unless you can handle one. And permit no plurality shift: ‘no one should use their phone’ fails the test.

Whatever the question, show how outstanding you are.

Spend nothing on background, on middle school, on other people, or on beliefs. The subject of every essay is what you did.