8 Ways to Kill Your College Essay

You Make a Grocery List

I have great credentials.

You should accept me.

I am the best person at my school.

I am the best person in my state.

I am the best candidate for admission.

Especially when an essay topic asks you to "evaluate" or "describe" yourself, don't list out accomplishments. If your admissions officer wanted to read a list of the things describing you, he or she would have turned to your application form, whereupon you list your GPA, SAT scores and extracurricular activities. There's a reason it's called an essay. Every time someone lists out his accomplishments the admissions office should send him coupons to Kroger.

You are Pompous/Arrogant/Overly Confident/Overly Assertive

An essay topic could ask, "What do you think is one of your qualities that you think holds you back?" My favorite answer is "I am a perfectionist." Who farted, right? College admissions officers want you to write about something that is true, something that really defines you as a person and brings out your character. By trying to reverse the question on itself and make you seem like you have no flaws, you don't even answer the question and waste paper while doing it. Talk about what truly holds you back the most, as we are all people and we are not perfect. Every time the essay reader sees the words "I am [insert something positive]," he or she dies a little inside.

You are a Comedian

Yes, colleges want to admit COLLEGE STUDENTS not stand up comedians. Touching up your essay with a bit of humor is no problem, but when you write like everything in your life or everything you talk about is humorous, you make your life sound like a satire. And I'm pretty sure it's not. The only piece of writing that can get away with that is The Human Comedy, and it was SAD. Be sure to sound sincere in your approach, write with a sense of balanced confidence, and don't think that your silver tongue will make everyone giggle. College essay readers read up to hundreds of essays in a day. You just stand out like a rotten apple.

You Whine

Makes me want to eat a Waahburger and some French cries. So you aren't overly confident, but you're just the opposite. When writing a college essay, it is important to strike the balance between humility and confidence, but not slide too far down the spectrum. In this case, you seem like you are crying out to the essay reader for help - either that, or you're writing a blog. I never understood why students wrote essays that irradiate "whine." College essay topics only want to bring out the best in you as a student, so whining or complaining about some tough time in your life isn't going to get anyone's sympathy. The college essay is the only method of actually speaking to your admissions officers. Make yourself look good. Not like my 5-year old brother.

Grahmur and speling mAtter

You say you're bright, yet you have trouble spelling words correctly. If I was a reader and I saw even 2 spelling mistakes in your first paragraph, I would toss your essay. You have all the time in the world to prepare an essay (including spell check from Microsoft Word), and yet you still substitute you're with your and it's instead of its.....did you watch Schoolhouse rock? Conjunction junction what's your function? By submitting an essay with trite grammatical and spelling errors, you aren't giving your essay reader the respect he or she deserves. Don't count on leniency - especially if your essay has one of the other symptoms mentioned in this article.

You wrote a Dissertation

Many students will disregard the word limit imposed on the college application essays in order to show that he or she has gone "beyond the call of duty." If you are driving "beyond the length of a cliff," you're probably dead. In this case, you just proved to the college essay reader that you 1) Don't follow directions and 2) You wrote a lot about nothing. Essay topics are structured so that they can be answered in the allotted word amounts with sufficient space to develop meaning. Write your essays with the most meaning in the least possible amount of words. Unless you were beginning to write your essay in the 4th grade, it shouldn't be 200 pages long. My cousin was a Ph.D candidate for 8 years before he finished his dissertation. And his was only 180 pages long.

There is no Character Development

Just like in any good novel, there needs to be a change from the start to the finish. If you write an essay that just lists actions and decisions within a certain timeframe, you should draw timelines for children's history books. College essay topics will ask you to EXPLAIN things that you have learned from your past experiences. Critical thinking is, well, critical. If you don't spend time THINKING about how certain situations affected your life and in what ways, you probably don't spend time THINKING. Period.

You Plagiarize

Yes, it's possible and I've seen it before. "Robert" wrote an essay for a college application in which he included his name "Robert" multiple times. His friend "Eric" took the essay and copied it verbatim onto one of HIS applications. What's the problem here? You guessed it. If you plagiarize, YOU WILL GET CAUGHT. There, I said it. Just like the police do.

So there you have it. There's a time to be smart, funny, witty, and humorous. There's a time to vent about your problems, or show off your peacock feathers. A college essay is a place to do none of these things. Make yourself into an interesting person. Talent is attractive, and Harvard is your potential girlfriend.