My college essay writing process

If anyone’s interested here’s what I do.


1. Look at the prompt


1a. Check if there’s any overlap with previous prompts I’ve written to before: this could mean reusing parts of or whole essays


2. If it’s a fresh prompt you gotta be a big girl. Free write. Don’t be afraid of rambling just let out all of your emotions and ideas in sentence form. Don’t pay attention to the word limit or cohesiveness just go for it.


3. At this point, you’ve probably hit writers block since all your frustration is out. Good. Now go to wordcounttools.com or whatever to see how much bs you’ve written and how much over or under you are of the limit. If you’re under, okay you have space to write more if you want. If over, time to cut it down a bit. 


4. Look for any patterns or possible cohesiveness in your essay. See what ideas you can link together and which ones you can take out that are too weak, or offensive, or you just don’t like them or don’t relate to the prompt. 


5. Move stuff around. Put like ideas together. Try to have some sort of order to the ideas like a flow.


6. Fix your grammar. 


7. Look for an intro body and conclusion to your essay. If there isn’t throw it in.


8. Read it out loud. Does it sound strong and powerful? Does your author’s voice shine through? How do you know? Paste it to Hemingway. Do most of what Hemingway tells you; lose adverbs, more active verbs, less passive voice.


9. Send it to your guidance counselor and ask them to read it and give feedback.


10. Take feedback and fix it.