Your Life Story--in 500 Words

You must dazzle but not go overboard.

You must not let the pressure get to you, even though this exercise could make or break whether you get into college.

You must describe a pivotal experience or event in your life, but you only have about 500 words in which to do it.

You must be going crazy.

But that’s OK. Writing a college admission essay is not about fun or pleasure. It is about you. Specifically, it is about personal experiences--not evident in other parts of your application--that have led you to seek a college education and how college might further your knowledge or learning.

That may sound simple enough, but it’s best to give yourself a lot of time to do it, experts say. If there is any consensus among them, it is: Don’t wait until the night before your essay is due. If you do, your procrastination will show. Poorly developed thoughts and sentences will make you stand out--for the wrong reasons.

This project is best started weeks in advance.

One way to start is suggested by Joan McCoppin Kosuth, an Orange Coast College counselor who conducts workshops on admissions essay writing: Jot down some of your life experiences and characteristics that describe your personality or way of thinking. Did you overcome challenges to get to the cusp of college? Was there an event in your childhood that made a lasting impression on the way you see the world? Was there somebody in your life who changed the way you thought about an important issue?

Once you’ve done that, you can draft a focused essay with a theme. The point is to avoid generalizing and simply reciting your high school activities; the admissions officers already know about those from your application. “Don’t be cosmic,” Kosuth said.

Can the canned themes like “Working at the homeless shelter showed me homelessness is a very serious problem” or “My grandmother’s death showed me how important life is.” Admissions folk have heard that before, and it won’t impress them.

This is a time to be introspective and personal, to look for examples of what you have done to enrich your education or passages in your life that demonstrate your maturity and what you have done or want to do to make the world a better place.

Can you recount a relationship with a homeless person at that same shelter who changed your thinking about the issue? Perhaps your grandmother’s death was the first time you and your parents related as adults?

Remember your audience--strangers who are looking to learn something about you that they can’t see from your application.

“On the day we open your file and read your application and statement, you won’t be with us,” said Sue Wilbur, director of admissions at UC Irvine. “But if you were with us, if you were sitting next to us and had the opportunity to explain why you should be admitted, what would you tell us? What would you want us to know that would be helpful in making the decision?”

Once you have established the theme, write. More importantly, rewrite. The first draft is just the beginning. Put it away for a week or two or even more. Show it to people whose judgment you trust--perhaps a parent, friend, teacher or counselor.

Don’t get too bogged down in grammar. Not that proper spelling, punctuation, word choice and neatness aren’t important, but most colleges do not use the admission essay as a way to decide what English composition class you belong in. They’ll give you another test for that.

“It’s not a writing sample. It’s more a supplemental piece of information,” said Mike Drummy, admissions director at Chapman University in Orange.

A word to the wise: Be wary of those Internet sites sporting model essays. Guidance is one thing; plagiarism is another. Admissions officers insist that they can tell when an essay was not written by the signed author.

“The individual is going to really come out if they are doing it themselves,” Drummy said.