Tips for Writing a College Essay

Tips for Writing a College Essay (1:30) – Advice to students preparing for college from Alece Plasencia, Academic Counselor at the Girls Academic Leadership Academy (GALA) in Los Angeles

A college essay is very important. You want to make sure that you are presenting yourself what they cannot see on your GPA or test scores. So you want to tell them about your personality and your character.

It’s very important that you highlight things that you’ve done in high school– for example, if you started a club– if you were the founding member, the president. You also want to highlight just anything that you’ve done that’s been extraordinary. Maybe something you’ve done in the community. Maybe you’re involved in your religious group or whatever. I mean, you want to highlight those things because they won’t necessarily know that.

And all of those things show leadership and show character. So even if it’s a summer program and you were, for example, a lifeguard, you could write about that and that experience that you had. They want to see that. So make sure all of that is highlighted.

And then you want to let them know why you want a college degree and why you want to attend their particular university. What is it about their university that attracts you and what you’re going to do and give to them and bring to them and what you plan to get out of it.

So all of those things are very important and your ultimate goal for the future. So those are the tips that I tell students to do.