How to Write a Killer Essay.

• Author: ALTSCHULER, GLENN C.
• Position: For college admissions - Brief Article

An Ivy League dean offers six tips to steer your admission essay in the right direction

Why does the personal-essay portion of the application to college cause so much angst? Because a lot is at stake. Since many institutions have eliminated the personal interview, the essay is now the one opportunity for students to provide a glimpse of how they think and write, and to convey what is important to them.

Like pornography, a good essay is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. A good one catches the applicant in the act of thinking; it establishes a distinctive voice, personality, and perspective. With these characteristics in mind, here is some advice on how you can make your essay strengthen your candidacy.

1. Write about your world and your experiences. A 17-year-old inhabits a foreign country, and adults who work in colleges are curious about what it's like to live within its borders. Essays about a friendship that was forged or one that failed, buying a pair of sneakers, an afternoon working at Dunkin' Donuts, or getting robbed on the subway can provide glimpses of your ideas, values, and passions.

2. Avoid writing about national and global issues. You'll sound like a teenager trying to sound like an adult.

3. Describe, don't characterize. Minimize adjectives and adverbs. "The Coach Who Changed My Life" may be healthy, wealthy, and wise, but these qualities can best be conveyed in a narrative of what he actually said and did. In "Ode to Dad," a Cornell applicant explained her father's values by describing his hands, encrusted with dirt from a career as a...