Revising College Essays
So you’ve finished the first draft of your college essay (often called “the personal statement”)? Congratulations! This is an important milestone in your college process.
BUT, did you notice the phrase, “first draft?”
Like any first draft, it’s now time to revise. If you’re unsure how to start, below are some tips.
Check for proper spelling, grammar, and conciseness.
Use Google docs or Word’s spell and grammar check features. Usually, they even indicate if you can rewrite a phrase more succinctly. If you see red or blue squiggly lines under words or phrases, pay attention to them. One way of reducing spelling and grammar errors is striving to eliminate all the red and blue squiggly lines from your screen! Be sure to use your own judgment when accepting these recommendations that are offered by spelling and grammar check features to make sure edits are accurate and to take complete ownership of your writing.
You may consider using ChatGPT or another Artificial Intelligence (AI) program to suggest edits to your work. Before going this route, be sure to check individual institutions’ policies related to AI as some schools may prohibit the use of it in creating materials for your application. To use it as an editing tool, paste your essay into the AI and instruct it to “copy edit” your essay. “But there’s a crucial next step,” shares Ari Worthman, director of college counseling at Lakeside School in Seattle, Washington. “While AI does a thorough editing job, it can sometimes be too thorough, often simplifying and condensing phrases to maximize concision, and eliminating the uniqueness of your own voice. After it copy-edits your essay, read through your essay again, looking for places where the wording no longer sounds like you, or for places where your voice has been lost. Don’t hesitate to revert to your original phrasing. AI might be an expert in language and editing, but it’s not an expert on you and your voice. You are!” This rapidly developing technology is changing society all around us, and the ethics of how and when to use it are evolving, as well. At its best, AI can be a powerful tool to help you learn how to improve your own work. If you choose to use it, consult it as you would a teacher, family member, or mentor, but ultimately, make sure your work – and your voice – are your own.
Edit after each revision. As you add new sections and change existing ones, you’ll likely make additional spelling and grammatical errors.
2. Ask a teacher, advisor, or mentor to read the essay aloud to you, and then for their feedback. While some students dislike hearing their writing read aloud, this is important for a few reasons.
When someone else reads your essay aloud, you see the essay through their eyes. A certain phrase might not sound as you intended. If the reader struggles with a sentence or section, that might indicate you’ve been too wordy, or that your phrasing isn’t intuitive to many people (this is why YOU reading it aloud to yourself is less effective; you’re prone to interpret words and phrases as you intended them). College admissions counselors read essays quickly, so while your writing should sound unique to you, it also must be easily readable for anyone.
Ask the teacher, advisor, or mentor if the essay sounds like you. Does it convey elements of your personality, thought process, or mindsets that would help an admissions officer learn something about you? Finally, ask them what the point or moral of the essay is. While your essay should be a story about you, it should also have a clear and simple message that’s easily understood. Remember, admissions counselors read quickly; if they have to slow down to interpret an abstract message or overly complex point, you’ll likely lose them - and the opportunity for them to learn something about you.
Finally, one important piece of advice: ask one or maybe two others to engage in this exercise with you. But not more than two people! Reviewing a college essay is a subjective task; there’s no right or wrong answers, but only opinions on how to best represent yourself. If you ask too many people for feedback, you’ll end up incorporating so many extensive and varied edits that your final product will no longer sound like you, but like a junk sculpture composed of a gazillion voices that all sound different rather than your own strong and confident voice.
3. Explore options for the parts of the essay that need to be rewritten or revised. If rewriting is challenging for you, here are some strategies that might help.
Stop writing! Contradictory, right? But this is a proven tactic. Take a break and put some distance between you and the essay. After a few days, return to the essay. Often, spending time away enables us to look at our own work with new eyes and greater open-mindedness.
Speak your revisions aloud. Pretend your essay is a speech you're giving to friends or classmates. How would you present that part of the essay as a speech? Remember that most (but not all) of us spend more time speaking than writing, which means we typically have greater skills expressing ourselves orally than in written form. Maybe even record yourself. Then, transcribe your words and see if, with some editing, you’ve captured what you want to convey. Try this exercise a few times to see what different possibilities you produce and then choose the one that captures what you’re hoping to convey.
Finally, don’t obsess over any one word or sentence. Admissions counselors are reading fast and evaluating your general writing ability and trying to learn about you. Deciding whether to use the word “nice” or “kind” is a granularity that won’t impact the reader’s impression of you.
How will you know when you’re done editing? Well, this is the hard part for some students. First, you should feel proud of your essay and that it conveys your voice and a significant element about you. Yet, because the college essay is important, you might be prone to keep editing, often wondering how much editing is truly enough? If you still find yourself editing after your third or fourth revision, Ari Worthman suggests asking yourself a key question. “Are your changes making the essay better or simply making it different? Because English offers so many unique ways to express a similar idea, the possibilities are infinite. If you feel other possibilities are truly better, then sure: keep editing. But if they’re just different, be proud of what you have written, and redirect your attention to the many other components of the college application. From my 20+ years of helping students with college essays, students are seldom making their essays better after the third or fourth revision - just different.”
