Bad College Essays and Mistakes You Need to Avoid
Like all other materials are important i.e. SAT / ACT scores, letter of recommendation, similarly Essays play a very important role in a student’s admission journey. Admission officers categorize the essays in three categories ranging from Good, Bad and Ugly. You can find many examples on Internet that could help you write good essays. In the below article, I’m going list down the 10 mistakes students make while writing essays, which make them a second or third category essays. If you follow my advice, your essay most assuredly won’t end up in the second.
Indian NRI students usually come across such issues where they tend to put out their best in everything they do and sometimes through this they give out unwanted information in their essays. This makes the essay lose its point. Hence, let’s first look at what makes up a bad college Essay.
What Makes a Topic Bad Essay?
The main aspects that add up to make a bad essay are an unexpected topic with superb execution, flawed personal statements with problematic subject matter and poor execution.
Problems with the Topic
A perfect topic to write an essay on is something that’s challenging, interesting, fresh, and dynamic, something that shows your true personality, character, talents and skills. Indian NRI students you should not use some easy topic for an essay. Reason being a badly chosen essay can lead to poorly written essay. This could ruin your good impression on admission officers.
Basis the topics you choose, admissions officers form a perspective about you. Some topics show that you don’t have a good sense of judgment or maturity. While some topics suggest that you are a boring person and some suggest that you're unaware of or disconnected from the outside world and focused only on yourself.
Problems with the Execution
I have come across some essays whose topics were great, but when I read the essay, they were poorly structured. The content used was not properly researched. Similarly, if the topic is good but the context exhibited has unclear syntax or incorrectly used punctuation. This could be problem as admission officers look out for college ready essays.
Topics to Avoid While Writing College Essay
Topic #1: Too Personal
Sometimes writing a personal essay can be tricky. Students might reveal a very private part of their life which can show that they are not matured enough to choose a wise topic. The best way to check if you are writing a personal essay is, the information you provide in it should be only limited to something that you’d tell to a stranger sitting next to you when on a long journey.
Examples:
- Losing your virginity,
- Anything about your sex life really,
- Too much detail about your illness, disability or any other bodily functions,
- Details about your love for your significant other,
- Confessing to odd and unusual desires.
Topic #2: Too Revealing of Bad Judgment
Never ever mention anything about your illegal past or anything that may straight out ruin you impression. However, if you were ever stuck in a difficult situation and did something in a very different mindset, it should be highlighted in a form of a something that changed your life.
Examples:
- Committing crime as something fun or exciting,
- Describing drug use,
- Making up fictional stories about yourself,
- Your personality flaws.
Topic #3: Too Overconfident
An essay should always be balanced showing pros and cons of a particular topic. If you choose a topic about yourself and you’re simply praising yourself over one single quality/trait that comes out as a show off.
Examples:
- Relentless Bragging,
- No awareness of the actual scope of your accomplishments.
Topic #4: Too Clichéd or Boring
Topics you choose should be interesting and gripping, you want the admission officer to remember you. Re-read your essay from a third person perspective and think whether it’s interesting or not.
Examples:
- Using an overused topic like Sports,
- Reacting with sadness to a sad, but very common experience,
- Offering your ideas on how to fix the world,
Topic #5: Off-Topic
The main aim of your college is to describe you and your personality traits and your strengths. Writing about someone or something else might well make a great essay, but not for this context.
Examples:
- Giving a tribute to someone.
- Writing about a work of art
Execution Problems apart from Bad Topics
Pessimistic Approach
A College Essay should be Resourceful, Resilient, and Optimistic. Admission officers always seek these qualities in an essay. If it doesn’t give out these, then it’s falls into the third category.
Failure to Proofread
Proofreading is the always a best way to relook at your essay from a different perspective. At times most people find it difficult to proofread their own work, the best way is then to give it someone to who knows all about you and ask them to mark all the areas they feel has errors or can be changed.
To Summarize:
Indian NRI students or I must say everyone who is applying for college admissions should avoid making the above mistakes in their essays. And always proofread the essay as many time as possible before submitting it.
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