College Application Essay Assignment



Personal Statement Assignment

Draft due: Tuesday, September 3 2013

Final due: Thursday & Friday, September 5 & 6 2013

25% penalty per calendar day late to

Many colleges and scholarship applications require the submission of an essay. How well you write your essay will greatly determine whether you will be admitted to the college of your choice or be chosen for a scholarship.

What is an essay? Most essays are the writer’s viewpoint on a subject. Opinions vary greatly. Your job is to convince the reader that your opinion, theory, claim, or interpretation is correct, in this case to convince the college admissions board to let you into their college, or to be selected for a scholarship.

• What are college admissions and scholarship committees expecting in an essay?

o Can you write? Your ability to interpret, analyze, and express yourself clearly, correctly, and vividly will be crucial in your college courses.

o Do your personality, character and morals come through?

o Can you think? The essay must enlighten the reader about your thought processes, mental maturity, purposes, goals, and life outlook; it must demonstrate comprehension of intellectual or social issues, as this adds a human element to the application process.

Requirements:

Your assignment is to write a one and one half to two page essay over one of the example prompts below, or a prompt that you bring in from a college you will be applying to. If you choose a different prompt, make sure it is from a legitimate college. You must attach a copy of the page you found your prompt on, unless you are choosing one from below.

NOTE: Do not write more than two pages – I will stop reading/grading at the end of two pages – remember LARD practice. Get rid of every sentence and word that does not add to your message. Again, anything over two pages will be discarded – concise writing is an integral aspect of this assignment.

• The essay must be typed, double spaced, and in perfect MLA format (refer to your Writing Guidelines handout)

• Utilize your “Words Not to Use” handout and proofread, proofread, proofread!

• Turn in a hard copy of the paper AND submit to BEFORE your class period begins.

• You must turn this in ON TIME. If you are absent, send it to me through email or through a friend. My email is munczek.steve@.

• Where do you start?

o Prewriting

▪ Brainstorm

• Write down everything you can think of that is related to the question

▪ Ask Questions

• Analyze your brainstorming ideas to help you focus and develop a plan

• Develop your thesis with three green words (main idea)

• Organize (Outline)

o Drafting (suggested format below)

▪ Thesis statement – tells them what you’re going to tell them (and so you know, before you begin writing, exactly what you are going to discuss in your essay)

▪ Body (tell them)

▪ Conclusion (tell them what you told them)

▪ Introduction (tell them what you are going to tell them – now that your essay is complete, your introduction should be the easiest thing to write – consider it an abstract about what your essay contains)

▪ Remember:

• your audience is 23-75 year olds with varied backgrounds

• the selection board has 4 to 7 minutes to review your entire file

▪ Do not overuse the thesaurus; use ONLY words you are very familiar with to avoid word choice errors

▪ Do not repeat information from your resume or application

▪ Do not use sympathy or beg them to accept you

o Editing

▪ Proofread, proofread, proofread, proofread – wait a little while, and proofread more!

• Select two proof readers

• Use the seven-trait adjusted AP rubric to score yourself – the same rubric as

• USE spell check and grammar check, and then double check for the correct spelling of the words that were corrected (watch out for homonyms)

• Have your essay read aloud to you and listen for extra or missing commas, fragments, run-ons, and sentences that do not add to your message or are off-topic.

Your heading must look exactly like this example; otherwise you will lose formatting points.

Doe 1

John Doe

Mr. Munczek

English 12 – (your period)

5 September 2013

Personal Statement – F

Each sentence in each paragraph of your paper must begin with a different word, with few exceptions

Include a personal anecdote to reinforce your message

Numbers ninety-nine and under are always spelled out

Write short, focused sentences rather than complex or compound sentences wherever possible

No: Overuse of the words “I,” ‘you’ or ‘yours’

No: Colloquialisms (slang) such as: Stuff, hang out, cool, groovy, or other ‘common’ words

No vague, non-specific language such as: Big, great, awesome, amazing, fantastic, and other similar words – in other words, NO superlatives (the words just listed above are examples)

No contractions

No question or exclamation marks - ? and ! Avoid asking too many rhetorical questions.)

Below are several prompts from actual university applications. You can choose the one that appeals to you most, even if it is not from a university you plan to attend. You must list the letter of the prompt you are using in your assignment title. If you are actually applying to a university that requests a different prompt, attach the prompt so that we can make this assignment as relevant as possible for you.

***How you interpret the prompt is an integral aspect of the essay; you must address it thoroughly and meticulously. ***

NOTE: If you are not planning on college, or you believe this assignment is a waste of time, remember that you are learning communicational, organizational, and analytical skills that will assist you throughout your life.

**Additionally, your grade will take a severe hit for not completing it.

College prompts:

A) Consider the books you have read in the last year or two, either for school or for leisure. Please discuss the way in which one of them changed your understanding of the world, other people, or yourself. (Duke University)

B) Describe a situation where you have not been successful, and what you have learned from the experience. (William and Mary)

C) The benefactors of the Worth and Dot Howard foundation are hard-working Arizona pioneers. Worth was a bookkeeper for Arizona’s copper mines. His wife Dot was a teacher, who taught in a one-room schoolhouse with dirt floors. Yet, via personal sacrifice, this childless couple achieved financial success and created educational opportunities for others. Like the Howards, when you are able to do so, how will you share your time, talent and resources to benefit others? Worth & Dot Howard Scholarship

D) Select a creative work: a novel, a film, a poem, a musical piece, a painting or other work of art that has influenced the way you view the world and the way you view yourself. Discuss the work and its effect on you. (University of Virginia/William and Mary/NYU)

E) Do you believe that your academic record accurately reflects your abilities? Explain. (University of Virginia)

F) What confuses you most in life, and why? (University of Virginia)

G) Create a metaphor for yourself using something you would find in your kitchen or your garage. List as many similarities or relationships between yourself and this object as you can think of, then elaborate on this comparison in an essay. Why is this object a good representation of you? (adapted from U. of Chicago)

H) “Evaluate a significant experience, achievement, risk you have taken, or ethical dilemma you have faced and its impact on you.” (CA)

I) “Discuss some issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you.” (CA)

J) “Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence.” (CA)

K) “A range of academic interests, personal perspectives, and life experiences adds much to the educational mix. Given your personal background, describe an experience that illustrates what you would bring to the diversity in a college community, [and] an encounter that demonstrated the importance of diversity to you.” (CA)

L) “Discuss a leadership experience you have had in any area of your life: school, work, athletics, family, church, community, etc. How and why did you become a leader in this area? How did this experience influence your goals [, your character development, and/or your outlook on life]? (Millennium Scholarship)

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