Information adapted from Fiske Real College Essays That Work.
Overall, you want to be genuine in your essay, but Fiske has some general guidelines about what you want to show and what you want to avoid in your essays.
There are innumerable qualities that you might want to emphasize in an essay, including that you:
There are also qualities that can be real turnoffs. They generally appear unbeknownst to the author and can undermine anything good in the essay. Avoid any suggestion that you:
Your essay may be the only time that the admissions officer gets to hear your voice. Think of it as you on the page.