How to Write a College Application Essay: An Introduction

You may wonder what a post about college application essays is doing on a poetry site. College applications belong to the icky world of GPA’s, ACT’s, SAT’s, and all those other abbreviated sources of stress, right? This is a place for creativity and inspiration!

As a poet with over fifteen years’ experience teaching high schoolers how to write application essays for the schools of their dreams, I can tell you that poetry and personal statements aren’t too far off.

Both tell a story. Both come from the heart. Both abound with sensory language. Both can be written only by the author and no one else.

Or at least that’s how it should be.

I’ve talked to so many students and parents over the years who believe that the college application essay is just another form among the dizzying pile of paperwork (or digital files) that must be filled out, submitted, and quantified.

But the application essay? That’s the time to shine. To be you. To—and get ready for this—have fun.

Here at Tweetspeak, I’ll be exploring what the college application essay is all about. Why must students write them? What kind of writing is it? When and how should you start? What can you learn about writing–and yourself–through this milestone process?

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For a full discussion of how to prepare to write in a way that will make schools want to nab you, see the rest of this article in the Introduction of our title How to Write a College Application Essay: Expert Advice to Help You Get Into the College of Your Dreams.

Photo by Mustafa Sayed,  Creative Commons, via Flickr. Post by Tania Runyan, author of How to Read a Poem and How to Write a Poem.

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Providing everything a student needs to go from draft to polished essay, the instruction in How to Write a College Application Essay is straightforward, easy to apply, and inspiring. Includes sample essays from students who got into the colleges of their dreams.

“How to Write a College Application Essay is a valuable resource that I enthusiastically recommend to my students and their families.” —Lisa Scanio, High School Counselor, Adlai Stevenson High School

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Tania Runyan

Tania Runyan lives in Lindenhurst, Illinois, a sort-of suburb, sort-of small town, where the deer and the minivans play. She's a 2011 NEA fellow and mama to four poetry books—A Thousand Vessels, Simple Weight, Delicious Air, and What Will Soon Take Place—and three (much cuter and noisier) human children. Tania is also the author of five non-fiction books—Making Peace with Paradise, How To Read a Poem, How to Write a Poem, How to Write a Form Poem, and How to Write a College Application Essay. Visit her at TaniaRunyan.com

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