Brody's Guide to the College Admissions Essay

IV. Format, Structure, and Style

Since you’ve never written a college admissions essay before, you probably aren’t exactly sure what it’s supposed to look like. Should it be a story? A paper? Do you need an intro? Should it be in the first person? Should you start with a quotation? Do you need a conclusion?

Believe it or not, there aren’t a lot of great answers to these questions. Perhaps because no high school junior or senior has experience writing these essays, they tend to be much more diverse in style than, say, history papers or newspaper columns. And that’s a good thing—no admissions officer wants to read a bunch of essays that all look the same.

Nevertheless, it helps to have some idea what’s expected of you. We have included in the back of this book some “successful” essays that can give you a sense of what works. If you still want to see even more good essays, you can go online or purchase one of many books available that include sample college essays. Be careful, though—trying to apply someone else’s creative format to your experiences is a recipe for disaster. And, potentially, an invitation to a charge of plagiarism.

Here are the basics for understanding how a college essay should—and shouldn’t—be put together:

Structure

High school teachers will frequently suggest a fairly rigid format for any essay you write, which can usually be outlined something like this:

1. Introduction
2. Idea
   A.     Sub-idea
   B.     Sub-idea
3. Another Idea
4. Yet another Idea
   A.     Sub-idea
   B.     Sub-idea
   C.     Sub-idea
5. Conclusion

Each idea is usually a paragraph—the outline above would thus be a five-paragraph essay. So if you’re going to write an essay about your cat, your English teacher would probably want you to outline it like this.

1. Introduction—I love my cat
2. I’ve known her forever
   A.     My parents brought her home when I was 4
   B.     I can’t remember life before we had her.
3. She is cute.
4. She is smart
   A.     She aced her cat IQ test
   B.     She can juggle balls of yarn
   C.     She always finds the catnip we hide
5. For all of these reasons, I love my cat.

For most high school writing, and for the new SAT and ACT writing tests, this format isn’t terrible. But while we can imagine some college admissions essays maybe being organized like this, you probably should avoid such rigidity in your essay.

If you turn to some of the essays in the back of this book, you’ll see that the most heartfelt and interesting ones could never have been written from this type of strict outline. Good college essays progress, rather than transition. Like good short stories, they are primarily about one thing. Introducing that thing, subdividing it, and then summarizing it is usually not the way to go.

Instead of adopting an inflexible, pre-planned structure, you should focus on creating an essay that has a clear start-to-finish path. The best way to understand this is to look at some admissions essays that you liked, and think about how they were structured.

Your Introduction

Your essay should have an introduction. But that doesn’t mean you need an introductory paragraph that summarizes what the essay will be about. The best college essay introductions usually pull the reader immediately into the narrative, setting the stage for what will follow. Think about the effectiveness of the following two introductions:

Disadvantaged students often struggle academically. Because role models are often not available for them, they need help after school if they are to succeed. Therefore, some friends and I decided that we would start a program where we help kids after school with their homework and other issues. While it was hard at first, we eventually learned several important lessons. I believe that I am a better person for having had the experience.

It was the only time I’ve ever cried in public, and I did my best to hold back the tears. But when I saw Jack onstage receiving his junior high school diploma, I broke down. Just two years ago, this had seemed impossible.

Both introductions are well-written, and would be perfectly appropriate to include as the opening to a college essay. But the second one, in addition to having more emotional impact, does a better job of pulling the reader into the essay and setting a positive forward trajectory.

When writing your introduction, don’t try to summarize the essay, but instead focus on setting the stage for the essay. Your introduction should make the reader want to keep reading.

 

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