Fall is a stressful time for high school seniors. With college apps looming, we have to work in overdrive to write our essays, focus on school, and work on our extracurriculars.

In writing the best college essay you can do, you can put a step forward in your application, saving yourself time and stress in the upcoming weeks.

Don’t know where to start your brainstorming for the topic of your essay? First, reflect on who you are as a person.

According to Mrs. DeSantis, a Cathedral AP Language and Literature teacher, being your authentic self is “easier said than done.” That being said, she believes that “everyone is capable of doing it.”

Some of Mrs. DeSantis’s favorite college essays to read are the ones that cover who a student is, and what they want. Highlighting a talent or something a student does outside of the classroom shares insight into the person’s life.

“At the end of the day, they are accepting a person into their university, they need to know who that person is,” Mrs. DeSantis said.

A tip to start is to just “sit down and vomit the words on the page.”

Even if you are not a natural writer, you can still achieve writing a great college essay.

“It’s something that’s not going to happen overnight,” DeSantis said. “You aren’t going to wake up and be a perfect narrative writer.”

Writing the first draft is always the hardest but Mrs. DeSantis and Dr. Williams, another Senior English teacher, can agree on writing down all you can on the first draft. One piece of advice Dr. Williams can give is to not edit yourself while you are still on the first draft.

“Don’t worry about word count in the beginning, you can shave it down or expand later on,” Dr. Williams said.

Dr. Williams also advises to let lots of eyes read the essay, whether that’s friends, teachers, or even Grammarly.

A big concern many students face is their essays not being complex or sophisticated, to which, Dr. Williams reassures, most students don’t use fancy and complicated words.

“Yes, it’s formal, but it’s still supposed to sound like a teenager,” Dr. Williams said.

Another great piece of advice Dr. Williams shared was to ‘be the star’ of your own essay, not an event or another person. At the end of the day, the college is admitting a person, not a story.

Being a mature and adult student is important for colleges to know. They want to accept someone who can handle college. Having a part time job shows maturity and real world experience, as well as how to work with people.

“They [colleges] love students with jobs,” Dr Williams said, “it’s important to understand empathy.”

Overall, it’s important to remember that writing a college essay, although it may boost your application, will not make or break your application. Just relax and try your best, we got this!