{"id":4255,"date":"2018-06-19T14:05:53","date_gmt":"2018-06-19T20:05:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.petersons.com\/blog\/?p=4255"},"modified":"2019-08-13T11:29:01","modified_gmt":"2019-08-13T17:29:01","slug":"making-one-essay-work-for-multiple-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.petersons.com\/blog\/making-one-essay-work-for-multiple-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Making One Essay Work for Multiple Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your college essay,<\/a> regardless of the actual question you\u2019re answering, should somehow address the question, \u201cWho are you?\u201d\u00a0 Your reader should know more about you and what makes you tick by the time they\u2019re finished reading it.\u00a0 The actual essay question can be almost anything from \u201cdiscuss a person from history you\u2019d like to meet\u201d to \u201ca place where you are content\u201d to \u201cwhy you have selected your chosen major\u201d, but your answer should always reveal something about you.\u00a0 This common thread that runs through all of your answers is precisely the reason that one essay can often solve multiple purposes.<\/p>\n

On the State University of New York (SUNY) Application, students (who also have the option of submitting the Common Application) can choose to answer, \u201cChoose an issue impacting your high school, community, country or the world and why it is important to you.\u201d\u00a0 The University of Maryland asks, \u201cIf given the chance to create your own course, what would the course be titled, what material would you cover, and most importantly why you would choose it?\u201d The University of California asks applicants to \u201cdescribe the world you come from \u2014 for example, your family, community or school \u2014 and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.\u201d\u00a0 All of these questions are asking you to reveal something about yourself, something that will contribute to their mission as a college<\/a> or university<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If someone asks you to write about where you are from, it\u2019s ok to give a description of that community (or some aspect of it), but what\u2019s really important is how that community affected or shaped you and\/or, how you contribute to it. Alternatively, if you are choosing an issue that is important to you, it\u2019s important to define the issue, but the most important part of that essay is\u00a0why<\/em>\u00a0it is important to you.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say I choose to write about music in my life (story of a real student).\u00a0 In this essay, I might describe how I started playing the trumpet in elementary school and found myself really enjoying it.\u00a0 In middle school, I joined the band and the jazz band.\u00a0 I also joined a community youth orchestra, and multiple ensembles at the high school.\u00a0 I come from a family with very little musical background, but suddenly, because of my significant musical involvement, our dinner table conversation changed to include talk of orchestral pieces by Shostakovich and jazz by Dave Brubeck.\u00a0 I developed an appreciation for the arts, and though I have no intention of pursuing a professional career in music, I cannot imagine any stage of my life being without it, and, of course, I wouldn\u2019t miss the opportunity to play in college in some capacity.\u00a0 If the question changes to discussing an issue that is important to me, I can reshape my essay so that I include all of the info above after I talk about the importance of arts education in an era of school budget cuts.\u00a0 If the question is, \u201cdiscuss a significant event in your life\u201d, I might talk about playing in an all-state (or county) concert, or the time I botched up a jazz improve in front of an auditorium full of people with on off-key squeal, much like the changing voice of a teenage boy.\u00a0 It was mortifying, but it was a great illustrator of the importance of practice! I can then follow this with the fact that all of my practice and commitment led me to join multiple high school ensembles and have made music such an integral part of my life.\u00a0 The lens (or essay question) can change, but what I reveal about myself can stay reasonably the same.<\/p>\n

This plan won\u2019t work for every single essay question ever asked.\u00a0 In fact, the questions from the University of Chicago might make these connections slightly more challenging and necessitate a bit more creativity to make the connection, but in the vast majority of cases, what you want to say about yourself can be presented in the answer to a host of different questions.\u00a0 Working hard also means working smart, so be efficient with your essays wherever you can!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your college essay, regardless of the actual question you\u2019re answering, should somehow address the question, \u201cWho are you?\u201d\u00a0 Your reader should know more about you and what makes you tick by the time they\u2019re finished reading it.\u00a0 The actual essay question can be almost anything from \u201cdiscuss a person from history you\u2019d like to meet\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":5677,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[33,444,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-4255","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colleges","8":"tag-application","9":"tag-common-application","10":"tag-essays"},"better_featured_image":{"id":5677,"alt_text":"","caption":"","description":"","media_type":"image","media_details":{"width":2048,"height":1365,"file":"s3:\/\/pcom-wp-media\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/10124510\/depth-of-field-desk-essay-210661.jpg","sizes":{},"image_meta":{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"","created_timestamp":"0","copyright":"","focal_length":"0","iso":"0","shutter_speed":"0","title":"","orientation":"0","keywords":[]}},"post":4255,"source_url":"https:\/\/wp-media.petersons.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/10124510\/depth-of-field-desk-essay-210661.jpg"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMaking One Essay Work for Multiple Schools - 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