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With senior year starting up and the stress of the college search underway, I am sure you are all thinking about how to write the perfect essay that expresses who you are as well as your interest in the university you are applying to. I remember the most stressful part about applying to colleges, besides the waiting, was the writing. With so many schools and so many supplemental essays, it is easy to get lost and overwhelmed in the madness of balancing applications and everyday life. So with this blog, I want to give you my tips for easing the stress of writing your essays.

First, make a list of all the key points you want to hit. While you are given a prompt, creating an informal outline helps you write the essay in a significantly smoother way. I find that when I create an informal outline for any essay, I have an easier time writing and getting out my ideas in a more coherent tone. With the outline, it is a lot easier to change your ideas before you write out the whole essay. Another benefit is that you write a lot faster because you already know what you want to say in the essay.

The second step is to write everything that comes to mind. Many say that it is easier to cut words than add them. Typically when I would write my essays, I wouldn’t even think about the word count because I always felt I was missing a key point in my writing when I would overthink it. Now, I am not saying you should forget about the requirements, but for your first draft, you should write without thinking about the count.

Talking specifically about the University of Michigan (and you could apply this for any school too), write about what qualities about this school draw you in. What are you looking for in a school? How does the university you are writing about fulfill those desires? When I was writing my essay for the University of Michigan, I wrote about places both on and off campus that held a lot of great memories for me from when I visited. I wrote about the specific schools that I wanted to be in, what qualities in those schools drew me to them, and what tools they had that stood out to me. This wasn’t just my dream school because of my personal history, but because of the educational opportunities I knew the school could provide me. In your essay, emphasize what qualities about the university draw you in and make it stand out to you.

I recommend always having someone else read your essay. Some people are very independent and are good writers, but it never hurts to get advice on your writing assignments, even in general. We are often very biased about our writing, thinking that it is good enough, but when it comes to college essays you want them to be as perfect as possible. Having another person read your essays will give you another perspective in terms of both content and grammar. A third party can catch things that you may overlook.

I hope reading this post will help you with how to approach your essays. I know it is really daunting and scary, but it is just a stepping stone until you enter some of the best years of your life. I wish you all good luck and hope you stay positive throughout the stressful time of the college application process.