Marcus Ross

College application essays can feel like the most stressful part of applying to colleges. While it may be stressful, fear not, for I will give you some tips and tricks that were given to me by Mr Denvir, my college composition teacher. Firstly, I’ll show you one of my application essays that I wrote.

We Get to Die

Bathing in the single screen illuminating the dark corner of my room, I became a victim of doom scrolling yet again. I was stuck in this gloomy hole of never ending temptation. I wanted to fall asleep, but I was too weak willed to put it down. With the minutes turning into hours, I continued brainwashing myself to watch just one more “good” video. “Soon I’ll feel tired enough to get off my phone,” I would lie to myself. Each time I scrolled, I could feel the existential dread lingering more. Could my eyes just close themselves for me? 

But then the weight of the bad content pushed my phone down. My heart beated with an oddly calm pace. I felt the sweet breeze of a hot summer’s day. The words made my cheek feel the warm sensation of salty water. It was my life’s “aha moment.” An Instagram reel of American astrophysicist and writer, Neil deGrasse Tyson, changed my view on life. 

He explains, “We’re the lucky ones, we’re the ones that get to die.”

For so long I thought I was a flaw in the universe. I thought I couldn’t do anything worthwhile. All my efforts were just foolish attempts at foolish dreams. I couldn’t fathom ever finding joy easily in a world I didn’t belong to. But those words gave me a sweet release from my anxious mind. It was freeing. Free from pestering thoughts. 

From that night on, life was different. I became zealous about the world around me. I see the beauty of the sun rising and falling. I see how trees sway in their unique way. The leaves high up and even the ones buried with the roots read small stories. I love to watch bubbles swim through the air and glisten. The colors of the world now shine into my soul and warm my heart to a person I’ve always dreamed of being. I was set free to be proud and enjoy the minuscule things in life.

Months later I can say for certain I am unashamed of my past, present, and future person. I remind myself to feel the air blowing past my skin and stop to smell the flowers when I want. The natural art of this beautiful world has outshines the endless formulated content of the fake one. All it took was realizing I’m one of the lucky ones that get to die, “because you only get to die for having lived.”

Author’s Reflection:

To start off, a helpful way to think of this essay is as a personal statement; where you are revealing yourself to the reader. Treat the essay as a door that colleges will use to peer into your person. And what better way to display your person than through revealing your strengths, weaknesses, and core values. To do this I highly recommend writing an anecdote about a great internal or external challenge that you’ve overcome. This anecdote will allow you to add two more characteristics that’ll spice up your essay: vulnerability and your ability to evoke strong feelings.

To make your story more influential and memorable to its reader, you should write from a deeper place than your intellect. Write with your heart. Write with the vulnerable emotions you felt. Reel your readers in by filling them with poignant emotions. Being expressive can make application evaluators sympathize for you, which can give you more pity points. However, do not make the essay a big sob story. There should be a proper ending or closure at the end of your essay. If there isn’t a resolution that’s okay, but, to avoid just talking about sad things in your life, there needs to be an ending. If your essay has at least two of these characteristics, you’ll be able to stand out in the crowd of files and convince your readers you are ready for the challenge of college.

Now that we’ve gone over helpful strategies to write a good piece of literature, let’s go over the less flexible rules of your essay. Firstly, the most important thing you must do in this essay is answer the prompt. I know this might be a given, but It really is imperative that you don’t drift too far from your topic. You don’t want to be the one person who wrote an amazing essay but didn’t answer the prompt. In addition, you want it to be grammatically correct and well written. This essay is not the one you want to have a misplaced comma or letters mixed up in a word. You should reread it quite a few times and even have it peer reviewed for grammar alone. Lastly, given this is used to represent you, write in your own style. Vary your sentence length and give your words flow and energy.

With all of this given, the most crucial part is to have fun and enjoy the journey of writing yourself out on paper.