General Facts About Essays
The admissions people read zillions of really boring essays about "how great I am" and "my plan for world peace." Colleges are very worried that their students don't write as well as students did in the past, so if you have strong writing skills, you have a serious edge.

You want to get your point across, not bury it in words. Your prose should be clear and direct. If an admissions officer has to struggle to figure out what you are trying to say, you'll be in trouble.

Avoid adjectives and exclamation points. As you reread your essays, stop at every adjective and ask yourself if it is necessary. Don't even bother asking yourself about exclamation points, just leave them out!!!!!!

"The admissions officers reading your essay want it to prove to them two things. First, they want it to show that you can write at a college level, which means that you have a command of the English language and can use it to craft a cogent written statement. They're not interested in your vocabulary skills, though, so give the thesaurus to your mom and have her hide it. You should be able to write your essay without fancy words whose meaning you don't understand. (And it is so painfully obvious to admissions officers when you don't; they're almost embarrassed for you.)

What Makes a Good College Essay?

Admissions officers are interested in seeing that you understand sentence and paragraph structure and can pace a narrative. Oh yes, and that you know what a narrative is in the first place. In case you're a little unsure, a narrative is simply a story. And unless you're William Faulkner (who didn't even graduate from college), the story you tell to the admissions officer through your essay needs to be brief, flow logically from one event to the next, and have a convincing conclusion. People usually act consistently (even if they're consistently inconsistent), and their pattern of actions more times than not leads to consistent outcomes. You'd have to be a darn clever wordsmith, for example, to convince a reader that a chain smoker could enter the New York City Marathon and win it just because he "had a lot of heart." Your essay should not require the admissions officer to suspend disbelief. So keep it brief and coherent.

That's What Friends Are For
If your essay is filled with misspellings and grammatical errors, admissions officers will conclude not only that you don't know how to write but also that you aren't shrewd enough to get help. Ask your mom, dad, teacher, brother, sister - someone - to read your essay and comment on it. Be especially careful about punctuation.

Apart from just reading your essay, you really should have someone take a look at how your essay works with the other components of your application. Is there harmony and consistency between your essay, activities list and transcript? Have a seasoned editor or someone who's seen a lot of successful college apps, such as your high school counselor, take a look at yours.