Writing a Winning College Essay for Bucknell: A Former Student's Take
When I first sought out help with my Common App essay, I didn't really know what to expect. I had experience working with tutors for high school courses, but never with a topic that was so important for my future. During my first session, I was very nervous and I wasn’t sure how the meeting would go. After having a normal conversation with Ben and getting to know each other a little bit, things were easier. Once I established a relationship with Ben, he began to help me dig deeper into my life and my personal goals and interests.
The early meetings were really challenging for me. I went into this process thinking I knew myself, but Ben kept asking me questions, and I felt like I barely knew anything about who I was and what I wanted. Ben helped ease my anxieties. Although there were hundreds of questions thrown at me throughout our sessions, they helped break down my thoughts, feelings, and desires. I figured out what to write my Common App essay about and how that topic shaped me on a personal level. This aspect of the writing was surprising to me. I got to learn more about myself and I felt a sense of relief once I finally knew what to write about. I finally started to feel like my college essay was coming together after around five or six sessions. However, everyone moves at a different pace, and that was just my experience.
Over the course of working on my essay, I developed some skills that will be helpful to me in the future. An obvious benefit was an improvement to my writing skills. Although not perfect, writing felt smoother. I learned how to incorporate semicolons and dashes more effectively. I also learned the importance of word choice and its effect on your writing. This wasn’t always an easy task for me; I often over-explained certain pieces of information, or had run-on sentences that took away from the importance of my idea. With Ben’s help, I was able to focus on what was central and find the best way to incorporate it into my work.
Another skill I learned that I will utilize in the future is the ability to walk myself through a problem or question. As mentioned previously, Ben threw many questions at me to help me thoroughly consider how to answer the question and decipher what it was asking. By the end of the college essay writing process, I was able to ask my own questions without his help. This newfound skill helped me write other papers for classes in school and other various supplementals for college.
I worked with Ben for many of my supplemental essays, too. I applied to 18 schools, so there were many supplemental essays to complete. This process was a bit of a spin-off from writing the Common App essay. When it came to writing supplemental essays, each college wanted to know different things, and they often wanted you to relate your previous experiences to your future life at their college. With this writing process, there were, of course, more questions to ponder. I am an active person who is involved in numerous types of activities, and Ben made sure that a lot of these experiences were shared with each college (based on the questions the college asked). Despite this, when possible, we tried to reuse strong supplemental essays. This allowed the process to fly by more easily, since we only had to edit essays a bit to make them college specific.
Overall, my experience with Ben was very valuable. I was interested in a tutor who would support my decisions and help me dig deeper into who I am, and I found that. When embarking on this process, my advice would be to find someone you click with; you don’t want to be working with someone you are scared to open up to. Although I was nervous going into my sessions at first, after forming a relationship with Ben, I found it easier to work with him and express my interests. Writing your college essays can be a daunting task. The best advice I can give is to make it fun. I enjoyed learning more about myself and all I wanted to share with colleges. Although you may not be applying to as many colleges as I did, it’s still important to give each college your all. They want to learn more about you, so tell them! I am grateful for my tutoring experience and am lucky to be going to Bucknell University this Fall!