How long is a good college essay?

First of all what are the requirements of the college essay you're writing on? Usually you are given so many words and the "good" is very subjective. It depends on what your teacher requires of you and what the topic is about.

Hi Gabriella!

As a current undergrad student myself who applied to college just two years ago, I know how you're feeling right now! Hopefully some of the steps I took to write my own essay can help you too.

1. Relax and Take a Breath

When thinking back to my own essay writing experience, I immediately recall how stressful and worrisome the whole application process can be! That being said, the first step to writing a great college essay is to try to relax, take a deep breath, and acknowledge that you're eventually going to write an amazing essay. It might take one, two, or even ten drafts, but you're eventually going to emerge with an amazing piece of work that communicates your individual character to the admissions officers who read your application. Seeing as though you're already starting to think about college essays (and it's only August), you're leaving yourself an ample amount of time (a few months) to draft, re-draft, and draft some more!

Writing a good essay is a very emotional process and unwanted stress will only add difficulty to what is already a tough task.

1. Think About Personal Experiences that Make You Who You Are

College admissions officers read essays because they want to get to know YOU better. Your essay is, for all intents and purposes, the only opportunity you have to express who you are to admissions reps throughout the course of the application (besides maybe a teacher recommendation). Depending on the school's specific prompt (if it's a common app school the prompts encourage this), you should attempt to incorporate a personal experience that you feel defines you within your essay (this can be anything from the time you hit the winning shot at the big game in high school, anecdotes about your culture/family, anything really that YOU find important). When writing your essay, always ask yourself the question; if someone I had never met read this essay, do I think they would know and understand who I consider myself to be? In this manner, you can almost consider the college essay to be a story of sorts, the story of YOU.

1. Brainstorm

Working off the point I listed above, brainstorm all the personal experiences/facets of your individual character that you think could be good to write about and WRITE THEM DOWN! Even if you feel like an idea may be "dumb" or ridiculous, write it down anyway and begin brainstorming ways that you could write an essay working off it. In the college essay writing process, the most important thing is to get your juices flowing! It's true that some topics are better to write about than others, but writing down all your ideas will ensure that you don't miss out on the story you should be writing about!

1. Show Other People Your Work

Remember to have someone you trust (friend, family member) proofread your work and offer suggestions on the topic that you choose. It's really difficult to edit your own work for grammar and style, and allowing someone else the opportunity to help you out will ensure that your essay is the best that it can be!

Sorry that this is so long!

1. Length

With regard to your original question, essay length depends on the prompt given (common application limits essays to 750 words). Definitely stay within the word limit (don't go over 750), but don't be afraid to be under it (for example, 700 words would be fine). It's all about how many words/how much time you need to tell YOUR story. My own essay was only 650 words! Less is more!

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any follow up questions/or if I could help in any way!

Cheers,
David

Hi,

To write a proper essay one needs to have structure of thought, imagination, and creativity. An examiner can tell a lot about a student by looking at the way a student writes his essays. Thus, essays have become an inseparable part of academics. The two most important parts of an essay are structure and content. The structure is the format and the content is whatever you write adhering to the essay format.

Margins, Spacing, and Font Size

First and foremost you should leave a marginal space of 1 inch from the top, bottom, left and right sides of the page. You can easily leave a margin space of one inches in Word by doing the following tasks:

Go to the page layout option and click the margins tab.
Click on the normal option, which is default to 1 inch space from all the sides.
Each and every line of the paragraph should be double-spaced. Proper line spacing can be achieved in MS Word through the following steps:

Select the paragraph.
Right click on the selected portion.
Go to Paragraph.
In the Indents and Spacing tab: go-to ‘line spacing’ option and select ‘Double’.
Make sure that you use the Times New Roman font with size 12 to write your essay. This is a universal font acceptable in all academic papers. Don’t try to use a larger font to write less!

Headings

The heading should start with the top left corner of the page. Make sure that you have set the indentation to left-justified. The left justified option can be easily enabled in your MS Word software.

The heading of the essay should follow a format which is:

Write your name on the first line of the heading.
Write your instructor name below your name.
Write the name of the subject and the subject code below the instructor’s name.
Write the date of submission below the subject name.
An example heading could be:

Marc Stevens
Dr. Thomas Daniels
Math 1005
4 March 2014

One of the most ignored but the most important parts in essay formatting is the header. The first page of the header should contain only the page number. From the second page and further, the header should contain your last name and page number, both should be right indented.

Header formatting steps for first page:

Go to the insert option.
Click on the header tab.
Check the different first page option.
Click on the page number tab in the design tab.
Inside the top of page option select the right indented page number.
Header formatting steps for second page and further.

Go to the insert option and click the headers tab.
Uncheck the different first page option.
Click on the page number tab in the design tab.
Choose the right indented page number style.
Write your last name before the page number.
The MLA rule book says that the paragraphs should start by leaving a half-inch space at the beginning. To keep it simple, you can start your paragraphs after pressing the tab button. Make sure that each and every paragraph that you write should follow this format.

The title should come after the heading and should be center aligned. After writing the title, make sure that you press enter twice before starting with the paragraph. You can use the formatting symbol (¶) option and check that there are two formatting symbols between the title and the paragraph. You can start writing the first paragraph after the title.
Keep the text left aligned every time you start with a new line.
These are simple college essay formatting guidelines that every student should follow in his academic age. The format makes the essay easy to read and comprehend for the reader.

Tip #1

Don’t beat around the bush! Keep your sentences short and simple. Also make use of the active voice as much as you can. The active voice will make your sentences impactful and also allow you to communicate more effectively.

Tip#2

Understand the topic! When writing essays, it is easy to drift away from the topic and go offbeat. So, when you are writing your essays you need to be connected to the topic at hand- in some way. Please do not talk about ‘birds’ when the topic is about dog food (Though dogs may love to eat birds!). To keep yourself on track, go back to the title after every paragraph you write. Ask yourself,” Is the next paragraph that I am about to write connected to the title in anyway?” If the answer to this question is ‘Yes’, then you may move forward.

Tip#3

Show connection and fluidity in your writing! There should be a connection between a sentence and the sentences following it. If you are not able to make that connection- it’s poor writing! So all you need to do is start with an idea, expand that idea and give a proper conclusion to it. That’s it! And your essay is already in the top notches.

Tip#4

Follow a structure! You should have a plan, a set structure, when you are writing an essay. Don’t go about writing your essays in a haphazard way without any goal. Plan an outline, plan each and every paragraph before you start to write. And most importantly plan the conclusion. The conclusion should summarize your essay in the most succinct form and should be able to make an impact on the reader.

Tip#5

It’s all about a killer title and an intriguing head start! One of the most difficult things in writing essays is coming up with a good title. The title should not only sell your essay in a few words but also give an idea about the most important point that you are about to make through the essay. So before giving a title, ask yourself- What impact do you want to make? Is your title relevant to the essay? And when you have the answers, go forth and give that killer title.

Students have written 400-word essays and gotten into good colleges – and some have written 2,000 words. Generally students write between 500-700 words.

Hope this calrifies most of your doubts around essay writing process.

Do well, all the best.

Regards,
Archana Jain