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• • Select your payment type, sit back and relax!

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Essay Editing Service

Get accepted at your dream school.

Expert essay editors polish your writing to reflect the work you put into it. Professional college essay editing will:

• Make sure that your essay will get read
• Make sure you'll leave a positive impression
• Make you stand out from your peers

• College Essay Editing & Coaching

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College Essay Editing Services

Our college essay editing package.

The first draft is always the hardest. Work with an admissions essay coach who will give you practical, step-by-step guidance on how to develop your essay and make your story come alive.

Your coach will…

• Read your profile
• Review your essay draft
• Share feedback to help you refine your topic, structure, and voice
• Leave in-text feedback and suggestions
• Proofread for grammar and punctuation
• Give you a roadmap to guide your revisions

We’ll help you show your best traits to college admissions officers and prove that you’re college-ready! With help from our essay coaches, you’ll improve your chances of getting accepted – so what are you waiting for?

Meet Scribbr's essay experts

At Scribbr, you can rest assured that only the best editors will work on your college essay.

All our 800+ editors have passed the challenging Scribbr Academy, which has a passing rate of only 2%.

We handpick your college essay editor on several criteria, including field of study.

Janice holds a PhD in German studies from Duke University. As a former professor, she has helped many students refine their application essays for competitive degree programs and study-abroad programs. Today, she helps students improve their writing skills at Scribbr. In her spare time, when she's not writing or editing, she enjoys working on the small family farm that she owns and operates.

Alexandra earned an Erasmus Mundus MA in cultural narratives and a BA in English from Emory University. As a teacher, editor, and writing coach, she has spent nearly a decade helping students find their voice and express their ideas.

Originally from Maryland, Amy headed west to attend Scripps College in California, where she earned a bachelor's degree in music and gender studies. In 2009, she began working for the admissions office of her alma mater, where she focused on reviewing applications and interviewing prospective students.

“Extremely professional and timely”

Extremely professional and timely! Regis did an amazing job bringing my admission essay to life. It went from overly wordy and unclear to very professional and concise. If I don’t get into my desired program, it won’t be because of my essay.

How it works

Get quality feedback in 4 easy steps, upload your college essay.

Upload your college essay , and tell us a little about yourself. We’ll match you with a certified college essay coach.

Sit back and relax

Your coach will edit your essay and share in-depth advice to help you strengthen your structure, content, and narrative.

Receive your feedback

We’ll send back your fully edited essay. Applying to college is nerve-racking, but at Scribbr you never have to wait for long.

Revise and submit your essay

Thanks to your coach’s feedback, you’ll feel clear about the next steps and confident when you hit “send” on your application.

Scribbr & academic integrity

Scribbr is committed to protecting academic integrity. Our proofreading service, our AI writing tools ( plagiarism checker , paraphrasing tool , grammar checker , summarizer,  Citation Generator ) as well as our free Knowledge Base content are designed to help students produce quality academic papers.

We make every effort to prevent our software from being used for fraudulent or manipulative purposes.

Your questions, answered.

We know that waiting for feedback can be nerve-racking. If you select our faster deadline option, you’ll hear from your personal statement editor in 12 hours or less – including on weekends and holidays. 

We never engage in rewriting or adding text at Scribbr. Our personal statement editors will make grammatical corrections and leave suggestions using Word’s track changes and commenting feature. However, we always make sure that your perspective and voice remain front and center in your essay.

We know that waiting for feedback can be nerve-racking. If you select our faster deadline option, you’ll hear from your college essay coach in 12 hours or less – including on weekends and holidays.

Yes. All our college essay coaches are subject-matter experts and can help you make decisions regarding the content of your essay. Your coach will help you make a strong case for your admission.

Our essay coaches will provide feedback on…

• Whether your topic is appropriate and how to strengthen it
• Whether your essay demonstrates positive traits and authenticity
• Whether the narrative flows smoothly and grabs the reader’s attention
• How to dig deeper and show self-reflection and insight
• What content is missing and should be added
• What content is weak and should be removed
• How to shorten your essay to meet a word count limit

However, we will never…

• Write or rewrite content for you
• Research or fact-check your essay’s content

If you have any questions, feel free to email [email protected].

When you submit your essay to our College Essay Editing & Coaching service, you’ll be asked to indicate what type of content feedback you would like to receive. You can choose from three options:

Dig deep and challenge me

Give me the standard treatment

Tread lightly

Whichever option you choose, you’ll receive in-depth content feedback from your essay coach. However, the type of feedback your essay coach provides may differ, and the option you should choose depends on what outcome you want from the review. You can always elaborate on what type of feedback you want in your note to your essay coach.

Learn more about the three options below.

Choose from three options

If you choose this option, we’ll challenge you to write the best possible essay – no content suggestions are off-limits, including reorienting your topic or reframing your story. Students who choose this option aren’t afraid to go back to the drawing board if it’ll increase their chances of getting accepted. You may have to roll up your sleeves and do some more work on your essay, but your essay will be much stronger because of it.

Select this option if your priority is to have the best possible essay, even if it requires some extra work on your side.

We’ll strike a balance between “dig deep and challenge me” and “tread lightly.” We may suggest changes to your structure and narrative, including removing weak content, elaborating on certain sections, and adding content to strengthen your arguments. You may have to rework sentences and paragraphs, but we won’t suggest major content changes.

With this option, we’ll focus on improving your essay in a way that requires little additional work from you. We’ll provide you with targeted suggestions for how to refine your essay’s structure and narrative, but we will work within your current structure and topic. While you may have to make a few tweaks here and there, we’ll aim to return you a polished draft that’s ready to be submitted to your chosen colleges.

Select this option if you are fairly satisfied with your essay and don’t want to make major changes or if you have limited time to revise.

At Scribbr, we promise to make every customer 100% happy with the service we offer. Our philosophy: Your complaint is always justified – no denial, no doubts.

Our customer support team is here to find the solution that helps you the most, whether that’s a free new edit or a refund for the service.

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College Essay

How to Write a College Essay

What colleges look for in an essay, choosing your college essay topic, college essay format & structure.

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• 14 Best College Essay Services for 2024 (40 Services Reviewed)

Research conducted by Emily Kierkegaard , PhD, and expert-reviewed by Kevin Wong, PrepMaven Co-founder

Not sure which college application essay coaching and editing service is the best? We compared the top 40 services, created in-depth reviews for 14 of them, and narrowed it down to the 4 best that will help guide you through the process of writing amazing college application essays.

What is the Best College Essay Service?

• PrepMaven  – best college application essay service overall
• College Essay Mentor  – best for individual consultants
• The College Essay Guy  – best for unlimited essay assistance
• College Vine  – best of the big platforms

The best of the rest:

Individual essay consultants:

• College Essay Editor  – small editing team
• Allison Karpf  – former English teacher helping students
• Your College Vision  – former journalist with more affordable rates
• The College Guru  – good on paper but unresponsive
• Sofia Zapiola – budget-friendly application assistance

Mid-size teams:

• Lotus Learning  – focus on health sciences

Large platforms:

• Study Point  – larger platform with mystery editors
• Ivy Select  – larger platform with mystery editors
• Empowerly  – larger platform with mystery editors
• BeMo  – expensive and aggressive with wrong expertise

Schedule a college essay consultation

Best College Application Essay Services in 2024

#1 – prepmaven.

Our Verdict — Best College Essay Assistance Overall Price: $79–349/hour (minimum $510 package) PrepMaven’s one-on-one college essay assistance is the best option overall. Founded by brothers and Princeton grads Greg and Kevin, almost all of PrepMaven’s essay coaches have Ivy-League experience, primarily from Princeton and Harvard. All essay coaches also undergo a thorough training program in PrepMaven’s methods, developed by professional writers with deep understanding of the college admissions process, for helping students to discover the most compelling stories for their essays. Unlike other services, PrepMaven offers college essay assistance at several different price points. At the most accessible rate, students can work with current Ivy-League undergraduates who specialize in writing and have recently aced the college application process. At higher rates, students can work with coaches who are both Ivy-League grads and professional writers (screenwriters, journalists, editors) with many years of experience helping students to craft compelling essays. Interested students can even work directly with founders Greg and Kevin, who have over 15 years of experience helping students through the entire essay-writing process. PrepMaven’s services combine many of the best features of other good options into one, and it’s hard to beat their experience.

Sign up for PrepMaven’s college essay help now

Any student wanting college essay help, at any point in the process, with a range of budgets.

At a glance:

• Cost: $79–349/hour (minimum $510 package)
• Writing coach qualifications: Princeton graduates and professional writers (or current Princeton students); all trained

What we like:

• Ivy League experience —most of their writing coaches are Princeton grads or current students, with some from Harvard and other Ivies
• Different pricing options to meet different families’ circumstances
• More flexible and greater capacity to take on new students compared to individual consultants

Sign up for PrepMaven’s college essay help

#2 – College Essay Mentor

Our Verdict — Best of the Individual Consultants Price: unknown but high Some college essay consulting services consist of just one expert. Of these individual essay consultants, Chris Hunt at College Essay Mentor is our favorite. He combines writing experience as a journalist for the Economist and the Wall Street Journal with personal experience as a graduate of Dartmouth. However, he only works with a small number of students each year, and students need to apply to work with him — he only accepts students with top grades and test scores who are already strong applicants for top schools. Chris offers the option for one-time written feedback, but this only gives big-picture generalizations. (And written-only feedback is always limited.) In order for help with the essay process, students need to purchase a complete essay package.

Students with top grades and test scores who want to work with a one-person business, who have a sizable budget, and who are ready to get started early.

• Cost: $210 for a one-time written essay feedback (big picture only), then $110 per draft feedback; pricing for essay process packages unknown
• Essay coach qualifications: professional journalist, Dartmouth grad
• Professional writing experience as a journalist
• Extensive experience working with college applicants
• Partners with Debra Felix, former Director of Admissions at Columbia, for full application review

What we don’t like:

• One-on-one work is limited to very high-achieving students, who need to apply with a resume : “I limit my one-on-one work to students who I believe will be strong applicants to elite universities. As a rule, this means having high grades in challenging classes, a test score of ACT 34+ or SAT 1500+, and substantial activities outside of the classroom.”
• Works with a limited number of students (60 per year), so often no availability
• All-or-nothing packages don’t allow students to work with Chris for just a few hours or for part of the essay-writing process
• Secretive about pricing (he’ll only give pricing details once he’s reviewed the student’s resume and agreed to work with them), but we expect the minimum cost of working one-on-one to be several thousand dollars

#3 – The College Essay Guy

Our Verdict — Best for Unlimited Essay Assistance Price: $4900 for application to 3 schools, $8050 for application for 10 schools We’re fans of Ethan Sawyer, the original “college essay guy”— his book, College Essay Essentials , is a great guide to the essay-writing process. Ethan doesn’t work directly with many students these days, but he now has a team of consultants who help students follow his principles. Their assistance is really all-or-nothing — they prefer to work with students from the very beginning of the process, and their minimum package is $4900, which includes assistance with essays for three schools. If students are applying to ten schools (a more realistic number for students aiming at competitive colleges), the fee is a hefty $7400.

Students who want unlimited help through the entire process, who have a sizable budget.

• Cost: $4900 (supplemental essays for 3 schools) – $7400 (supplemental essays for 10 schools)
• Essay coach qualifications: mix of Ivy grads and former teachers, some writers/screenwriters; all trained
• Great free resources about the essay-writing process
• Their Matchlighters Scholars Program gives back to the community by providing admissions consulting for select qualifying students
• All-or-nothing packages have a high minimum fee and don’t work for students who want just a few hours of feedback or help with just part of the process

#4 – College Vine

Our Verdict — Best of the Big Platforms Price: $140–180/hour There are plenty of large platforms with large stables of part-time tutors and coaches available to work with students. Of these big platforms, we think CollegeVine has the best offerings. Compared to other large companies, CollegeVine provides more information about their tutors, and students can pick individual tutors to work with from their roster. However, this model is really just a way of finding individual tutors to hire. Tutors don’t receive any training and don’t share a common approach, so it’s a mixed bag. Their rates are fairly high for part-time tutors who don’t have specific expertise and training in college essay consulting. Because CollegeVine is really just a marketplace where individual tutors can find students, the quality and price will vary widely.

Students who want to work with a big company, or those who want a quick session or two to go over their essays.

• Cost: Typically $140–180/hour
• Essay coach qualifications: no specific qualifications, but a few are Ivy League graduates
• Possible to select individual editors to work with from their roster.
• Easy to schedule ad-hoc sessions with a tutor through the website.
• No training or common approach for tutors
• Editors are part-time , with no option to work with full-time college admissions experts
• Relatively expensive for this level of expertise

College Essay Editing Alternatives (that Didn’t Make the Cut)

Individual essay consultants, #5 – college essay editor.

Our Verdict — Small Editing Team Price: Roughly $5,950 for applications to 10 schools College Essay Editor comprises two graduates of Stanford. This means that they have personal experience applying to highly competitive schools. One member of the team also has a college counseling certification, which is a good background for college essays. Based on their website, they appear to focus on the editing and proofreading phase of the essay-writing process. This can be helpful to students, but we recommend working with a service who can help students to uncover their values and brainstorm really great material that allows them to really shine—and if this doesn’t happen at the beginning of the process, it’s much harder to add in later on.

• Cost: $195/1000 words for proofreading, $495/1000 words for 3 rounds of editing and proofreading, or $595/1000 words for unlimited rounds of editing and proofreading; for the purposes of comparison, complete applications to 10 competitive colleges would be around 9,650 words, or $5950.
• Writing coach qualifications: Stanford graduates, one of whom has college counseling certification
• Editors are graduates of Stanford University , and one is a member of NACAC, the national association of college counselors
• They focus on editing and proofreading only , not on the crucial earlier steps of brainstorming and strategy
• Small team with very limited availability
• All asynchronous editing so you won’t be able to cultivate a real relationship with your essay coach.

#6 – Allison Karpf

Our Verdict — Former English Teacher Helping Students Price: $385/hour or $3850 package for application to one school Another option for students looking to hire an individual consultant is Allison Karpf. Allison is a former high school English teacher and a graduate of UC Berkeley who also holds a Masters of Education from Stanford. Her rates are definitely on the higher side, especially for someone who doesn’t have a professional writing background, but she does have extensive experience working with students to craft their essays.

• Cost:  $385/hour or $3850 unlimited counseling (includes supplemental essays for one college)
• Essay coach qualifications: former high school English teacher; Berkeley grad, Stanford MEd
• Lots of experience helping students improve their college essays
• Very quick to respond to client requests
• No professional writing experience or Ivy-Plus undergraduate experience
• High rates relative to other options
• Limited availability , since she works alone

#7 – Your College Vision

Our Verdict: Former Journalist with More Affordable Rates Price: $180/hour, or packages starting from $3500 Laurie Lande is another individual consultant who helps students through the essay-writing process. She comes recommended by other consultants like Chris from College Essay Mentor . Laurie did not herself attend a highly competitive school, so she doesn’t have that personal experience of going through the selective admissions process, but she does have a professional writing background as a journalist for the Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong.

• Cost: $180/hour or packages starting at $3500
• Essay coach qualifications: journalism background
• Affordable pricing , relative to other options
• Not a graduate of a highly selective school

#8 – The College Guru

Our Verdict — Good on Paper but Unresponsive Price: unknown Yet another individual essay consultant is Geanine Thompson from The College Guru. Geanine attended Dartmouth as an undergraduate and also holds an MBA from Duke. She also has a professional writing background as an assistant book editor at Berkley Publishing Group. Like Greg and Kevin at PrepMaven , she combines experience in the business world and at Wall Street firms with experience in education.

• Cost: unknown
• Essay coach qualifications: former assistant book editor; Dartmouth grad, Duke MBA
• Dartmouth graduate and former book editor
• Not responsive to emails and client requests

#9 – Sofia Zapiola

Our Verdict — A budget-friendly, personal essay editor. Price: $80/hour Yet another individual essay consultant is Sofia Zapiola, who offers a mix of essay editing and college application counseling services.

• Cost: $80/hour
• Essay coach qualifications: M.A. from Harvard; certificate in College Counseling from UC San Diego.
• Individual approach, budget-friendly rates, commitment to working within families’ budgets.
• Very few testimonials, so it’s difficult to evaluate how effective she is.

Mid-size Teams

#10 – lotus learning.

Our Verdict — Expensive for Tutor Background Price: $165/hour Founded by a Harvard grad who is a former teacher and veteran of the publishing industry, Lotus learning offers college essay help in the Boston area. They have a small team of tutors, mostly recent grads from good but not Ivy-Plus colleges, and mostly with focus in health sciences.

• Cost: $165/hour (minimum 8 hours)
• Essay coach qualifications: tutors are recent grads, but not Ivy-Plus schools
• Reasonable pricing with flexible packages
• Essay editors aren’t graduates of Ivy-Plus schools and don’t have professional writing experience

Large platforms

#11 – study point.

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: Rates Between $60 and $120/hr Study Point is a larger essay editing service. They claim to have several decades of experience helping students to craft their college essays, but they do not give information about who their essay coaches are and what qualifications they might have.

• Cost: $60-120/hr, depending on tutor experience
• Essay coach qualifications: unknown
• Larger company with several decades of experience
• Unclear who the essay coaches are
• Lack of statistics about their results

#12 – Ivy Select

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: unknown Ivy Select makes a lot of big promises on their website about having the best college essay consultants in the business, but they offer no information on who these consultants are, or on their backgrounds. They also brag that each consultant “only” works 20 students in one application cycle, but in our experience, that’s quite high.

• Long list of impressive (but anonymous) testimonials
• Only work with “top students”
• No information on their website about who the editors are
• Each essay coach works with up to 20 students at one time

#13 – Empowerly

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: High, from $6000/year Empowerly has over 60 college counselors who each work with an average of 5 students per year, in order to have more time to devote to each student. Their counselors come from “different educational backgrounds,” and while they do not provide specific biographical details we can assume that most of their essay coaches did not attend highly selective schools.

• Cost: typically from $6000/year
• Essay coach qualifications: college counselors
• Counselors work with just a few students per year
• You have to upgrade to “Empowerly Elite” to guarantee a counselor with a more selective educational background
• No professional writing experience

#14 – Prepory

Our Verdict — Expensive but with Good Expertise Price: $325/hr Prepory is a college application and career counseling service that offers a comprehensive program for college applications at any stage of the process (including as early as 9th grade). They make a lot of impressive claims about the expertise of their coaches, but it’s quite difficult to actual find much information about their essay coach qualifications.

• Cost: $325/hr
• They have a comprehensive college application program that begins as early as 9th grade.
• Limited information about essay coaches
• High prices

Top 40 College Essay Services Considered

• College Essay Editor
• The College Essay Guy
• College Vine
• College Essay Mentor
• Study Point
• Allison Karpf
• The College Guru
• Lotus Learning
• Summit Prep
• Sofia Zapiola
• Ivy Global / New Summits
• College Essay Solutions
• Your College Vision
• Essay Edge*
• ServicEscape*
• PapersForge*
• QuickWriter*
• JustEditMyEssay*
• JustDoMyEsssay*
• ExpertWriting*
• SpeedyPaper*
• GradeMiners*

* A number of services will edit essays directly for students, or even write portions of the essay for students. We do not condone this. Admissions officers can tell when essays have been written or edited by adults and this can have severe consequences. We have excluded these services from our reviews.

Why are college application essays important?

Can a great college essay alone get you into Harvard?

No. You’ll need your grades, test scores, and extracurricular activities (as well as letters of recommendation and interview) to be outstanding.

But can a mediocre essay be the reason you didn’t get into Harvard?

Yes. There are thousands of amazingly-qualified students who graduate from high school each year. Great grades and test scores might be a prerequisite for admission to a competitive college, but they alone aren’t enough.

College essays are a key component of a student’s application . When done well, they transform a collection of numbers—GPA, class rank, SAT or ACT scores , number of AP classes taken, AP scores—into a glimpse of a real, individual person.

Essays do many things. Good college essays can highlight extracurricular achievements which otherwise would be overlooked in a sterile list. Strong essays often indicate the student’s future plans —how they plan to leave a mark on their college campus and on the world. They can shine a light on unique challenges that a student may have had to face on their journey.

College admissions officers only have a few minutes to spend on each application. College essays need to be original, interesting, and memorable . They need to grab the attention of the admissions officer and persuade them that this is the student out of hundreds or thousands of other similarly-qualified applicants who should be admitted.

College admissions essays are usually unlike any other kind of writing that students have done before. They’re a combination of memoir and marketing pitch, and they need to be creative but also highly strategic. That’s a tough assignment!

What’s more, students are left to figure this assignment out on their own. A thoughtful and generous high school English teacher may provide guidance or offer to read essays and give feedback, but these teachers are responsible for many students, and they’re (usually) not experts in admissions strategies.

There’s another reason college essays are especially important from 2024 on. After the recent Supreme Court decision, the application essay has become one of the main ways that you can communicate how your racial identity has affected your life.

In fact, the New York Times published an article about how important it can be for students to discuss race in their college application essays!

Why work with a college essay service?

You may want to consider a college essay service if:

• You have no idea where to start in order to write your college application essays
• You feel overwhelmed by all of the different ideas you have and don’t know what would be the most strategic for college admissions—and what topics to definitely avoid for college essays
• You don’t know how to craft a compelling stor y
• You’re not sure how to edit and refine what you’ve written
• You have a hard time keeping yourself on track and want an external structure to hold you accountable
• You’re tired of conflict between students and parents about college essays
• You’re aiming at a competitive college (not just the Ivy League!) and know that you need your essays to be outstanding
• Your grades, test scores, and extracurriculars aren’t exceptional, so you need your essay to make your essay stand out from the pack
• You’re unfamiliar with the US college admissions process (a common situation for international students and first-generation families in the US)

Any of these are strong reasons to consider working with a college essay service!

It’s also worth remembering that a lot of the free advice on college’s website isn’t always very clear. For example, NYU’s admissions Senior Assistant Director of Admissions says that “There is no right or wrong way to answer as long as your answer is genuine to you.”

While that’s true, that doesn’t offer much guidance on how to actually write the essay!

Though many college applicants might not mention it, more and more students are using professional college application consultants. Research at the University of Chicago has shown that over a quarter of high-achieving seniors employed private specialists to help with the college application process.

In fact, according to NPR , some companies are even offering college admissions counseling to their top employees as an incentive–that’s just how important professional help can be in the current landscape of college admissions.

It’s important to note that a good college essay service will not write your college application essays for you . This is unethical and illegal. That’s not just coming from us: take it from a school like Princeton, whose website insists on the importance of writing your own application essays.

A good college essay service will guide you through each step of the process , teaching you how to self-reflect and write well while sharing insider insight about admissions strategy .

What makes a good college essay service?

We strongly believe that students need to write their own college essays , and we do not condone plagiarism or “buying” a college essay.

However, writing college application essays requires a completely new set of skills that is rarely taught in high school!

Writing a personal essay is much more creative than simply writing a good paper for English class. It requires a compelling narrative and a great deal of writing craft . A good essay service will teach how to do this kind of writing.

There are many college essay services that will provide only written feedback to students, usually in the form of comments added to an essay draft. (Remember, it’s important that students write their own essays, so avoid any college essay service that will make edits directly to an essay document .)

Written comments can be an effective component of good essay coaching. However, writing college essays is a deeply personal process , and it’s incredibly difficult to guide a student through the process of self-reflection, brainstorming, and planning purely through written comments.

In addition, a great college essay coach will teach students how to do this entire process of brainstorming, planning, outlining, writing, and revising . It’s difficult to learn why an essay coach is advising certain changes through written comments alone.

For these reasons, look for a college essay service with live, one-on-one services , not just written feedback. These days, it’s easy to work with the best college essay consultants in the country over Zoom!

Students need to reflect on their goals, their passions, and what drives them to be the person they are. This requires a great deal of self-awareness and self-analysis . An experienced college essay coach can help draw these ideas out of students through tested introspection techniques and brainstorming exercises .

On top of all of that, students need to be cognizant of which traits and accomplishments will be most appealing to colleges , and which stories will be cliche and boring. Personal statements and supplementary essays need to fit together to tell a cohesive story, and they need to work together with the rest of the student’s application (extracurriculars, grades, and other accomplishments).

In other words, there’s a great deal of strategy here! An experienced college essay service can help students decide how to present themselves in the best possible light .

Furthermore, most students don’t know how to edit effectively . A really top-notch college essay service will also teach students how to edit their own writing —how to reorder sections for better flow, cut unnecessary words to meet a word count, eliminate passive verbs, and make their writing vivid and exciting. Our students are routinely amazed by how transformative this step can be, and how much they learn by doing it together with the essay coach.

Finally, the best college essay services can also help students to make a writing plan and keep them on track , so that parents don’t have to be involved directly.

Ready to work on your college essays? Schedule a free 15- to 30-minute consultation with Jessica or one of our founders.

Best overall: PrepMaven’s tutors offer the highest quality at the best price. With three tiers of tutors, they make it easy to work with an Ivy League undergraduate for as little as $79/hr. Or, families can work with education professionals or Ivy League graduates from $150/hr. PrepMaven’s track record means that you can be sure every hour is being spent productively, so that you can expect real results from the work.

Best for individual consultants: College Essay Mentor. In theory, College Essay Mentor would offer an unparalleled level of individual attention and guidance: his website boasts of some very impressive results. You might find it hard to actually schedule with him, however, since he’s very selective about his clients.

Best for unlimited essay assistance: The College Essay Guy might not offer that personalized attention you get from live, face to face essay coaching, but they do offer unlimited essay editing for up to 10 schools (if you’re comfortable paying a hefty package price).

Best of the big platforms: College Vine will always be a bit of a gamble. Because it’s a tutor marketplace, your results (and costs) will really depend on how lucky you get with your consultant. From our research, however, many of their essay coaches look to have solid track records.

Ready to work on college essays with one of our experienced writing coaches? Schedule a free test prep consultation with Jessica (Director of Tutoring) or one of our founders to see what would be the best fit for your family.

It’s always best to start early and not wait until the last minute to write your college essays! Remember that essays can be used to earn scholarships as well as college admission, so a few months of writing now can pay off with up to $300,000 in tuition saved later. 

We work with students at all stages of the writing process, from I-have-no-idea-what-to-write to final edits. To start working with an Ivy-League writing coach today, set up a quick free consultation with our team.

Schedule a free college essay consultation

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• What is the College Essay? Your Complete Guide for 202 4
• College Essay Brainstorming: Where to Start
• How to Write the Harvard Supplemental Essays
• How to Format Your College Essay

Emily graduated  summa cum laude  from Princeton University and holds an MA from the University of Notre Dame. She was a National Merit Scholar and has won numerous academic prizes and fellowships. A veteran of the publishing industry, she has helped professors at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton revise their books and articles. Over the last decade, Emily has successfully mentored hundreds of students in all aspects of the college admissions process, including the SAT, ACT, and college application essay. 

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"Where can I pay someone to write my essay?" - of course, at PapersOwl 

There are many platforms where you can pay for an essay. But PapersOwl is the most suitable website to pay for essays. We have a team of writers that can help you with any paper, and guarantee complete confidentiality, 100% plagiarism-free, with 24/7 customer support. Free yourself, and let our experts write you an essay that delivers good grades. Order now to scale your grades and meet submission deadlines.

If you have doubts about whether it is worth paying for college essays or if it's better to write one yourself, think of two words – economy and time. What does it mean? Paying for an essay seems more reasonable than the priceless time you spend writing and preparing your essay. Apart from this, it is more convenient to pay for essay papers and start doing what you plan to do, saving your energy,

Pay for essay online and get benefits with us

When you decide to pay to write your essay, different essay writing services offer various benefits, and PapersOwl.com is glad to state that we provide the best benefits and offer the most attractive deals on the market. What exactly do we offer? When you pay for essay writing on our service you get sweet bonuses and nice benefits, including 100% free:

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Can I pay someone to write my essay

PapersOwl is the best website where students all over the world pay for essays, regardless of their subject, grade, and deadlines. Do you not believe that this can be true? Look at these advantages, and get from your essay writing:

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• 100% Plagiarism-Free – every essay is unique, and we are ready to return your money if we fail to reach the highest level of uniqueness!

PapersOwl's main advantages

The best experts you pay to write essay

We discussed where you could get the service and answered things like, where do I pay someone to write a paper? PapersOwl is the place where you can pay for a paper . Now, it is time to talk about the team! Because they are the real deal that we ought to focus on! 

As you have already seen on PapersOwl, you can get the best possible cheap essay writing service to pay to write your essay problems

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Can you get caught paying someone to write an essay?

Sometimes students need more time to write their essays independently and look for help online. But a logical question arises - can I get caught for paying someone to write my essay? PapersOwl is a trustworthy online service that appreciates customers' faith. We take complete care of our client's data and privacy. Your details are exclusively used to create your account and can not leak anywhere online. If you are wondering about being caught paying us to write essays, our writers create your high-quality papers from scratch and do only original work. We double-check all documents before sending them to customers to be 100% sure that everything is written appropriately. So you can avoid getting caught paying us to write essays.

How can I pay someone to write my papers at our service?

All you need to do is to complete an online form. Pre-payment is not required because you pay only when we have met all your expectations and needs! Just click  the "order now" button on our homepage and clarify the specifics of your papers:

• Type of paper – here you will choose the type of essay you want to order.
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You have the possibility to include any media files, documents, comments, or other helpful material and submit the completed orders form to start receiving bids from our writers! The last step is to choose your writer and pay. As stated, each employee is a native speaker, a dedicated and skilled professional with vast experience, and has a university diploma. Thus, you can choose any of them and stay assured you have not made a mistake!

Can I pay to write an essay for me at PapersOwl? Of course, and what is even better – you can buy an essay online  for an affordable price! With PapersOwl.com, when you use our site, a real professor with a Ph.D. degree in writing your assignment!

Pay for your essay and get your life back

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The only downside is that you have to spend money on someone who can take on the job. Otherwise, you will have to do it yourself! While many seek such assistance, they often want it to be cheap. However, cheap, good, and affordable do not go hand-in-hand. However, fair-priced ones do. For example, PapersOwl, where you pay for essays online at a great price, is better than what most writers will ask you.

Reached this far? If so, have you asked yourself whether it is better to pay to write an essay for me at an internet essay service or do it yourself? The answers are clear - It is more reasonable to get assistance from pros. In addition, you also have learned how to do it and what the benefits are from it. All that's left is to choose whether to visit PapersOwl or not. The choice is yours!

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Essay writing FAQ

Each paper price is calculated individually and mainly depends on the number of pages and the deadline. You can customize requirements and describe the style and context of your work to ensure that everything will look brilliant.PapersOwl is a platform where you can pay to have your essay written excellently at a reasonable price. Our prices start at $13.5 for writing. If you want to check the accurate cost for your particular piece - feel free to contact us online or explore bids from our writers. We are sure you will be surprised by our customer-oriented prices and unique free benefits.

The answer is yes. If you use trustworthy providers like PapersOwl, you should have no problems! Using unverified ones, however, can lead to problems, so we recommend being careful!

Within a day or two, when you book a commission. The length of the project's completion depends on the topic and the requirements you provide.

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Pricing for guided assistance starts from $10/page and varies depending on the assignment length, deadline, or the writer's proficiency. Here are some of our most-requested services:

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Why customers trust us with their assignments.

Studyfy is a site to turn to for cheap assignment help. Check out customer reviews to see it for yourself.

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Pressing deadlines and a lack of time to complete assignments are among the most common reasons why customers seek college assignment help in the first place. Respectively, when looking for such help, they want to find a trusted service provider that can guarantee their deadlines won’t be missed.

Studyfy is here to lift that heavy burden off your shoulders, so you can devote your time to more important pursuits. We deliver high-quality university assignment help in short timeframes, helping you beat even the most pressing deadlines without any added hassle.

When placing an order with us, you can pick any due date that works for you, starting from only 3 hours for simple and small orders. Our team, in turn, guarantees that your assignment will be delivered on time, regardless of the due date. Thus, with Studyfy, you’ll never have to worry about missing your deadlines.

Online essay writing service with quality guarantee

Studyfy is a game changer for your academic life. We offer qualified online essay help that won't put you out of pocket. Thousands of customers have already put their trust in us and experienced the ease of our academic assistance firsthand.

With a large team of writing professionals and rigorous quality checks, we can deliver a quality paper tailored to your specific instructions. Moreover, if you share samples of your work, your paper writer will meticulously study them and ensure your work is to your liking. Thanks to their profound skills and vast expertise, our pros can make your ideas truly shine.

Just pay for essays online with us, and let our pros craft an academic masterpiece for you. Stop worrying about lengthy research, pressing deadlines, and lack of motivation. Opt for our service and lift your productivity to new heights.

Receive quality online assignment help without going over your budget

For the majority of customers, budget is an important consideration when it comes to selecting a suitable assignment helper. As we all know, most college people are living on a tight budget, which makes expensive academic solutions out of their reach. Luckily, despite the common misconception, “expensive” doesn’t necessarily stand for “high quality.” That is, you can get professional aid without going over your budget.

That’s one of our core missions at Studyfy. We believe that prompt and quality academic aid must be accessible to everyone, regardless of their budget.

To make this possible, we made our starting rates as low as $10.80 per page to ensure affordability for everyone. Additionally, we incorporated generous discounts and special deals. For example, clients who place their orders early on can enjoy our early bird discounts. And those ordering 2 or more pages at once can benefit from our bulk discounts.

Get professional help with assignments and enjoy free bonuses

If our low rates per page or generous discounts didn’t impress you enough, let us tell you about the exciting freebies you earn with Studyfy.

When placing an order at our assignment help USA service, every customer has the following bonuses included in the price:

Academic aid delivered by top-rated experts. All writers are native English speakers and people with higher education degrees.

Access to unlimited and free revisions. Edits can be requested within 14 to 30 days after order completion.

Formatting tailored to your requirements. Tell us which formatting style you prefer, and we’ll adhere to it.

Proofreading. All orders are carefully proofread by our pros to ensure premium quality.

Referencing. Our writers only use credible sources to craft your papers and carefully cite them.Title page. Our service doesn’t charge extra for crafting a title page.

Originality report. You can request a free report with your order to ensure its high originality score.

Request online assignment help from highly skilled pros

When you turn to an online service for help with your papers, the qualifications and skills of the writer directly impact the result you gain. Obviously, every student is hoping to hire an assignment expert who can actually meet and exceed their needs.

Studyfy makes a dream come true! Throughout years on the market, we’ve gathered a large team of qualified writers that you can trust. Our experts are native English speakers with outstanding language proficiency. Each of them has a BA, MA, or Ph.D. degree and in-depth knowledge of their subject area.

On top of that, each of our experts boasts dozens and even hundreds of completed tasks on their plates and plenty of positive customer reviews to confirm this. This gives them enough experience to handle any kind of task for you and ensure your satisfaction!

Essay writing service for any academic level

Depending on your academic level or major, you might have diverse needs, and Studyfy aims to satisfy them all. As a universal academic solution for every customer, our service offers a broad range of assistance tailored to different user's needs. This means that we offer help with different types of papers, assignments, and projects. We also deal with nearly all subject fields. And, of course, we can help you at any academic level.

As you already know, our writers have diverse academic backgrounds and boast Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Doctoral degrees. Having access to this degree of educational diversity enables us to handle orders for all academic levels and ensure equally high quality.

No matter if you need help in assignment for a BA, MA, or Ph.D. class, we have you covered in any situation! Just take a few moments to place an order, and let us do the hard work for you.

Studyfy safeguards your privacy

Many customers are seriously concerned about their safety when using online academic aid services, especially for the first time. Though there are indeed many poor-quality and untrustworthy services out there, we believe that security and privacy shouldn’t be among your concerns.

Our service prioritizes your safety with a rigid and transparent Privacy Policy that ensures your personal data is not being misused in ways that can put your security at risk.

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Pay for tasks with us and get an excellent assignment writing service from a pro

Our service was designed with our customers’ comfort in mind. Knowing the hardships of being in college first-hand, we wanted to create a safe and friendly space where each of you can find the support, understanding, and help you need. And we made it possible!

For many years, our service has been delivering impeccable quality in every order and helping users manage their assignments more efficiently. What makes this real? The answer is simple - it’s all thanks to our proficient writers. Studyfy is a unique service where each assignment helper is a seasoned professional with high qualifications, certifications, and a proven track record of handling diverse academic challenges.

Whatever challenge you are facing, we have years of experience helping others in similar situations!

Are you wondering, “Who can solve my assignment help request and simplify my life?”

Studyfy is the solution you've been searching for all along. With a perfect blend of professionalism and friendliness, our service is the answer to your scholastic woes.

Hire one of our stellar essay writers and forget about sleepless nights spent in the company of your textbooks. With over 500 accomplished scholars on our team, we can provide expert essay writing help that'll help you study stress-free.

On top of that, our service is completely legal, as we provide high-quality writing samples that you can draw inspiration from. Combine that with a well-established reputation and dedicated support, and you've got an ideal academic solution for anyone looking to pay to write essay.  

How do I request help with assignment?

Using our service is as easy as pie. On our website, you can hire a cream-of-the-crop paper writer in just a few clicks:

Fill out the order form to get started. Don't forget to share all the info about your assignment for the best outcome.Choose your pro. We'll match you with a well-versed expert who's perfectly equipped to ace your unique essay.Get your task. Review the content and request all the edits you want. We offer free revisions for the first 14 to 30 days after paper completion. Release the payment to your helper only after approving their work.

It's just that simple! With Studyfy, you can get expert support in a breeze and never worry about your assignments again. What's more, you can stay in contact with your writer every step of the way via our encrypted messenger.

Choose our essay writing services and never worry about funds

Are you looking for paper writers for hire but feeling anxious about the safety of your funds? It's true that some paper writing services scam their customers out of hundreds of dollars, delivering poorly composed essays in return.

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5 Best Websites Where I Can Pay Someone to Write My Essay

Every day the number of requests from students on the Internet is growing.

The search words “pay someone to write my paper” help people find help with their assignments .

Where there is demand, there is always supply.

As students’ need for assistance with papers grows, more and more sites with authors began popping up in Google searches.

It has become increasingly harder to decide who can be trusted with an essay and whether their services are safe.

These are the top 5 sites where you can hire someone to write an essay:

1. EssayShark.com

Topping our list is one of the best writing services you can use to pay someone to write your essay.

Are you looking for a service that has been helping students complete their academic work for a long time? Want to get personalized help?

This website has it all.

We decided to put EssayShark at the top of the list because its reputation precedes it.

Over the years, this website has earned customers’ trust and boasts a well-known reputation for security.

We analyzed the site in detail and found that it, without question, fulfilled the requirements of the search query – “pay someone to write my essay.”

Each paragraph you “write” through this service reveals the company’s attention to detail.

Carefully study what we have written so that you can make a decision and entrust your task to professional authors.

On its website, the company details exactly how they hire writers. To hire someone to write an essay, you need to be confident in the person with whom you are entrusting your important assignments.

Before EssayShark writers collaborate with clients, the service tests their skills and education, making sure that their authors can cope with both simple essays and complex dissertations.

Ease of Collaboration

To pay for an essay on this site, you can visit any of their web pages, and on the right, you will see a form for registering an order.

Modern people value their time and aren’t interested in wasting it trying to figure out how to navigate a company’s website.

The site’s interface is straightforward and transparent, making it even more attractive for students.

Price Policy

Can I pay someone to write my essay cheaply? The cost of the assistance is essential. If the price is too low, it’s alarming, if too high, it repels customers.

On this site, the price is justified since the client chooses the author and the price they offer at the auction. The price for one page starts from $13.40 and depends on the terms and volume of work.

Before you pay someone to write your essay, it is essential to be sure that their payment system is safe.

EssayShark assures its users that it only uses well-known payment systems.

Also, the client can use the site’s free plagiarism checker and have their authors make revisions as their task is being completed.

If you choose this service, you will receive an original text with no worries about losing your anonymity.

The pay someone to do my essay desire is one that should be executed with care as your security and grades depend on it.

2. WriteMyEssayOnline.com

You might wonder why WriteMyEssayOnline made it onto our list of places to pay for paper writing.

First, the opinion of customers who visited and collaborated with different sites was essential to us.

Before writing this post, we naturally analyzed the reviews and found this company among them.

According to their clients’ opinions and observations, we highlighted several main points about the company.

Security and Anonymity

The pay-to-write essay plan is quite normal, especially if you have a lot of projects and assignments to turn in to a professor.

Anonymity for students is essential, and we understand why.

WriteMyEssayOnline, as we have seen, only requires clients to give their email when filling out their applications and asks for no personal information.

We concluded that the service does not collect data about its customers and respects their anonymity.

When you pay for essays online, it is essential to be mindful of your safety and pays only for services that guarantee it.

Essay Originality

When you pay someone to write an essay, there must be guarantees against plagiarism.

This company assures its customers that the authors of the service work exclusively with unique content for each student.

And clients can independently check their essays for uniqueness and pay no extra to check.

In our opinion and from feedback from clients, the authors of this site are producing original work, and this is certainly something to rejoice about.

Customer Support

Paying someone to write an essay means that you should be able to always count on help from the service when you need it.

While you are working with the site, you may have questions. A quality service should always support its students.

WriteMyEssayOnline claims to be available 24/7 to clients and ready to provide answers for students.

Write paper for me – these are the words that students say when they’ve decided to fully trust a service with writing their essays.

WriteMyEssayOnline is worthy of your attention and will allow you to select an author and collaborate with them on your project.

The price and number of free features will please you if you visit their site. Get someone to write your essay there if you are satisfied with the authors and their level of experience.

3. PayforWriting.com

The pay someone to write essay option may be the best after you’ve weighed everything in your mind.

Most likely, after reaching the decision to entrust someone with your task, you saw a lot of advertising on the Internet about essay writing services, and, of course, it was difficult to figure out which service to use.

That is why we decided to help you make the choice.

PayforWriting made it onto our list of the best sites because it has a good reputation among customers.

We only considered the opinion of those who had decided to pay someone to write an essay for them, and many of those who used this site had positive reviews.

The best way a site can be characterized is by how well its team members adhere to the promises made to customers.

After analyzing the site pages where the company highlights its advantages, we managed to draw some basic conclusions and want to share them with you.

Before paying someone to do an essay, we are happy to invite you to consider these findings:

Free Features

Pay for an essay on this site, and you need not be worried about overpaying for the author’s work.

As we can see, PayforWriting offers its customers several free features that are guaranteed to be available to every customer.

Judging by the reviews, all of its clients receive free revisions, uniqueness checks, quoting, and formatting.

That way, they can get help when they pay someone to do an essay without hurting their wallets.

Money-Back Guarantee

By deciding to pay for an essay, you get the right to a refund if you are unsatisfied with the help you received from PayforWriting authors.

The site says that clients can ask for compensation if the order they received does not suit them.

To receive a refund, you contact the site’s support team, which is available around the clock.

Managers check the order for errors and compliance with the client’s instructions, and if there’s an issue, your money is returned.

Accurate Delivery

Clients of this service pay for essays, as they need to turn in their assignments on time.

One of the most popular reasons students turn to such services for help is the need for more free time.

Therefore, services such as this always highlight precisely how they help their customers to save time.

According to the company, their authors always deliver their orders on time.

We read the comments related to the delivery times and found that most often, their clients were satisfied with the timeliness of their deliveries after they made the decision to tell the authors of PayforWriting – “I’d like to pay to do my essay.”

Based on our research, we’ve concluded that you can safely and efficiently pay for a paper on the PayforWriting site.

Of course, it is up to you to decide what exactly you should pay attention to and how best to choose a site to pay to write an essay.

4. BuyEssay.org

To pay for essay writing is much easier if you know all the best available options.

To save you time, we have created this list of the best sites specializing in essay writing. BuyEssay has earned our attention with positive reviews and an interesting approach to working with clients.

You can pay people to write essays here who have proven their competence and can give you the support you expect online.

Diverse Disciplines

The desire to pay for someone to write an essay implies that the student hopes to receive support no matter the subject they are having difficulty with.

BuyEssay, during the application registration, offers its clients more than 60 disciplines in which their authors can create papers.

Philosophy, Art, Economics, Business, and many other subjects are available upon registration of the order.

If you decide to pay for someone to write an essay on this site, you’re sure to find someone specializing in what you are looking for.

Urgent Help

BuyEssay clients who pay for someone to write essays for them are guaranteed help within 4 hours.

This kind of fast help is available if you have a one-page assignment. With that said, the company does advise you to consider delegating papers to its authors more in advance of the deadline.

With its service, you can choose the period you need on its calculator and simultaneously determine how much it will cost you to get assistance based on the deadline you set.

The cost of writing assistance is reduced when you give your author more time to finish your assignment.

Blog with Examples

If you choose, before you pay for an essay, you can view examples of your potential author’s work.

You will feel more confident with the final result because before placing an order, you can both calculate the cost of that order with their online calculator and you can evaluate the writing proficiency of the author by reading an example of one of their finished texts before you’ve selected them.

This is a great advantage BuyEssay has over other services you can find on Google when you pay for college essays with them.

When you say, “I want to pay to write my essay!” at that point, your wishes are their commands.

As it became clear to us in our research, you can get excellent customer support on this website.

Calculate the cost of your potential author’s work, evaluate samples, and only decide to pay for the essay with them if you are pleased with what you see.

BuyEssay is one of the best examples of quality student support, and we encourage you to take a closer look at its offerings.

5. WritingCheap.com

“I dream of paying for my essay and not paying a lot of money!”

We perfectly understand your desire not to spend a lot of money on essay help.

WritingCheap, even in the name of their service, makes it clear that their services won’t make you pay much. Of course, we wanted to check this ourselves before adding the site to our list.

When looking to get an essay written, the first thing that students tend to pay attention to is the price per page and then to all the other factors.

Naturally, in these reviews, we, therefore, look for comments regarding pricing policy.

Go on to read our notes about this service to see if paying someone to write your paper on this website is worth it:

Affordable Price

To pay someone to do your essays is best at an affordable price when you don’t have a lot of expendable income.

In researching this site, we’ve seen that the service authors offer a minimum price for paper of $9 with a maximum deadline.

As part of the service, the authors include custom formatting, create a title page for you, and make corrections for free.

That is to say, you can make whatever revisions you need to in your order without paying extra to the author.

Also, customers choose their authors themselves and can review various bids from potential authors before selecting one to work on their essays.

Online Chat with the Author

Paying someone to write an essay is best when there is an opportunity to personally discuss with the author any questions that might arise while you’re working with them.

“Individual approach” is what the company calls its method of collaboration with clients who come to them for help.

Students who decide to pay for essays with this service can contact their authors in real time and receive the necessary answers.

This way, students can have corrections made and ask for help with their topic and anything related to the writing of the paper.

The online chat feature is free, as are the other features we described.

Safety and Quality

It doesn’t matter what the quality of the writing help is if the writing service lacks a safe approach for students who decide to pay people to write an essay for them.

According to WritingCheap, their services are free and anonymous to every student who registers an order with them.

They guarantee security by closely monitoring the data and payment systems that their site uses. They also do not ask for unrelated personal information.

Their service also provides students with a plagiarism checker, which is absolutely free, to ensure that students receive absolutely original work.

You might still be asking yourself, “Is it safe to pay someone to write my paper?” After analyzing this website, we’ve concluded that you can trust them.

WritingCheap deserves a place on our list, and the budget-minded student looking to pay for essays should consider them as an option.

We evaluated a number of important characteristics when researching WritingCheap and found that they have a lot to offer.

Want to get affordable help and a quality paper? You will be satisfied if you decide to register an order with this cheap assignment writing service.

The affordability of the price wins over customers from the first line.

FAQ About How to Pay Someone to Write My Essay

How can I pay someone to do my essay and be safe?

Paying for essays online is safe and very easy. Want to order an essay online without stressing about safety?

Read their guarantees and their reviews.

The sites that made our list of the best are safe for students because they do not store your payment data and do not ask for your personal information.

When you decide to “pay someone to write my essay,” make sure you are not asked for information about your residence, your name, and so forth.

Can I pay to do my essay and be sure it’s original?

Originality is essential when you decide, “I want to pay someone to write my paper.”

Your identity is confidential for each of the 5 sites because the author’s custom-write original papers.

Before your professor grades you, they will check the text for originality.

Some of these sites will give you the opportunity to check the originality of the essay yourself, while the rest will provide you with a report that the author will send along with the order itself.

Is paying to write an essay costly?

Our list includes services that offer students affordable and reasonable prices.

We recommend researching how much your author’s help will cost you before going forward.

You’ll be able to evaluate prices via registration forms or via online calculators on the site pages. Ensure you understand your essay’s exact cost before getting an author to help you with it.

Which author will I get as an assistant for my essay?

Pay for essays only with authors that you feel confident in. According to the companies hosting these writers, they are professionals with appropriate levels of education.

By choosing a site with a bidding system, you will be able to select an author yourself and read their profile before entrusting them with your essay.

If you first pay for the order and then are given the author, you should read the information provided about their hiring practices—the sites we have chosen test the authors before starting to cooperate with them and guarantee you professionalism.

When I pay someone to write my paper, am I guaranteed to receive my order on time?

Beyond needing to hand in their papers on time, pricing is another reason why customers consider delivery times.

The writing services in this post have an excellent reputation and receive excellent reviews, in which customers thank them for timely deliveries.

If you decide to order an essay, you must clarify when and how you would like to receive your order.

In all cases, it’s best to give yourself more time for the essay to be completed to save yourself time and money.

Will I get a good grade if I pay someone to write an essay?

When you choose authors to help you, you get support from professionals who have already created many papers.

Among other things, your score will depend on your originality and adherence to all the writing and formatting rules.

Since the authors of the services we have chosen are professionals, you can count on good grades.

Get an A by telling the pros – “I want to pay someone to write my essay.”

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Professional Essay Writing & Editing Services

Our experts will write you a top-quality paper and revise it an unlimited number of times until you're 100% satisfied - or offer a refund.

Will my paper pass Turnitin?

Yes, definitely. Our experts write all papers from the ground up and use only credible sources. They also are familiar with all formatting and referencing styles.

Once your paper is completed, it is checked for plagiarism with powerful plagiarism detection software (e.g., Copyscape and Copyleaks) to make sure it is 100% original and will pass any checker, including Turnitin.

We do not check completed papers with Turnitin because it saves all works to the database, making them unoriginal if submitted once again.

If you'd like to get official proof of your paper's uniqueness, add our Plagiarism Report extra to your order.

Can somebody detect that I've used an essay writing service?

Absolutely not. GradeSmiths is a reliable essay writing service that takes all measures to protect your data and order details from illegal access or disclosure. We work in accordance with GDPR, use the latest bank-level encryption, and offer anonymous communication with writers. So, it's 100% safe to order your papers from our subject-matter experts.

What if I don't like the quality of my paper?

No problem. In such cases, which are quite rare, we offer two options to choose from: you can either request a free revision or get a refund.

If you would like the writer to amend the final draft, just activate the 14-day revision period in your account and add revision instructions. Then, the writer will revise the paper according to your remarks in the shortest time possible.

To request a refund, contact the Support Team via email or live chat. They are always more than happy to help out. Please note that this option is available within 14-30 days, depending on the paper’s length.

I'm not sure that your writers can deal with my topic?

We have a vast pool of qualified experts across 50 subject areas. All of them have 4+ years of academic writing experience, so rest assured they will be able to deal with your topic.

Still hesitating? Please contact our 24/7 support team to discuss your project in more detail and get a free quote.

Do you deal with large papers like research papers, dissertations, etc.?

Yes, we have experts in huge papers of any complexity, including:

• research paper
• capstone project
• dissertation

To see the complete list of papers we can prepare for you, click here .

Do you write all types of papers?

Yes. We can help during the entire study period and post-study life — from preparing admission essays to assisting with graduation papers and resumes. Also, our services are not limited to writing. We provide editing, proofreading, and paraphrasing services too.

If you haven't found your type of work on the order page, just select "Other" and specify what exactly you need to be done. Then, we'll check your paper details and find an appropriate expert for you.

Is your writing service legal?

Yes, of course. GradeSmiths is a registered company with a 12-year history of delivering academic assistance services to English-speaking students worldwide that works following existing laws. Our main goal is to help students improve their writing skills and academic performance.

Over 50k students trust us, 42% of whom come by friend's recommendation.

How fast can your service complete an essay?

Our experts can write a high-quality 275-word or 1-page essay for you within just 1 hour. However, if your essay is 550+ words long or 2+ pages, it will take them 3 hours to complete it to a high standard.

What happens after I pay?

Once the payment is done, you get access to the personal customer area, where you can track order progress, add more instructions for the writer or ask them order-related questions.

In your customer area, you can also communicate with the support team, request revisions, add extra services like additional pages or excel sheets to your order, rate your writer, and much more.

Can I add additional instructions after the order has been placed?

Yes, sure. You can do it on the order page in your customer area. The writer will check them out and follow too.

Want to talk to my writer. Can I?

Yes, definitely. You will be able to communicate with the writer through messages in your account after the payment is done and the writer is assigned. Usually, it takes up to 15 minutes.

Please note you will receive an email notification once the writer is assigned.

To send a message to your writer, go to the corresponding order page and type your message in the chat window located in the upper right-hand corner of the page.

How much does paper writing help cost?

The price for writing your paper greatly depends on your study level, type of work, deadline, and number of pages needed. For example, a college essay due in 7 days will cost you $7.00 per page, while a Ph.D. dissertation due in 30 days will cost $6.19 per page.

If you want to get the best price, simply place your order in advance. Close deadlines require more resources. Therefore, they are more expensive.

To calculate the price of your order, click here .

What free options do you have?

At GradeSmiths, every paper comes with the following freebies:

• Bibliography page
• Any academic format
• Preferred paper writer
• Limitless revision
• Order tracking option
• Quality check
• 24/7 customer support

Do you have discounts?

Our professional aid is accessible to everyone. We strive to help students on any budget. For this purpose, we offer regular discounts and seasonal deals to all customers. In addition, every newcomer gets a special 15% discount on the first order, while regular customers receive loyalty bonuses they can spend on future orders.

How can I pay?

You can pay for your order using a debit or credit card by Visa, MasterCard, or Maestro. The payment will be processed via a secure checkout page, and no card data will be saved.

Meet Your Perfect Essay Writing Service – GradeSmiths

GradeSmiths is an essay writing service that helps students in the USA and from all over the world to write better essays and other types of high school, college, and university research papers. Our writers are experienced and competent enough to cover all subjects and meet any deadlines.

GradeSmiths’s essay writing service is perfect for students who want to improve their GPA, not wasting too much time and money. Those who’ve tried professional essay writing services once confirm that living up with the workload becomes easier. So, if you have the money to spend on a quality custom essay, GradeSmiths is the perfect writing website for you.

– How much does it cost me to write an essay? We know that this question is important for you. That’s why we guarantee the best price to write an essay brought to you by the Essay Writer service. Our prices start from only $10.52 per page, including the extras. If you’re on a budget, then our essay service is exactly what you need to ace your task for an affordable price.

Team up with the essay writing industry’s finest writers and fulfill your academic goals easier as if you’ve been doing all the homework on your own. Also, get better grades and enjoy your student life to the maximum with GradeSmiths!

7 Easy Signs You Need an Expert Essay Writer Right Now

The ultimate trick to score the highest grade for an essay is… not to write it yourself. Trust writing an essay to an expert essay writer and get this burden off your back. Using a professional to writing essays and our extensive academic knowledge base, we guarantee to fulfill your term paper, case study, book report, or any other type of paper up to the hilt.

We’ll write you a quality essay based on all the order requirements that you initially provided on the order now page. This will save your free time and also boost your GPA. Need more proof? Here are seven signals you might need professional writing help with essays ASAP:

• Essay writing isn’t your strongest perk, so you might want to seek services from professional essay writers online.
• As a student, you lack time and talent to carry out original topic research. Not everyone is made a qualified scholarly researcher. If that’s an issue, we’ll be glad to help.
• You are bad at essay writing. Not every student can master the art of academic essay writing. There is nothing to be ashamed of in case expressing your thoughts and ideas using a proper academic English language is a challenging task.
• There are some of the homework instructions that you don’t understand. Such assignments often occur, puzzling students a lot and making them look for someone to help them with these mind-wrecking tasks.
• There’s no time to do an essay yourself. Things happen in life that you can’t control or predict. Everyone’s a human being who deserves a little bit of you-time now and then. To manage your time more effectively, you can use our essay service.
• Having more free time is great, but, at the same time, risking your academic record isn’t an option. That said, specialists of our service will cover up for you at any time.
• The finals weeks are too stressful, leaving you little to no time to cope with homework assignments.

Get rid of nasty academic issues – hire an academic essay writer with confidence and kiss academic problems goodbye! Our service will meet all your needs and save a good sum of money.

No.1 Essay Writer Website in 2022

Are you facing trouble with various college assignments? Nights without sleep, too difficult topics, reluctant teachers, no one available to help you? Sounds like it’s high time for you to use our essay service. With the help of one of our cheap and competent writers, you could put the finger on any task within just a few hours.

To any college writing problem, there’s a sound solution to be found. Which is, as far as our service is concerned, hiring a skilled essay writer online is the best way out. The great news is that with the help of our competent essay service, all your writing hardships disappear for good. Our expert essay writers, qualified editors, and smart proofreaders work day and night to help you to fulfill your college goals. Choose any of the 35+ subjects that we cover, 50+ types of assignments, and any urgency, including our super-quick 1-hour deadline, to ensure a positive and rapid GPA growth. Order professional essay writing help on GradeSmiths today!

Text us “write my essay for me” – we will take care of the project and improve your academic record. Please, ask any emerging questions. Support managers operate 24/7 to provide you with timely answers and help you with any essay writing emergency. Our service is available all day and night if you have any essay writing emergencies that need urgent academic treatment.

Essay Writing Service You Can Trust

GradeSmiths is not only a cheap essay writing company to get ace-quality writing services, but also a reliable writing service that takes full care of its customers. To protect your data and confidentiality, we take the following measures:

• We keep your data safe.

Your privacy is under careful protection. Cutting-edge encryption solutions protect data on our safe essay writer website. Except for critical essay topics, basic instructions, and contact email, customers don’t have to provide their private information. Plus, you can think of any preferred name and communicate with us as incognito.

• We provide you with secure payment options.

Financial operations are also well-guarded. Our essay writing company cooperates with leading financial service providers, acknowledged all across the world. Use any safe option to purchase your article online.

• We give a chargeless review period.

Viewpoints differ. To avoid dissatisfaction with our essay services, every order is supported by a free review period. It starts on the day of delivery and lasts for 2 weeks. If your essay needs changes, do not hesitate to reach out to us.

• We return your payment if you dislike the essay.

Viewpoints can differ dramatically. The situation is highly surreal, but as a safeguard, your rights for repayment are protected by our Refund policy. Proven plagiarisms, poor quality, and insufficient research are among the main reasons to request reimbursement.

We Have Pro Essay Writers

Let’s skip generalities and get down to our biggest pride – a team of expert essay writers. Nothing proves our expertise and reliability better than the following facts about them:

• Academic credentials: all our essay writers hold advanced university degrees.
• Professional background: we hire essay writers with a proven track record and at least a few years of operation in custom writing.
• Excellent command of English: every paper writer is a native English speaker and an accredited certificate that proves his proficiency in the language.
• Any academic level: pro essay writers complete orders for college, undergraduate, Master’s, and Ph.D. students.
• Any type of assignment: whatever your issue is, we cover 50+ types of various academic tasks.

On top of that, editors and proofreaders help students with their academic papers. They double-check every essay for conformity with directives, originality & quality adherence, formatting standards. In case your essay writer has made a mistake, an assigned editor will see and fix it. In the end, you are assured of receiving a 100% mistake-free and unique essay.

Message us “write my essay” now, and we will select the best-matching essay writer for your demand among the leading college experts.

How Our Essay Writers Service Works

On GradeSmiths, we have a rule that we never break – write only plagiarism-free essays. Every essay writer has to write from scratch. Otherwise, they won’t be working for our service.

All college essay writers you’ll be working with when making orders on our website are real human experts, each across their subject field. Some writers are experienced and educated enough to write essays in several disciplines. We neither rewrite old essays nor take stuff from the internet, simply changing a title and switching paragraphs’ places. Quite the opposite!

Our professional paper writers deliver 100% original scholarly documents, e.g., essays, which live up to the initial order instructions that you provided when making an order. This way, it’s safe to say that our essays are one-of-a-kind – no two similar papers could ever be found if written by our authors.

In general, when writing essays, our writers stick to the following protocol:

• Read writing instructions.
• College relevant background sources.
• Find quotes and reference data.
• Create an essay outline.
• Write a thesis.
• Write the first draft.
• Edit and proofread.
• Apply a required citation style according to the latest APA/MLA/Chicago/Turabian guidelines.
• Check an essay for plagiarism.
• Revise the final draft.

Note that free revisions (14-30 days) are already included in the price. GradeSmiths’s online essay writing service is designed in a way to leave you nothing but to enjoy the rest of your day while one of the service’s writers takes care of your homework.

GradeSmiths’s essay service makes college life easier. Simply make an order now and see for yourself!

Our Guarantees

Why is our essay service so special? Besides having an excellent reputation of reliable essay writers and a service that has low prices, it’s possible to name 5 more features that make GradeSmiths the number one spot for students who want a quality essay for a reasonable price. To learn more advantages that might interest you, please contact the support manager.

In general, our essay writing service provides the following guarantees:

• Originality. Are you worried about whether your essay will be original? We pay great attention to the academic integrity of our customers. That’s why, rest assured, there’s no place for plagiarism on GradeSmiths. Our essays undergo originality verification with advanced plagiarism detection software. If necessary, we can support your composition with a detailed plagiarism report.
• Quality. Sure, you are worried that the requested content might come of poor quality. To prevent this from happening, we let only professional essay writers work on the orders. Candidates for essay writing positions undergo a 4-level selection procedure to verify their expertise in the required discipline field and writing skills.
• Verification. People make mistakes. Our professional college essay writers are not an exception. That is why we double-check completed papers for mistakes and logical flaws. Acknowledged editors go through the text, fixing grammatical and formatting errors. With their final touch, your university essay transforms from an uncut stone to a polished diamond.
• Timeliness. Essay writing is a long and stressful process for students – but not for professional authors. Their expertise allows finishing all types of college papers promptly and by the requested target date. If you need your essay in a couple of hours, you will most certainly have it!

Our FREE Essay Writing Services

Everyone can use essay writing help from GradeSmiths anytime. We strive to help students who have shoestring budgets. For this purpose, our essay service offers regular discounts and juicy deals. Every newcomer gets a special 15% discount for the first order and is offered to join the Customers Loyalty program to receive and collect bonuses for further orders. On top of that, we complement every essay with the following freebies:

• Title page.
• Bibliography page.
• APA/MLA/Chicago/Turabian citation format.
• Best available essay writer.
• Limitless amendments.
• Order tracking option.
• Quality control.
• 24/7 client center.

If you need professional college paper writers who can do the work for cheap, simply submit your order in advance. Close deadlines require more resources. Therefore, they are slightly more expensive. Recruit your top essay writer beforehand, and take advantage of our professional services at a reduced cost.

Write My Essay Is Easy With GradeSmiths

GradeSmiths is the perfect write my essay service. There are professional GradeSmiths, top-notch 24/7 customer support service, cheap prices, a money-back guarantee, and results that you notice right after the first order. The “who can write my essay for me?” question won’t bother you again. Sleepless nights and poor grades will be in the past when you order your first essay on our website.

– Can you write my essay cheap? No problem, GradeSmiths will be glad to write your essay cheap, keeping the quality of writing high, as usual. Use your 15% Welcome discount or spend bonus funds earned from making previous orders to pay for your essay cheap.

– I need a good service to write my essay online. Consider you’ve just found it! GradeSmiths is one of the best services for writing essays in 2022. It’s a legit company that knows what its customers want. You can always count on exceptional customer care, writers who don’t charge an arm and a leg, and timely delivery of your order. Simply order an essay on GradeSmiths and download it when it’s done.

– I want a professional essay writer to write my essay. GradeSmiths doesn’t have writers who don’t know how to write essays. On the contrary, essay writers that we have provide the best service possible thanks to their educational background, academic writing talent, and years of essay writing experience .

Are you looking for a service that can write you a 100% original essay cheap? GradeSmiths is a writer service that gets the job done to a T. Choose the essay writing service that you need, and let’s do this!

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Looking for College Essay Help? Here Are Your Options

8-minute read

• 8th August 2023

You have your first college essay to write, so what are your options for getting help? You knew where to get help back in high school, but college is a whole new hockey game. Should you pay someone to write your essay? Should you talk to your professor? Your roommate?

Fret not, because we will outline your options for getting help with your college essay .

In this post, you will learn:

●  Where to go to get help with essay writing.

●  Our take on essay writing services.

●  Advice for using AI to help you with essays.

While college teaches you to be fully independent, that doesn’t mean you have to figure everything out for yourself. Even the most independent college student needs help sometimes, so you should never feel ashamed for needing help.

Writing an essay is no easy task. Knowing your options will get your essay off to a great start, (and you want to avoid the cardinal sin of college writing: academic plagiarism ).

Your Options for Help

1. consult your professor.

While meeting with your professor seems counterintuitive, they can offer the best advice for tackling an essay. After all, they will be assessing it. Many students avoid asking their professor for help, as they feel that the professor will view them as incompetent. Of course, this isn’t true. The professor will be glad you’re seeking their help; it shows you’re a serious student. The best time to catch your professor is after class, or during their office hours.

We recommend following this plan:

1.  Make an appointment to see your professor during their office hours (this way, they will block time for you). 

2.  Come to the appointment with questions like “What ideas or themes should I specifically focus on in this essay?”

3.  Thank them for their time.

Professors will offer suggestions and ideas but won’t revise your essay draft. That’s your job. Think of it this way: A professor will give you fuel to get the fire going; it will be up to you to keep it burning.

2. Consult Your Teaching Assistant

A teaching assistant, or TA as they are colloquially known, is another helpful option. They’re often current graduate students, so they can relate better to you than the professor. Remember that they’ve been down the road you’re traveling, so they’ll have plenty of essay-writing experience.

If you’re attending a small private university, you probably won’t have a TA for any of your classes. However, if your class does have one, we suggest consulting with them before speaking with the professor.

As a TA is also busy, we urge you to take the same approach as you would when meeting with a professor. You’ll get an optimized help session with them when you make an appointment.

3. Visit the Writing Center

You might have been introduced to the university’s writing center during orientation. Did you know that a writing center is an excellent option for essay help? Current students majoring in English and creative writing studies often work as writing center tutors. You can be assured that writing center tutors are passionate about writing. Before visiting the writing center, you’ll need to have some ideas about how to tackle the essay. Therefore, we recommend consulting your professor or TA first.

Students often have a misconception of what falls under the scope of a writing center . Some students leave a writing center session disappointed with the services they received. Therefore, we want to clarify what a writing center does and doesn’t do.

A writing center will:

●  Work with you one-on-one, taking you through the assignment and the steps needed to complete it.

●  Help strengthen your thesis statement.

●  Provide feedback to clarify your ideas and express them more effectively.

●  Aid in developing or improving self-editing strategies.

●  Help you identify your writing strengths and weaknesses.

A writing center will not:

●  Write the essay for you; that’s your job.

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●  Tell you how to write the essay from the introduction to the conclusion.

●  Fix grammar errors, typos, and word choice in an essay.

A writing center will inspire you to get cracking on the assignment; the rest will be up to you.

4. Consider a Podcast

Are you a Spotify addict? Do you often listen to podcasts? If so, why not listen to podcasts catered to students needing help with college essays? There are a variety of student-related podcasts to choose from. However, you’ll need to listen to a few to find one that strikes your fancy.

You can listen to them while you eat dinner in the cafeteria, work out at the gym, or commute to and from campus. However, we don’t suggest listening to podcasts during class lectures – you’ll miss out on key pointers for exams!

5. Find a Tutor

You can find a tutor through your university or engage another student. The former will usually be free. If you prefer the latter, you can usually find advertisements around campus. We suggest asking them a few questions before setting up a session.

Working with a tutor will take some time, as you must get to know each other first. An advantage of a private tutor is you can get one-on-one time; there might be other students in your tutoring session if it’s through the university. The advantage of university-organized tutoring is that their tutors have been interviewed and you can be assured that these tutors specialize in their subjects.

If you’re anxious to get going posthaste, a tutor may not be the best option for you.

Should I Use an Essay Writing Service?

Some students pay an essay writing service to write the essay for them. However, you should be aware of the pitfalls of using them.

Common pitfalls include:

●  The writers may not be experts on your topic.

●  You won’t have an opportunity to view the writers’ credentials.

●  Someone else is writing the essay, leaving you wanted by the Plagiarism Police.

●  You will not learn anything (the whole point of university is to learn).

Professors expect you to write an essay using your own words and ideas. Additionally, they can distinguish your writing from someone else’s. Furthermore, many universities subscribe to plagiarism detection software such as Turnitin .

The consequences of plagiarism can be quite severe, ranging from automatically failing the assignment to being expelled from the institution. Sometimes, you can receive a particular failing grade indicating you were caught plagiarizing. This grade cannot be erased from your student record.

While essay writing services are tempting, we believe they aren’t worth jeopardizing your student career.

Should I Use ChatGPT to Write My Essay?

Students are increasingly using AI to help them with their essays. Popular AI platforms such as ChatGPT can save you valuable time. However, the world of academia is catching on to AI-student interaction. Using ChatGPT to write an essay could land you in plagiarism trouble if you simply copy and paste the entire AI-produced text. Universities are currently finding ways to detect essays written by ChatGPT, so don’t think you can fool your professor.

We encourage you to use ChatGPT to help you with the topic rather than use it to write the entire essay. Like professors, your TA, and the writing center, AI can get the fire going . Here are a few ways in which ChatGPT can help:

●  Provide anecdotes about the topic.

●  Suggest interesting facts and issues about the subject.

●  Suggest an outline for the essay.

You have more essay help options than you realize. Becoming a fully independent young adult doesn’t mean that you don’t need help sometimes – we all need help from time to time. We recommend consulting your professor, TA, and your school’s writing center. When seeking help, we advise you to understand what the essay asks of you. And above all, don’t expect someone else to write the essay for you.

We urge you to use AI to help with your essay’s topic rather than using it to write the essay from scratch. Misusing AI could result in plagiarism—the cardinal sin of academic writing!

After you’ve written your essay, we strongly recommend proofreading it. All your hard work can sometimes leave typos, extra spacing, and incorrect punctuation. You shouldn’t rely on your word processor’s spell-check tool to catch them all. Proofreading can be challenging, so we recommend asking our proofreading experts to review your writing . They can check that the paper is clear and concise. Additionally, they will ensure perfect grammar, spelling, and punctuation. Consider submitting a 500-word document for free!

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Getting College Essay Help: Important Do's and Don’ts

College Essays

If you grow up to be a professional writer, everything you write will first go through an editor before being published. This is because the process of writing is really a process of re-writing —of rethinking and reexamining your work, usually with the help of someone else. So what does this mean for your student writing? And in particular, what does it mean for very important, but nonprofessional writing like your college essay? Should you ask your parents to look at your essay? Pay for an essay service?

If you are wondering what kind of help you can, and should, get with your personal statement, you've come to the right place! In this article, I'll talk about what kind of writing help is useful, ethical, and even expected for your college admission essay . I'll also point out who would make a good editor, what the differences between editing and proofreading are, what to expect from a good editor, and how to spot and stay away from a bad one.

Table of Contents

What Kind of Help for Your Essay Can You Get?

What's Good Editing?

What should an editor do for you, what kind of editing should you avoid, proofreading, what's good proofreading, what kind of proofreading should you avoid.

What Do Colleges Think Of You Getting Help With Your Essay?

Who Can/Should Help You?

Advice for editors.

Should You Pay Money For Essay Editing?

The Bottom Line

What's next, what kind of help with your essay can you get.

Rather than talking in general terms about "help," let's first clarify the two different ways that someone else can improve your writing . There is editing, which is the more intensive kind of assistance that you can use throughout the whole process. And then there's proofreading, which is the last step of really polishing your final product.

Let me go into some more detail about editing and proofreading, and then explain how good editors and proofreaders can help you."

Editing is helping the author (in this case, you) go from a rough draft to a finished work . Editing is the process of asking questions about what you're saying, how you're saying it, and how you're organizing your ideas. But not all editing is good editing . In fact, it's very easy for an editor to cross the line from supportive to overbearing and over-involved.

Ability to clarify assignments. A good editor is usually a good writer, and certainly has to be a good reader. For example, in this case, a good editor should make sure you understand the actual essay prompt you're supposed to be answering.

Open-endedness. Good editing is all about asking questions about your ideas and work, but without providing answers. It's about letting you stick to your story and message, and doesn't alter your point of view.

Think of an editor as a great travel guide. It can show you the many different places your trip could take you. It should explain any parts of the trip that could derail your trip or confuse the traveler. But it never dictates your path, never forces you to go somewhere you don't want to go, and never ignores your interests so that the trip no longer seems like it's your own. So what should good editors do?

Help Brainstorm Topics

Sometimes it's easier to bounce thoughts off of someone else. This doesn't mean that your editor gets to come up with ideas, but they can certainly respond to the various topic options you've come up with. This way, you're less likely to write about the most boring of your ideas, or to write about something that isn't actually important to you.

If you're wondering how to come up with options for your editor to consider, check out our guide to brainstorming topics for your college essay .

Help Revise Your Drafts

Here, your editor can't upset the delicate balance of not intervening too much or too little. It's tricky, but a great way to think about it is to remember: editing is about asking questions, not giving answers .

Revision questions should point out:

• Places where more detail or more description would help the reader connect with your essay
• Places where structure and logic don't flow, losing the reader's attention
• Places where there aren't transitions between paragraphs, confusing the reader
• Moments where your narrative or the arguments you're making are unclear

But pointing to potential problems is not the same as actually rewriting—editors let authors fix the problems themselves.

Bad editing is usually very heavy-handed editing. Instead of helping you find your best voice and ideas, a bad editor changes your writing into their own vision.

You may be dealing with a bad editor if they:

• Add material (examples, descriptions) that doesn't come from you
• Use a thesaurus to make your college essay sound "more mature"
• Add meaning or insight to the essay that doesn't come from you
• Tell you what to say and how to say it
• Write sentences, phrases, and paragraphs for you
• Change your voice in the essay so it no longer sounds like it was written by a teenager

Colleges can tell the difference between a 17-year-old's writing and a 50-year-old's writing. Not only that, they have access to your SAT or ACT Writing section, so they can compare your essay to something else you wrote. Writing that's a little more polished is great and expected. But a totally different voice and style will raise questions.

Where's the Line Between Helpful Editing and Unethical Over-Editing?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether your college essay editor is doing the right thing. Here are some guidelines for staying on the ethical side of the line.

• An editor should say that the opening paragraph is kind of boring, and explain what exactly is making it drag. But it's overstepping for an editor to tell you exactly how to change it.
• An editor should point out where your prose is unclear or vague. But it's completely inappropriate for the editor to rewrite that section of your essay.
• An editor should let you know that a section is light on detail or description. But giving you similes and metaphors to beef up that description is a no-go.

Proofreading (also called copy-editing) is checking for errors in the last draft of a written work. It happens at the end of the process and is meant as the final polishing touch. Proofreading is meticulous and detail-oriented, focusing on small corrections. It sands off all the surface rough spots that could alienate the reader.

Because proofreading is usually concerned with making fixes on the word or sentence level, this is the only process where someone else can actually add to or take away things from your essay . This is because what they are adding or taking away tends to be one or two misplaced letters.

Laser focus. Proofreading is all about the tiny details, so the ability to really concentrate on finding small slip-ups is a must.

Excellent grammar and spelling skills. Proofreaders need to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Good proofreaders should correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. They should put foreign words in italics and surround quotations with quotation marks. They should check that you used the correct college's name, and that you adhered to any formatting requirements (name and date at the top of the page, uniform font and size, uniform spacing).

Limited interference. A proofreader needs to make sure that you followed any word limits. But if cuts need to be made to shorten the essay, that's your job and not the proofreader's.

A bad proofreader either tries to turn into an editor, or just lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job.

Some signs that you're working with a bad proofreader are:

• If they suggest making major changes to the final draft of your essay. Proofreading happens when editing is already finished.
• If they aren't particularly good at spelling, or don't know grammar, or aren't detail-oriented enough to find someone else's small mistakes.
• If they start swapping out your words for fancier-sounding synonyms, or changing the voice and sound of your essay in other ways. A proofreader is there to check for errors, not to take the 17-year-old out of your writing.

What Do Colleges Think of Your Getting Help With Your Essay?

Admissions officers agree: light editing and proofreading are good—even required ! But they also want to make sure you're the one doing the work on your essay. They want essays with stories, voice, and themes that come from you. They want to see work that reflects your actual writing ability, and that focuses on what you find important.

On the Importance of Editing

Get feedback. Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College )

Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. This exercise reveals flaws in the essay's flow, highlights grammatical errors and helps you ensure that you are communicating the exact message you intended. ( Dickinson College )

On the Value of Proofreading

Share your essays with at least one or two people who know you well—such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or friend—and ask for feedback. Remember that you ultimately have control over your essays, and your essays should retain your own voice, but others may be able to catch mistakes that you missed and help suggest areas to cut if you are over the word limit. ( Yale University )

Proofread and then ask someone else to proofread for you. Although we want substance, we also want to be able to see that you can write a paper for our professors and avoid careless mistakes that would drive them crazy. ( Oberlin College )

On Watching Out for Too Much Outside Influence

Limit the number of people who review your essay. Too much input usually means your voice is lost in the writing style. ( Carleton College )

Ask for input (but not too much). Your parents, friends, guidance counselors, coaches, and teachers are great people to bounce ideas off of for your essay. They know how unique and spectacular you are, and they can help you decide how to articulate it. Keep in mind, however, that a 45-year-old lawyer writes quite differently from an 18-year-old student, so if your dad ends up writing the bulk of your essay, we're probably going to notice. ( Vanderbilt University )

Now let's talk about some potential people to approach for your college essay editing and proofreading needs. It's best to start close to home and slowly expand outward. Not only are your family and friends more invested in your success than strangers, but they also have a better handle on your interests and personality. This knowledge is key for judging whether your essay is expressing your true self.

Parents or Close Relatives

Your family may be full of potentially excellent editors! Parents are deeply committed to your well-being, and family members know you and your life well enough to offer details or incidents that can be included in your essay. On the other hand, the rewriting process necessarily involves criticism, which is sometimes hard to hear from someone very close to you.

A parent or close family member is a great choice for an editor if you can answer "yes" to the following questions. Is your parent or close relative a good writer or reader? Do you have a relationship where editing your essay won't create conflict? Are you able to constructively listen to criticism and suggestion from the parent?

One suggestion for defusing face-to-face discussions is to try working on the essay over email. Send your parent a draft, have them write you back some comments, and then you can pick which of their suggestions you want to use and which to discard.

Teachers or Tutors

A humanities teacher that you have a good relationship with is a great choice. I am purposefully saying humanities, and not just English, because teachers of Philosophy, History, Anthropology, and any other classes where you do a lot of writing, are all used to reviewing student work.

Moreover, any teacher or tutor that has been working with you for some time, knows you very well and can vet the essay to make sure it "sounds like you."

If your teacher or tutor has some experience with what college essays are supposed to be like, ask them to be your editor. If not, then ask whether they have time to proofread your final draft.

Guidance or College Counselor at Your School

The best thing about asking your counselor to edit your work is that this is their job. This means that they have a very good sense of what colleges are looking for in an application essay.

At the same time, school counselors tend to have relationships with admissions officers in many colleges, which again gives them insight into what works and which college is focused on what aspect of the application.

Unfortunately, in many schools the guidance counselor tends to be way overextended. If your ratio is 300 students to 1 college counselor, you're unlikely to get that person's undivided attention and focus. It is still useful to ask them for general advice about your potential topics, but don't expect them to be able to stay with your essay from first draft to final version.

Friends, Siblings, or Classmates

Although they most likely don't have much experience with what colleges are hoping to see, your peers are excellent sources for checking that your essay is you .

Friends and siblings are perfect for the read-aloud edit. Read your essay to them so they can listen for words and phrases that are stilted, pompous, or phrases that just don't sound like you.

You can even trade essays and give helpful advice on each other's work.

If your editor hasn't worked with college admissions essays very much, no worries! Any astute and attentive reader can still greatly help with your process. But, as in all things, beginners do better with some preparation.

First, your editor should read our advice about how to write a college essay introduction , how to spot and fix a bad college essay , and get a sense of what other students have written by going through some admissions essays that worked .

Then, as they read your essay, they can work through the following series of questions that will help them to guide you.

Introduction Questions

• Is the first sentence a killer opening line? Why or why not?
• Does the introduction hook the reader? Does it have a colorful, detailed, and interesting narrative? Or does it propose a compelling or surprising idea?
• Can you feel the author's voice in the introduction, or is the tone dry, dull, or overly formal? Show the places where the voice comes through.

Essay Body Questions

• Does the essay have a through-line? Is it built around a central argument, thought, idea, or focus? Can you put this idea into your own words?
• How is the essay organized? By logical progression? Chronologically? Do you feel order when you read it, or are there moments where you are confused or lose the thread of the essay?
• Does the essay have both narratives about the author's life and explanations and insight into what these stories reveal about the author's character, personality, goals, or dreams? If not, which is missing?
• Does the essay flow? Are there smooth transitions/clever links between paragraphs? Between the narrative and moments of insight?

Reader Response Questions

• Does the writer's personality come through? Do we know what the speaker cares about? Do we get a sense of "who he or she is"?
• Where did you feel most connected to the essay? Which parts of the essay gave you a "you are there" sensation by invoking your senses? What moments could you picture in your head well?
• Where are the details and examples vague and not specific enough?
• Did you get an "a-ha!" feeling anywhere in the essay? Is there a moment of insight that connected all the dots for you? Is there a good reveal or "twist" anywhere in the essay?
• What are the strengths of this essay? What needs the most improvement?

Should You Pay Money for Essay Editing?

One alternative to asking someone you know to help you with your college essay is the paid editor route. There are two different ways to pay for essay help: a private essay coach or a less personal editing service , like the many proliferating on the internet.

My advice is to think of these options as a last resort rather than your go-to first choice. I'll first go through the reasons why. Then, if you do decide to go with a paid editor, I'll help you decide between a coach and a service.

When to Consider a Paid Editor

In general, I think hiring someone to work on your essay makes a lot of sense if none of the people I discussed above are a possibility for you.

If you can't ask your parents. For example, if your parents aren't good writers, or if English isn't their first language. Or if you think getting your parents to help is going create unnecessary extra conflict in your relationship with them (applying to college is stressful as it is!)

If you can't ask your teacher or tutor. Maybe you don't have a trusted teacher or tutor that has time to look over your essay with focus. Or, for instance, your favorite humanities teacher has very limited experience with college essays and so won't know what admissions officers want to see.

If you can't ask your guidance counselor. This could be because your guidance counselor is way overwhelmed with other students.

If you can't share your essay with those who know you. It might be that your essay is on a very personal topic that you're unwilling to share with parents, teachers, or peers. Just make sure it doesn't fall into one of the bad-idea topics in our article on bad college essays .

If the cost isn't a consideration. Many of these services are quite expensive, and private coaches even more so. If you have finite resources, I'd say that hiring an SAT or ACT tutor (whether it's PrepScholar or someone else) is better way to spend your money . This is because there's no guarantee that a slightly better essay will sufficiently elevate the rest of your application, but a significantly higher SAT score will definitely raise your applicant profile much more.

Should You Hire an Essay Coach?

On the plus side, essay coaches have read dozens or even hundreds of college essays, so they have experience with the format. Also, because you'll be working closely with a specific person, it's more personal than sending your essay to a service, which will know even less about you.

But, on the minus side, you'll still be bouncing ideas off of someone who doesn't know that much about you . In general, if you can adequately get the help from someone you know, there is no advantage to paying someone to help you.

If you do decide to hire a coach, ask your school counselor, or older students that have used the service for recommendations. If you can't afford the coach's fees, ask whether they can work on a sliding scale —many do. And finally, beware those who guarantee admission to your school of choice—essay coaches don't have any special magic that can back up those promises.

Should You Send Your Essay to a Service?

On the plus side, essay editing services provide a similar product to essay coaches, and they cost significantly less . If you have some assurance that you'll be working with a good editor, the lack of face-to-face interaction won't prevent great results.

On the minus side, however, it can be difficult to gauge the quality of the service before working with them . If they are churning through many application essays without getting to know the students they are helping, you could end up with an over-edited essay that sounds just like everyone else's. In the worst case scenario, an unscrupulous service could send you back a plagiarized essay.

Getting recommendations from friends or a school counselor for reputable services is key to avoiding heavy-handed editing that writes essays for you or does too much to change your essay. Including a badly-edited essay like this in your application could cause problems if there are inconsistencies. For example, in interviews it might be clear you didn't write the essay, or the skill of the essay might not be reflected in your schoolwork and test scores.

Should You Buy an Essay Written by Someone Else?

Let me elaborate. There are super sketchy places on the internet where you can simply buy a pre-written essay. Don't do this!

For one thing, you'll be lying on an official, signed document. All college applications make you sign a statement saying something like this:

I certify that all information submitted in the admission process—including the application, the personal essay, any supplements, and any other supporting materials—is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented... I understand that I may be subject to a range of possible disciplinary actions, including admission revocation, expulsion, or revocation of course credit, grades, and degree, should the information I have certified be false. (From the Common Application )

For another thing, if your academic record doesn't match the essay's quality, the admissions officer will start thinking your whole application is riddled with lies.

Admission officers have full access to your writing portion of the SAT or ACT so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home. They can tell if these were written by different people. Not only that, but there are now a number of search engines that faculty and admission officers can use to see if an essay contains strings of words that have appeared in other essays—you have no guarantee that the essay you bought wasn't also bought by 50 other students.

• You should get college essay help with both editing and proofreading
• A good editor will ask questions about your idea, logic, and structure, and will point out places where clarity is needed
• A good editor will absolutely not answer these questions, give you their own ideas, or write the essay or parts of the essay for you
• A good proofreader will find typos and check your formatting
• All of them agree that getting light editing and proofreading is necessary
• Parents, teachers, guidance or college counselor, and peers or siblings
• If you can't ask any of those, you can pay for college essay help, but watch out for services or coaches who over-edit you work
• Don't buy a pre-written essay! Colleges can tell, and it'll make your whole application sound false.

Ready to start working on your essay? Check out our explanation of the point of the personal essay and the role it plays on your applications and then explore our step-by-step guide to writing a great college essay .

Using the Common Application for your college applications? We have an excellent guide to the Common App essay prompts and useful advice on how to pick the Common App prompt that's right for you . Wondering how other people tackled these prompts? Then work through our roundup of over 130 real college essay examples published by colleges .

Stressed about whether to take the SAT again before submitting your application? Let us help you decide how many times to take this test . If you choose to go for it, we have the ultimate guide to studying for the SAT to give you the ins and outs of the best ways to study.

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Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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Tips for Writing an Effective Application Essay

Find the right college for you.

Writing an essay for college admission gives you a chance to use your authentic voice and show your personality. It's an excellent opportunity to personalize your application beyond your academic credentials, and a well-written essay can have a positive influence come decision time.

Want to know how to draft an essay for your college application ? Here are some tips to keep in mind when writing.

Tips for Essay Writing

A typical college application essay, also known as a personal statement, is 400-600 words. Although that may seem short, writing about yourself can be challenging. It's not something you want to rush or put off at the last moment. Think of it as a critical piece of the application process. Follow these tips to write an impactful essay that can work in your favor.

1. Start Early.

Few people write well under pressure. Try to complete your first draft a few weeks before you have to turn it in. Many advisers recommend starting as early as the summer before your senior year in high school. That way, you have ample time to think about the prompt and craft the best personal statement possible.

You don't have to work on your essay every day, but you'll want to give yourself time to revise and edit. You may discover that you want to change your topic or think of a better way to frame it. Either way, the sooner you start, the better.

2. Understand the Prompt and Instructions.

Before you begin the writing process, take time to understand what the college wants from you. The worst thing you can do is skim through the instructions and submit a piece that doesn't even fit the bare minimum requirements or address the essay topic. Look at the prompt, consider the required word count, and note any unique details each school wants.

3. Create a Strong Opener.

Students seeking help for their application essays often have trouble getting things started. It's a challenging writing process. Finding the right words to start can be the hardest part.

Spending more time working on your opener is always a good idea. The opening sentence sets the stage for the rest of your piece. The introductory paragraph is what piques the interest of the reader, and it can immediately set your essay apart from the others.

4. Stay on Topic.

One of the most important things to remember is to keep to the essay topic. If you're applying to 10 or more colleges, it's easy to veer off course with so many application essays.

A common mistake many students make is trying to fit previously written essays into the mold of another college's requirements. This seems like a time-saving way to avoid writing new pieces entirely, but it often backfires. The result is usually a final piece that's generic, unfocused, or confusing. Always write a new essay for every application, no matter how long it takes.

5. Think About Your Response.

Don't try to guess what the admissions officials want to read. Your essay will be easier to write─and more exciting to read─if you’re genuinely enthusiastic about your subject. Here’s an example: If all your friends are writing application essays about covid-19, it may be a good idea to avoid that topic, unless during the pandemic you had a vivid, life-changing experience you're burning to share. Whatever topic you choose, avoid canned responses. Be creative.

6. Focus on You.

Essay prompts typically give you plenty of latitude, but panel members expect you to focus on a subject that is personal (although not overly intimate) and particular to you. Admissions counselors say the best essays help them learn something about the candidate that they would never know from reading the rest of the application.

7. Stay True to Your Voice.

Use your usual vocabulary. Avoid fancy language you wouldn't use in real life. Imagine yourself reading this essay aloud to a classroom full of people who have never met you. Keep a confident tone. Be wary of words and phrases that undercut that tone.

8. Be Specific and Factual.

Capitalize on real-life experiences. Your essay may give you the time and space to explain why a particular achievement meant so much to you. But resist the urge to exaggerate and embellish. Admissions counselors read thousands of essays each year. They can easily spot a fake.

9. Edit and Proofread.

When you finish the final draft, run it through the spell checker on your computer. Then don’t read your essay for a few days. You'll be more apt to spot typos and awkward grammar when you reread it. After that, ask a teacher, parent, or college student (preferably an English or communications major) to give it a quick read. While you're at it, double-check your word count.

Writing essays for college admission can be daunting, but it doesn't have to be. A well-crafted essay could be the deciding factor─in your favor. Keep these tips in mind, and you'll have no problem creating memorable pieces for every application.

What is the format of a college application essay?

Generally, essays for college admission follow a simple format that includes an opening paragraph, a lengthier body section, and a closing paragraph. You don't need to include a title, which will only take up extra space. Keep in mind that the exact format can vary from one college application to the next. Read the instructions and prompt for more guidance.

Most online applications will include a text box for your essay. If you're attaching it as a document, however, be sure to use a standard, 12-point font and use 1.5-spaced or double-spaced lines, unless the application specifies different font and spacing.

How do you start an essay?

The goal here is to use an attention grabber. Think of it as a way to reel the reader in and interest an admissions officer in what you have to say. There's no trick on how to start a college application essay. The best way you can approach this task is to flex your creative muscles and think outside the box.

You can start with openers such as relevant quotes, exciting anecdotes, or questions. Either way, the first sentence should be unique and intrigue the reader.

What should an essay include?

Every application essay you write should include details about yourself and past experiences. It's another opportunity to make yourself look like a fantastic applicant. Leverage your experiences. Tell a riveting story that fulfills the prompt.

What shouldn’t be included in an essay?

When writing a college application essay, it's usually best to avoid overly personal details and controversial topics. Although these topics might make for an intriguing essay, they can be tricky to express well. If you’re unsure if a topic is appropriate for your essay, check with your school counselor. An essay for college admission shouldn't include a list of achievements or academic accolades either. Your essay isn’t meant to be a rehashing of information the admissions panel can find elsewhere in your application.

How can you make your essay personal and interesting?

The best way to make your essay interesting is to write about something genuinely important to you. That could be an experience that changed your life or a valuable lesson that had an enormous impact on you. Whatever the case, speak from the heart, and be honest.

Is it OK to discuss mental health in an essay?

Mental health struggles can create challenges you must overcome during your education and could be an opportunity for you to show how you’ve handled challenges and overcome obstacles. If you’re considering writing your essay for college admission on this topic, consider talking to your school counselor or with an English teacher on how to frame the essay.

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How to Write a College Essay: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide

One way to think of your college essay is as the heart of your application—as in, it helps an admissions officer see who you are, what you value, and what you bring to their campus and community.

And before we talk you through how to write your college essay, we want to acknowledge something fairly strange about this process: namely, that this is a kind of writing that you’ve maybe never been asked to do before.

In that sense, college essays are a bizarre bait-and-switch—in high school, you’re taught a few different ways to write (e.g., maybe some historical analysis, or how to analyze literature, or creative writing), and then to apply to college, you’re asked to write something fairly different (or maybe completely different) from any of the things you’ve been asked to write in high school.

So first we’ll talk you through

the purpose of your college essay

and the degree to which it is important in your application (preview: it won’t be as important for some people as for others)

and then we’ll walk you step-by-step through how to write an essay that can help you stand out in the application process.

Let’s dive in.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Brainstorming your college essay topic, how to structure & outline a college essay, the difference between a boring and a stand-out personal statement.

• A quick word on “common” or “cliché” topics
• The “home” essay: a quick college essay case study
• Five (more) ways to find a thematic thread for your personal statement
• Montage essay structure FAQ’s
• Narrative essay structure FAQ’s

How to write a college essay: understanding what it is and how important it can be

What’s the purpose of your college essay (aka the personal statement).

This is your main essay. Your application centerpiece. The part of your application you’re likely to spend the most time on.

Assuming you’re applying via the Common App (here’s our how-to guide for that), the personal statement is likely to be 500-650 words long (so about a page) and many of the colleges you’re applying to will require it. (If you’re applying to the UCs, you’ll need to write some totally different essays .)

What’s a college essay’s purpose?

Jennifer Blask, Executive Director for International Admissions at the University of Rochester, puts it beautifully: “So much of the college application is a recounting of things past—past grades, old classes, activities the student has participated in over several years. The essay is a chance for the student to share who they are now and what they will bring to our campus communities.” 

Basically, college admission officers are looking for three takeaways in your college essay:

Who is this person?

Will this person contribute something of value to our campus?

Can this person write?

If you want to dig deeper into how admissions officers are thinking during the admissions process , or into what colleges look for in students , check out those two guides.

How important is your college essay?

That really depends on a lot of factors, but two of the biggest are the schools you’re applying to, and your academic profile. Here’s one way to think of the importance of essays:

Essays are less important if

You’re applying to “selective” colleges (around a 15-50% acceptance rate) and your academic profile is stronger than other applicants’

You’re applying in-state to large colleges, and/or to less competitive programs (e.g. you live in Sacramento and are applying to UC Riverside as an English major)

Essays are more important if

You’re applying to “highly-selective” aka “highly rejective”) colleges, meaning they have a less than 15% acceptance rate

You’re applying to “selective” colleges (around a 15-50% acceptance rate) but your academic profile isn’t as strong as other applicants’

You’re applying to really competitive programs (for example, engineering and computer science at some schools have way, way more applicants than spots) and/or you’re applying out-of-state to a state school system (e.g. you live in Montana and want to go to school at the University of Washington, and/or you want to study CS at UW).

To illustrate further—CEG’s Tom Campbell, who used to be an Assistant Dean of Admissions at Pomona , puts it this way: around 80% of the applicants to Pomona in a given year when he worked there were academically admissible. Meaning at schools like Pomona (with its 7ish% acceptance rate), grades and test scores don’t really get you in—they just get your foot in the door.

And an important thing to understand on that last note: if you get rejected from the “highly rejective” schools, it will tend to have a lot more to do with things like institutional priorities —some things in this process are out of your control.

Below are the five exercises I have every student complete before I meet with them:

Essence Objects Exercise : 12 min.

Values Exercise : 4 min.

21 Details Exercise : 20 min. 

Everything I Want Colleges to Know About Me Exercise : 20 min.

The Feelings and Needs Exercise : 15-20 min. 

I recommend recording all the content from your exercises in one document to keep things neat. If you’ve been working as you go, you’ve already completed these, so make sure to do this step now. You can use our downloadable Google doc with these exercises if you’d like.

At the start of the essay process, I ask students two questions:

Have you faced significant challenges in your life?

Do you want to write about them? 

Because here’s an important qualifier: 

Even if you’ve faced challenges, you do not have to write about them in your personal statement.  

I mention this now because, in my experience, many students are under the impression that they have to write about challenges—that it’s either expected, or that it’s somehow better to do so.

Neither is true. (And to be sure it’s clear: you do not have to write about trauma in your college essay to stand out .)

I’ve seen many, many incredible essays—ones that got students into every school you’re hoping to get into—that had no central challenge.

If your answer is “Maybe … ?” because you’re not sure what qualifies as a challenge, it’s useful to think of challenges as being on a spectrum.

On the weaker end of the spectrum would be things like getting a bad grade or not making X sports team. On the strong end of the spectrum would be things like escaping war. Being extremely shy but being responsible for translating for your family might be around a 3 or 4 out of 10. (Check this out if you want to read more about college essay topics to maybe avoid .)

It’s possible to use Narrative Structure to write about a challenge anywhere on the spectrum, but it’s much, much harder to write an outstanding essay about a weaker challenge.

Sometimes students pick the hardest challenge they’ve been through and try to make it sound worse than it actually was. Beware of pushing yourself to write about a challenge merely because you think these types of essays are inherently “better.” Focusing myopically on one experience can sideline other brilliant and beautiful elements of your character.

If you’re still uncertain, don’t worry. I’ll help you decide what to focus on. But, for the sake of this blog post, answer those first two questions with a gut-level response.

In the sections that follow, I’ll introduce you to two structures: Narrative Structure, which works well for describing challenges, and Montage Structure, which works well for essays that aren’t about challenges.

Heads-up: Some students who have faced challenges find after reading that they prefer Montage Structure to Narrative Structure. Or vice versa. If you’re uncertain which approach is best for you, I generally recommend experimenting with montage first; you can always go back and play with narrative.

How to write a college essay using montage structure

A montage is, simply put, a series of moments or story events connected by a common thematic thread. 

Well-known examples from movies include “training” montages, like those from Mulan , Rocky , or Footloose , or the “falling in love” montage from most romantic comedies. Or remember the opening to the Pixar movie Up ? In just a few minutes, we learn the entire history of Carl and Ellie’s relationship. One purpose is to communicate a lot of information fast. Another is to allow you to share a lot of different kinds of information, as the example essay below shows. 

Narrative Structure vs. Montage Structure explained in two sentences:

In Narrative Structure, story events connect chronologically.

In Montage Structure, story events connect thematically.

Here’s a metaphor to illustrate a montage approach: 

Imagine that each different part of you is a bead and that a select few will show up in your essay. They’re not the kind of beads you’d find on a store-bought bracelet; they’re more like the hand-painted beads on a bracelet your little brother made for you. 

The theme of your essay is the thread that connects your beads. 

You can find a thread in many, many different ways. One way we’ve seen students find great montage threads is by using the 5 Things Exercise . I’ll get detailed on this a little bit later, but essentially, are there 5 thematically connected things that thread together different experiences/moments/events in your life? For example, are there 5 T-shirts you collected, or 5 homes or identities, or 5 entries in your Happiness Spreadsheet .

And to clarify, your essay may end up using only 4 of the 5 things. Or maybe 8. But 5 is a nice number to aim for initially.

Note the huge range of possible essay threads. To illustrate, here are some different “thread” examples that have worked well:

Sports have had a powerful influence on me, from my understanding of history, to numbers, to my relationships, extracurricular activities, and even my career choice.

I lived with 5 different families as an exchange student, and each one taught me something valuable that I’ll carry with me to college.

Crassulaceae plants, which can reproduce via stem or leaf fragments, are a great analogy for not only how I make art, but how I choose to live each day.

Binary star systems are a metaphor for my relationship with my parents.

I am “trans” in so many ways … let me describe a few.

To understand who I am, you must understand how I cook.

Pranks have shaped my life in a variety of ways.

The number 12 has influenced so much in my life, from my relationship to sports, to how I write, to my self-esteem.

All of these threads stemmed from the brainstorming exercises in this post.

We’ll look at an example essay in a minute, but before we do, a word (well, a bunch of words) on how to build a stronger montage (and the basic concept here also applies to building stronger narratives).

Would you Rather watch instead?

To frame how to think about possible college essay topics ... .

Imagine you’re interviewing for a position as a fashion designer, and your interviewer asks you what qualities make you right for this position. Oh, and heads-up: That imaginary interviewer has already interviewed a hundred people today, so you’d best not roll up with, “because I’ve always loved clothes” or “because fashion helps me express my creativity.” Why shouldn’t you say those things? Because that’s what everyone says.

Many students are the same in their personal statements—they name cliché qualities/skills/values and don’t push their reflections much further.

Why is this a bad idea?

Let me frame it this way:

A boring personal statement chooses a common topic, makes common connections, and uses common language. 

A stand-out personal statement chooses an un common topic, makes un common connections, and uses un common language. 

Boring personal statement: I want to be a doctor (common topic) because I’m empathetic and I love helping people (common connections) and I really want to make the world a better place (common language).

Better personal statement: I want to run a tech-startup (more uncommon topic) because I value humor, “leading from the battlefield,” and stuff that makes me cry (uncommon connections for an essay on this topic), and because my journey to this place took me from being a scrawny 12-year-old kid to a scrawny 12-year-old man (uncommon language).

Important: I’m not saying you should pick a weird topic/thread just so it’ll help you stand out more on your essay. Be honest. But consider this: The more common your topic is ... the more un common your connections need to be if you want to stand out.

What do I mean? 

For example, tons of students write doctor/lawyer/engineer essays; if you want to stand out, you need to say a few things that others don’t tend to say. 

How do you figure out what to say? By making uncommon connections. 

They’re the key to a stand-out essay.

The following two-part exercise will help you do this.

2-minute exercise: Start with the cliché version of your essay.

What would the cliché version of your essay focus on?

If you’re writing a “Why I want to be an engineer” essay, for example, what 3-5 common “engineering” values might other students have mentioned in connection with engineering? Use the Values Exercise for ideas.

Collaboration? Efficiency? Hands-on work? Probably yes to all three.

Once you’ve spent 2 minutes thinking up some common/cliché values, move onto the next step.

8-Minute Exercise: Brainstorm uncommon connections.

For example, if your thread is “food” (which can lead to great essays, but is also a really common topic), push yourself beyond the common value of “health” and strive for unexpected values. How has cooking taught you about “accountability,” for example, or “social change”? Why do this? We’ve already read the essay on how cooking helped the author become more aware of their health. An essay on how cooking allowed the author to become more accountable or socially aware would be less common.

In a minute, we’ll look at the “Laptop Stickers” essay. One thing that author discusses is activism. A typical “activist” essay might discuss public speaking or how the author learned to find their voice. A stand-out essay would go further, demonstrating, say, how a sense of humor supports activism. Perhaps it would describe a childhood community that prioritized culture-creation over culture-consumption, reflecting on how these experiences shaped the author’s political views.

And before you beg me for an “uncommon values” resource, I implore you to use your brilliant brain to dream up these connections. Plus, you aren’t looking for uncommon values in general ; you’re looking for values uncommonly associated with your topic/thread .

Don’t get me wrong ... I’m not saying you shouldn’t list any common values, since some common values may be an important part of your story! In fact, the great essay examples throughout this book sometimes make use of common connections. I’m simply encouraging you to go beyond the obvious.

Also note that a somewhat-common lesson (e.g., “I found my voice”) can still appear in a stand-out essay. But if you choose this path, you’ll likely need to use either an uncommon structure or next-level craft to create a stand-out essay.

Where can you find ideas for uncommon qualities/skills/values?

Here are four places: 

1. The Values Exercise

This is basically a huge list of qualities/skills/values that could serve you in a future career.

2. O*Net Online

Go to www.onetonline.org and use the “occupation quick search” feature to search for your career. Once you do, a huge list will appear containing knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for your career. This is one of my favorite resources for this exercise.

3. School websites

Go to a college's website and click on a major or group of majors that interest you. Sometimes they’ll briefly summarize a major in terms of what skills it’ll impart or what jobs it might lead to. Students are often surprised to discover how broadly major-related skills can apply.

4. Real humans

Ask 3 people in this profession what unexpected qualities, values, or skills prepared them for their careers. Please don’t simply use their answers as your own; allow their replies to inspire your brainstorming process.

Once you’ve got a list of, say, 7-10 qualities, move on to the next step.

A quick word on “common” or “cliché” college essay topics

Common personal statement topics include extracurricular activities (sports or musical instruments), service trips to foreign countries (aka the “mission trip” essay where the author realizes their privilege), sports injuries, family illnesses, deaths, divorce, the “meta” essay (e.g., “As I sit down to write my college essays, I think about...”), or someone who inspired you (common mistake: This usually ends up being more about them than you).

While I won’t say you should never write about these topics, if you do decide to write about one of these topics, the degree of difficulty goes way up. What do I mean? Essentially, you have to be one of the best “soccer” essays or “mission trip” essays among the hundreds the admission officer has likely read (and depending on the school, maybe the hundreds they’ve read this year ). So it makes it much more difficult to stand out.

How do you stand out? A cliché is all in how you tell the story. So, if you do choose a common topic, work to make uncommon connections (i.e., offer unexpected narrative turns or connections to values), provide uncommon insights (i.e., say stuff we don’t expect you to say) or uncommon language (i.e., phrase things in a way we haven’t heard before).

Or explore a different topic. You are infinitely complex and imaginative.

Sample montage structure college essay:

My laptop stickers.

My laptop is like a passport. It is plastered with stickers all over the outside, inside, and bottom. Each sticker is a stamp, representing a place I’ve been, a passion I’ve pursued, or community I’ve belonged to. These stickers make for an untraditional first impression at a meeting or presentation, but it’s one I’m proud of. Let me take you on a quick tour:  “ We <3 Design ,” bottom left corner. Art has been a constant for me for as long as I can remember. Today my primary engagement with art is through design. I’ve spent entire weekends designing websites and social media graphics for my companies. Design means more to me than just branding and marketing; it gives me the opportunity to experiment with texture, perspective, and contrast, helping me refine my professional style.    “ Common Threads ,” bottom right corner. A rectangular black and red sticker displaying the theme of the 2017 TEDxYouth@Austin event. For years I’ve been interested in the street artists and musicians in downtown Austin who are so unapologetically themselves. As a result, I’ve become more open-minded and appreciative of unconventional lifestyles. TED gives me the opportunity to help other youth understand new perspectives, by exposing them to the diversity of Austin where culture is created, not just consumed. Poop emoji , middle right. My 13-year-old brother often sends his messages with the poop emoji ‘echo effect,’ so whenever I open a new message from him, hundreds of poops elegantly cascade across my screen. He brings out my goofy side, but also helps me think rationally when I am overwhelmed. We don’t have the typical “I hate you, don’t talk to me” siblinghood (although occasionally it would be nice to get away from him); we’re each other’s best friends. Or at least he’s mine.  “ Lol ur not Harry Styles ,” upper left corner. Bought in seventh grade and transferred from my old laptop, this sticker is torn but persevering with layers of tape. Despite conveying my fangirl-y infatuation with Harry Styles’ boyband, One Direction, for me Styles embodies an artist-activist who uses his privilege for the betterment of society. As a $42K donor to the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, a hair donor to the Little Princess Trust, and promoter of LGBTQ+ equality, he has motivated me to be a more public activist instead of internalizing my beliefs.   “ Catapult ,” middle right. This is the logo of a startup incubator where I launched my first company, Threading Twine. I learned that business can provide others access to fundamental human needs, such as economic empowerment of minorities and education. In my career, I hope to be a corporate advocate for the empowerment of women, creating large-scale impact and deconstructing institutional boundaries that obstruct women from working in high-level positions. Working as a women’s rights activist will allow me to engage in creating lasting movements for equality, rather than contributing to a cycle that elevates the stances of wealthy individuals.  “ Thank God it’s Monday ,” sneakily nestled in the upper right corner. Although I attempt to love all my stickers equally (haha), this is one of my favorites. I always want my association with work to be positive.  And there are many others, including the horizontal, yellow stripes of the Human Rights Campaign ; “ The Team ,” a sticker from the Model G20 Economics Summit where I collaborated with youth from around the globe; and stickers from “ Kode with Klossy ,” a community of girls working to promote women’s involvement in underrepresented fields.  When my computer dies (hopefully not for another few years), it will be like my passport expiring. It’ll be difficult leaving these moments and memories behind, but I probably won’t want these stickers in my 20s anyways (except Harry Styles, that’s never leaving). My next set of stickers will reveal my next set of aspirations. They hold the key to future paths I will navigate, knowledge I will gain, and connections I will make.

Cool, huh? And see what I mean about how you can write a strong personal statement without focusing on challenges you’ve faced?

Going back to that “thread and beads” metaphor with the “My Laptop Sticker” essay:

The “beads” are the different experiences that link to the values of creativity, open-mindedness, humor, courage, and entrepreneurialism.

The “thread” (i.e., the theme that ties everything together) is her laptop stickers. Each one represents a quality of the author’s personality. Actually, there’s a second thematic thread: Those qualities will also serve her in her women’s rights activism. Bonus!

The outline that got her there

Here’s the outline for the “My Laptop Stickers” essay. Notice how each bullet point discusses a value or values, connected to different experiences via her thread, and sets up the insights she could explore. (Insight, though, is the toughest part of the writing process, and will probably take the most revision, so it’s fine if you don’t have great insights in an outline or first draft. But you’ll want to get to them by your final draft.) 

She found this thread essentially by using The Five Things Exercise in conjunction with the other brainstorming exercises.

Thread = Laptop Stickers

We <3 Design → art, design, experimentation

Details: spent weekend designing websites, graphics for my companies

Possible insight: Developed my own style

Common Threads → authenticity, open-mindedness

Details: Street artists, musicians in Austin

Possible insight: Creating not just consuming culture

Poop emoji → family, goofy side

Details: Brother, interactions, thinking rationally

Possible insight: Connection/vulnerability

Lol ur not Harry Styles → equality, activism, confidence

Details: Various activism as motivation/reminder to act vs just internalize

Possible insight: My growth with acting/speaking up

Catapult → entrepreneurship, social justice, awareness, meaningful work

Details: Threaded Twine, women’s rights, breaking cycles 

Possible insight: Discovered my career

Thank God it's Monday → enjoyable work

Possible insight: Importance of experience/framing

Possible insight: Want work to always be this way

The Team → collaboration

Details: Model G20 Econ Summit, group collaboration

Kode with Klossy → community, social justice

Details: Promoting women in underrepresented fields

Okay, so if you’re on board so far, here’s what you need: 

Some stuff to write about (ideally 4-10 things) that will make up the “beads” of your essay, and

Something to connect all the different “beads” (like a connective theme or thread)

First, let’s talk about ...

How to generate lots of ‘stuff’ to write about (aka the beads for your bracelet)

Complete all the brainstorming exercises. 

Already did that? Great! Move on! 

Didn’t do that? Go back , complete the exercises, and then ...

Case study: How to find a theme for your personal statement (aka the thread that connects the beads of your bracelet)

Let’s look at an example of how I helped one student find her essay thread, then I’ll offer you some exercises to help you find your own.

The “Home” essay: A quick college essay case study

First, take a look at this student’s Essence Objects and 21 Details: 

My Essence Objects

Bojangle’s Tailgate Special/Iced Tea 

Light blue fuzzy blanket

A box containing my baby tooth 

Car keys 

Gold bracelet from my grandfather

Orange, worn Nike Free Run Sneakers

Duke basketball game ticket

Palestine flag rubber wristband/ISEF Lanyard

Friendship bracelet

A pair of headphones

Yin-yang symbol

Worn, green Governor’s School East lanyard

My 21 Details

I’ve been known to have terrible spatial awareness despite being a dancer. Just last week, my shoelace got caught in an escalator and I tripped about 20 people. 

Zumba and kickboxing are my favorite forms of exercise and I’m hopefully going to become certified to teach Zumba soon. 

I have misophonia--sometimes I even have to eat dinner in a different room from my family.

My go-to drinks are Hi-C and Sweet Tea.

I became a pescatarian this year to avoid fried chicken, and I can honestly get a life’s worth of meat out of cod, salmon, tilapia, shrimp, you name it.

I collect funky socks--at this point, I have socks with tacos, snowmen, Santa, and even animals wearing glasses.

I’ve gotten different Myers-Briggs personality types every time I took the test. The most recent ones are ENFJ and ENFP.

I have no immediate relatives in America besides my mom, dad, and sister.

I am a diehard Duke basketball fan, and I can identify all of the Duke basketball fans at my high school on one hand. 

I love discussing psychology, but sometimes I psychoanalyze.       

Singing while driving is honestly one of my favorite pastimes.    

My alarm for school every morning is at 5:42 am. 

I hope to complete a half and full marathon within the next four years, despite not having run a 5k yet. 

I realized the tooth fairy wasn’t real after I lost my second tooth, but I pretended that I still believed in it until I was in 5th grade for the tooth fairy’s “gifts”. 

I could eat fruits for every single meal.                

I don’t do well with confrontation.        

Airports are hands-down my favorite place to be, but I hate airplanes. 

If I’m not busy or working, you can usually find me in my hammock in the backyard. 

I find that I form the deepest connections with people after 12am. 

 Sometimes, I like TV spoilers.

How this author found her thematic thread

When I met with this student for the first time, I began asking questions about her objects and details: “What’s up with the Bojangle’s Iced Tea? What’s meaningful to you about the Governor’s School East lanyard? Tell me about your relationship to dance ...”

We were thread-finding ... searching for an invisible connective [something] that would allow her to talk about different parts of her life.

Heads-up: Some people are really good at this—counselors are often great at this—while some folks have a more difficult time. Good news: When you practice the skill of thread-finding, you can become better at it rather quickly.

You should also know that sometimes it takes minutes to find a thread and sometimes it can take weeks. With this student, it took less than an hour. 

I noticed in our conversation that she kept coming back to things that made her feel comfortable. She also repeated the word “home” several times. When I pointed this out, she asked me, “Do you think I could use ‘home’ as a thread for my essay?” 

“I think you could,” I said. 

Read her essay below, then I’ll share more about how you can find your own thematic thread.

Example essay: HOME

As I enter the double doors, the smell of freshly rolled biscuits hits me almost instantly. I trace the fan blades as they swing above me, emitting a low, repetitive hum resembling a faint melody. After bringing our usual order, the “Tailgate Special,” to the table, my father begins discussing the recent performance of Apple stock with my mother, myself, and my older eleven year old sister. Bojangle’s, a Southern establishment well known for its fried chicken and reliable fast food, is my family’s Friday night restaurant, often accompanied by trips to Eva Perry, the nearby library. With one hand on my breaded chicken and the other on Nancy Drew: Mystery of Crocodile Island, I can barely sit still as the thriller unfolds. They’re imprisoned! Reptiles! Not the enemy’s boat! As I delve into the narrative with a sip of sweet tea, I feel at home. “Five, six, seven, eight!” As I shout the counts, nineteen dancers grab and begin to spin the tassels attached to their swords while walking heel-to-toe to the next formation of the classical Chinese sword dance. A glance at my notebook reveals a collection of worn pages covered with meticulously planned formations, counts, and movements. Through sharing videos of my performances with my relatives or discovering and choreographing the nuances of certain regional dances and their reflection on the region’s distinct culture, I deepen my relationship with my parents, heritage, and community. When I step on stage, the hours I’ve spent choreographing, creating poses, teaching, and polishing are all worthwhile, and the stage becomes my home. Set temperature. Calibrate. Integrate. Analyze. Set temperature. Calibrate. Integrate. Analyze. This pulse mimics the beating of my heart, a subtle rhythm that persists each day I come into the lab. Whether I am working under the fume hood with platinum nanoparticles, manipulating raw integration data, or spraying a thin platinum film over pieces of copper, it is in Lab 304 in Hudson Hall that I first feel the distinct sensation, and I’m home. After spending several weeks attempting to synthesize platinum nanoparticles with a diameter between 10 and 16 nm, I finally achieve nanoparticles with a diameter of 14.6 nm after carefully monitoring the sulfuric acid bath. That unmistakable tingling sensation dances up my arm as I scribble into my notebook: I am overcome with a feeling of unbridled joy.  Styled in a t-shirt, shorts, and a worn, dark green lanyard, I sprint across the quad from the elective ‘Speaking Arabic through the Rassias Method’ to ‘Knitting Nirvana’. This afternoon is just one of many at Governor’s School East, where I have been transformed from a high school student into a philosopher, a thinker, and an avid learner. While I attend GS at Meredith College for Natural Science, the lessons learned and experiences gained extend far beyond physics concepts, serial dilutions, and toxicity. I learn to trust myself to have difficult yet necessary conversations about the political and economic climate. Governor’s School breeds a culture of inclusivity and multidimensionality, and I am transformed from “girl who is hardworking” or “science girl” to someone who indulges in the sciences, debates about psychology and the economy, and loves to swing and salsa dance. As I form a slip knot and cast on, I’m at home. My home is a dynamic and eclectic entity. Although I’ve lived in the same house in Cary, North Carolina for 10 years, I have found and carved homes and communities that are filled with and enriched by tradition, artists, researchers, and intellectuals. While I may not always live within a 5 mile radius of a Bojangle’s or in close proximity to Lab 304, learning to become a more perceptive daughter and sister, to share the beauty of my heritage, and to take risks and redefine scientific and personal expectations will continue to impact my sense of home. 

Rad essay, huh? 

But here’s the question I get most often about this technique: How do I find my thematic thread?

Five (more) ways to find a thematic thread for your college personal statement

1. The “Bead-Making” Exercise (5-8 min.)

In the example above, we started with the beads, and then we searched for a thread. This exercise asks you to start with the thread of something you know well and then create the beads. Here’s how it works:

Step 1: On a blank sheet of paper, make a list of five or six things you know a lot about.

For example, I know a lot about …

Words/language

Productivity

Voices/accents

Self-help books

If you can only think of 3 or 4, that’s okay.

Step 2: Pick one of the things you wrote down, flip your paper over, and write it at the top of your paper, like this:

This is your thread, or a potential thread.

Step 3: Underneath what you wrote down, name 5-6 values you could connect to this. These will serve as the beads of your essay. You can even draw a thread connecting your beads, if you want, like this:

Step 4: For each value, write down a specific example, memory, image, or essence object that connects to that value. Example: 

My thread: Games

My beads: Connection, creativity, fun/laughter, family, competition, knowledge

Here are my examples/memories/images/essence objects:

Connection: One memory I have is playing “I love” in a circle at camp with 20 friends and strangers. I still marvel at how quickly it helped us bond.

Creativity: After I understand how a game works, I like to try to improve it by tweaking the rules. Two examples: 1) I remember when I was young trying to find the right amount of money for the Free Parking space in Monopoly, and 2) recently, I learned the game Guesstimation is so much better if you add wagers. I see my 4-year-old daughter tweaks games too, which drives my wife crazy, as she likes to play by the rules of the game.

Fun/laughter: As I’ve aged, so much of my life has become planned/programmed, but I can still enjoy losing track of time with board games. Two weeks ago, for example, I laughed so hard I cried while playing Drawful with Lisa, Andy, and Sage.

Family: We played games like Charades and Jeopardy when I was young. (My dad was the Game Master who would come up with the categories. As I grew older, I took over the role of Game Master.)

Competition: People don’t know this about me because I seem so chill, but I am incredibly competitive. Things I rarely lose at: ping pong, Tetris, foosball, and corn hole. I’ve gotten much better over the years at hiding my competitive side, but it’s still there.

Knowledge: Can’t really think of much on this one—maybe something related to Jeopardy? 

This is an actual brainstorm I did using this exercise. 

And, as I write these things down, I notice a theme of youth/old age emerging. Games have changed for me as I’ve gotten older. Note that I couldn’t come up with something for the last one, “knowledge,” which is fine. 

The point is this: If you know a thing well, odds are good you’ll be able to make a lot of connections to your values. And if you can find specific examples for each value, that can make for interesting paragraphs in your personal statement. 

If you’re willing to spend a few more minutes, ask “so what?” of each example to see if a specific insight emerges. 

And, in case you want a formula for what I’m describing, here you go:

Once you’ve written down the values and at least one example (e.g., a memory, image, essence object) for each bead, see if you have enough content for an essay. 

Still haven’t found your theme? Here are ...

More ways to find a thematic thread for your personal statement

2. The “Five Things” Exercise 

(Special thanks to my colleague, Dori Middlebrook, for this one.)  

I mentioned this when we first started talking about Montage Structure. Similar to the “bead-making” exercise above, you identify the thread first and then develop the beads.

Step 1: Write down 5 similar things that are meaningful to you in different ways. 

Examples: Five Pairs of Shoes I’ve Worn, Five Houses I’ve Lived In, Five Photographs in My Room, Five Ways Cooking Has Influenced Me, etc. 

Step 2: Begin by simply naming the 5 different items. 

Example: High-top tennis shoes, flip-flops, heels, cleats, bunny slippers

Step 3: Add physical details so we can visualize each one. 

Step 4: Add more details. Maybe tell a story for each. 

Pro tip: Try connecting each of the 5 to a different value.

Step 5: Expand on each description further and start to connect the ideas to develop them into an essay draft. 

3. Thread-finding with a partner

Grab someone who knows you well (e.g., a counselor, friend, family member). Share all your brainstorming content with them and ask them to  mirror back to you what they’re seeing. It can be helpful if they use reflective language and ask lots of questions. An example of a reflective observation is: “I’m hearing that ‘building’ has been pretty important in your life … is that right?” You’re hunting together for a thematic thread—something that might connect different parts of your life and self.

4. Thread-finding with photographs

Pick 10 of your favorite photos or social media posts and write a short paragraph on each one. Why’d you pick these photos? What do they say about you? Then ask yourself, “What are some things these photos have in common?” Bonus points: Can you find one thing that connects all of them?

5. Reading lots of montage example essays that work

You’ll find some here , here , and here . While you may be tempted to steal those thematic threads, don’t. Try finding your own. Have the courage to be original. You can do it.

Montage Essay Structure FAQs

Q: How do I work in extracurricular activities in a tasteful way (so it doesn’t seem like I’m bragging)?

A: Some counselors caution, with good reason, against naming extracurricular activities/experiences in your personal statement. (It can feel redundant with your Activities List.) You actually can mention them , just make sure you do so in context of your essay’s theme. Take another look at the eighth paragraph of the “My Laptop Stickers” essay above, for example:

And there are many [other stickers], including the horizontal, yellow stripes of the Human Rights Campaign; “The Team,” a sticker from the Model G20 Economics Summit where I collaborated with youth from around the globe; and stickers from “Kode with Klossy,” a community of girls working to promote women’s involvement in underrepresented fields. 

A description of these extracurricular activities may have sounded like a laundry list of the author’s accomplishments. But because she’s naming other stickers (which connects them to the essay’s thematic thread), she basically gets to name-drop those activities while showing other parts of her life. Nice.

One more way to emphasize a value is to combine or disguise it with humor. Example: “Nothing teaches patience (and how to tie shoes really fast) like trying to wrangle 30 first-graders by yourself for 10 hours per week,” or “I’ve worked three jobs, but I’ve never had to take more crap from my bosses than I did this past summer while working at my local veterinarian’s office.” 

In each of these examples, the little bit of humor covers the brag. Each is basically pointing out that the author had to work a lot and it wasn’t always fun. No need to push this humor thing, though. Essays don’t need to be funny to be relatable, and if the joke doesn’t come naturally, it might come across as trying too hard. 

Q: How do I transition between examples so my essay “flows” well?

A: The transitions are the toughest part of this essay type. Fine-tuning them will take some time, so be patient. One exercise I love is called Revising Your Essay in 5 Steps , and it basically works like this: 

Highlight the first sentence of each of your paragraphs in bold, then read each one aloud in order. Do they connect, creating a short version of your essay? If not: 

Rewrite the bold sentences so that they do connect (i.e., flow) together. Once you’ve done that …

Rewrite each paragraph so it flows from those bolded sentences. 

Read them aloud again. Wash, rinse, repeat until the ideas flow together.

This is a great way to figure out the “bones” (i.e., structure) of your essay. 

Q: What am I looking for again? 

A: You’re looking for two things: 

Parts of yourself that are essential to who you are (e.g., values or “islands of your personality”), and 

A theme that connects them all. 

Your theme could be something mundane (like your desk) or something everyone can relate to ( like the concept of home ), but make sure that it is elastic (i.e. can connect to many different parts of you) and visual, as storytelling made richer with images.

Each of the values creates an island of your personality and a paragraph for your essay.

Montage step-by-step recap: 

Review your brainstorming exercises and look for threads that connect 4-7 different values through 4-7 different experiences.

Choose an order for your examples. Consider describing one example per paragraph.

Create an outline.

Write a first draft. Once you do ...

Consider using the Revising Your Essay in 5 Steps Exercise to clarify your transitions.

Q: This is hard! I’m not finding it yet and I want to give up. What should I do?

A: Don’t give up! Remember: be patient. This takes time. If you need inspiration, or assurance that you’re on the right track, check out Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED Talk , “Your Elusive Creative Genius.”

All right, moving on.

How to write a college essay using Narrative Structure

If you answered “yes” to both questions at the beginning of this guide, I recommend exploring Narrative Structure. I’ll explain this in more detail below. 

My favorite content-generating exercise for Narrative Structure is the Feelings and Needs Exercise. It takes about 20 minutes (but do feel free to take longer—more time brainstorming and outlining leads to better, faster writing). Here’s how it works:

The Feelings and Needs Exercise

Time : 15-20 minutes

Instructions : You’ll find them here.  

If you haven’t completed the exercise, please do it now. 

(And this is a dramatic pause before I tell you the coolest thing about what you just did.)

You may notice that your completed Feelings and Needs chart maps out a potential structure for your personal statement. If you’re not seeing it, try turning your paper so that the challenges are at the top of your page and the effects are below them. 

Voila. A rough outline for a narrative essay.

To clarify, this isn’t a perfect way to outline an essay. You may not want to spend an entire paragraph describing your feelings, for example, or you may choose to describe your needs in just one sentence. And now that you see how it frames the story, you may want to expand on certain columns. However, the sideways Feelings and Needs chart can help you think about how the chronology of your experiences might translate into a personal statement. 

Here’s an essay that one student wrote after completing this exercise:

Example Narrative Essay: The Birth of Sher Khan The narrow alleys of Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan where I spent the first 7 years of my life were infiltrated with the stench of blood and helplessness. I grew up with Geo news channel, with graphic images of amputated limbs and the lifeless corpses of uncles, neighbors, and friends. I grew up with hurried visits to the bazaar, my grandmother in her veil and five-year-old me, outrunning spontaneous bomb blasts. On the open rooftop of our home, where the hustle and bustle of the city were loudest, I grew up listening to calls to prayer, funeral announcements, gunshots. I grew up in the aftermath of 9/11, confused.  Like the faint scent of mustard oil in my hair, the war followed me to the United States. Here, I was the villain, responsible for causing pain. In the streets, in school, and in Baba’s taxi cab, my family and I were equated with the same Taliban who had pillaged our neighborhood and preyed on our loved ones.  War followed me to freshman year of high school when I wanted more than anything to start new and check off to-dos in my bullet journal. Every time news of a terror attack spread, I could hear the whispers, visualize the stares. Instead of mourning victims of horrible crimes, I felt personally responsible, only capable of focusing on my guilt. The war had manifested itself in my racing thoughts and bitten nails when I decided that I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, let it win.  A mission to uncover parts of me that I’d buried in the war gave birth to a persona: Sher Khan, the tiger king, my radio name. As media head at my high school, I spend most mornings mastering the art of speaking and writing lighthearted puns into serious announcements. Laughter, I’ve learned, is one of the oldest forms of healing, a survival tactic necessary in war, and peace too.  During sophomore year, I found myself in International Human Rights, a summer course at Cornell University that I attended through a local scholarship. I went into class eager to learn about laws that protect freedom and came out knowledgeable about ratified conventions, The International Court of Justice, and the repercussions of the Srebrenica massacre. To apply our newfound insight, three of my classmates and I founded our own organization dedicated to youth activism and spreading awareness about human rights violations: Fight for Human Rights. Today, we have seven state chapters led by students across the U.S and a chapter in Turkey too. Although I take pride in being Editor of the Golden State’s chapter,  I enjoy having written articles about topics that aren’t limited to violations within California. Addressing and acknowledging social issues everywhere is the first step to preventing war. Earlier this year, through KQED, a Bay Area broadcasting network, I was involved in a youth takeover program, and I co-hosted a Friday news segment about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, the travel ban, and the vaping epidemic. Within a few weeks, my panel and interview were accessible worldwide, watched by my peers in school, and family thousands of miles away in Pakistan. Although the idea of being so vulnerable initially made me nervous, I soon realized that this vulnerability was essential to my growth.  I never fully escaped war; it’s evident in the chills that run down my spine whenever an untimely call reaches us from family members in Pakistan and in the funerals still playing on Geo News. But I’m working towards a war-free life, internally and externally, for me and the individuals who can share in my experiences, for my family, and for the forgotten Pashtun tribes from which I hail. For now, I have everything to be grateful for. War has taught me to recognize the power of representation, to find courage in vulnerability, and best of all, to celebrate humor. 

Fun fact: This essay was written by a student in one of my online courses who, as she shared this version with me, called it a “super rough draft.” 

I wish my super rough drafts were this good.

I share this essay with you not only because it’s a super awesome essay that was inspired by the Feelings and Needs Exercise, but also because it offers a beautiful example of what I call the ...

Narrative Structure content sections

You can think of a narrative essay as having three basic sections: Challenges + Effects ; What I Did About It ; What I Learned . Your word count will be pretty evenly split between the three, so for a 650-word personal statement, 200ish each.

To get a little more nuanced, within those three basic sections, a narrative often has a few specific story beats. There are plenty of narratives that employ different elements (for example, collectivist societies often tell stories in which there isn’t one central main character/hero, but it seems hard to write a college personal statement that way, since you’re the focus here). You’ve seen these beats before—most Hollywood films use elements of this structure, for example. 

Status Quo : The starting point of the story. This briefly describes the life or world of the main character (in your essay, that’s you).

The Inciting Incident : The event that disrupts the Status Quo. Often it’s the worst thing that could happen to the main character. It gets us to wonder: Uh-oh … what will they do next? or How will they solve this problem?

Raising the Stakes/Rising Action : Builds suspense. The situation becomes more and more tense, decisions become more important, and our main character has more and more to lose.

Moment of Truth : The climax. Often this is when our main character must make a choice.

New Status Quo : The denouement or falling action. This often tells us why the story matters or what our main character has learned. Think of these insights or lessons as the answer to the big “so what?” question.

For example, take a look at “The Birth of Sher Khan” essay above. 

Notice that roughly the first third focuses on the challenges she faced and the effects of those challenges.

Roughly the next third focuses on actions she took regarding those challenges. (Though she also sprinkles in lessons and insight here.)

The final third contains lessons and insights she learned through those actions, reflecting on how her experiences have shaped her. (Again, with the caveat that What She Did and What She Learned are somewhat interwoven, and yours likely will be as well. But the middle third is more heavily focused on actions, and the final third more heavily focused on insight.)

And within those three sections, notice the beats of her story: Status Quo, The Inciting Incident, Raising the Stakes/Rising Action, Moment of Truth, New Status Quo.

How does the Feelings and Needs Exercise map onto those sections? 

Pretty directly. 

At the risk of stating the blatantly obvious, The Challenges and Effects columns of the Feelings and Needs Exercise … are the Challenges + Effects portion of your essay. Same with What I Did and What I Learned.

The details in your Feelings and Needs columns can be spread throughout the essay. And it’s important to note that it’s useful to discuss some of your feelings and needs directly, but some will be implied. 

For example, here’s the Feelings and Needs Exercise map of the “Sher Khan” essay. And I know I just mentioned this, but I want you to notice something that’s so important, I’m writing it in bold: The author doesn’t explicitly name every single effect, feeling, or need in her essay . Why not? First, she’s working within a 650-word limit. Second, she makes room for her reader’s inferences, which can often make a story more powerful. Take a look:

Challenge 1 : She grows up surrounded by war, which is explicitly stated.

Challenge 2 : She comes to the U.S. to find safety (a need), which is implied, but instead, she is villainized, which is explicitly stated. 

Effects : She is ostracized after arriving in the U.S. “Every time news of a terror attack spread,” she writes, “I could hear the whispers, visualize the stares.” Other effects are implied, and we are left to imagine—and feel for ourselves—the kind of impact this might have had on her, and on us. Vulnerability creates connection.

Feelings : Growing up in the aftermath of 9/11 leaves her feeling confused, and after she is shunned, she describes being unable to mourn the victims of horrible crimes, instead feeling “personally responsible, only capable of focusing on [her] own guilt.” She explicitly names confusion and guilt, but she doesn’t name all the things she felt, of course, as there’s no need. Here, naming 1-2 key emotions helps us understand her inner world. If you choose to do the same in your essay, it’ll help readers understand yours.

Needs : As I read this essay, I can imagine the author needed safety, order, love, respect, reassurance, connection, and many more. But these are implied by the story events and need not be explicitly stated. In fact, spelling these things out might have made the essay sound weird. Imagine if she’d said, “I needed safety and order” at the end of the first paragraph and “I needed respect, reassurance, and connection” at the end of the second paragraph. That might sound awkward or too obvious, right? While identifying your needs is a great tool for understanding your story (and self) on a deeper level, there’s no need to explicitly state them at each juncture.

What She Did About It : The author developed a radio persona called Sher Khan , attended a summer course on human rights, founded an organization dedicated to youth activism, wrote articles on restrictive blasphemy laws and the forced repatriation of refugees, and probably other things that weren’t even mentioned.

What She’s Learned/Gained : She found a sense of purpose and discovered “everything [she has] to be grateful for.” She writes: “War has taught me to never take an education or a story for granted, to find beauty in vulnerability, to remain critical of authority figures, to question what’s socially accepted, and best of all, to celebrate humor.”

Cool. Here’s another narrative example:

narrative essay: What Had to Be Done At six years old, I stood locked away in the restroom. I held tightly to a tube of toothpaste because I’d been sent to brush my teeth to distract me from the commotion. Regardless, I knew what was happening: my dad was being put under arrest for domestic abuse. He’d hurt my mom physically and mentally, and my brother Jose and I had shared the mental strain. It’s what had to be done. Living without a father meant money was tight, mom worked two jobs, and my brother and I took care of each other when she worked. For a brief period of time the quality of our lives slowly started to improve as our soon-to-be step-dad became an integral part of our family. He paid attention to the needs of my mom, my brother, and me. But our prosperity was short-lived as my step dad’s chronic alcoholism became more and more recurrent. When I was eight, my younger brother Fernando’s birth complicated things even further. As my step-dad slipped away, my mom continued working, and Fernando’s care was left to Jose and me. I cooked, Jose cleaned, I dressed Fernando, Jose put him to bed. We did what we had to do. As undocumented immigrants and with little to no family around us, we had to rely on each other. Fearing that any disclosure of our status would risk deportation, we kept to ourselves when dealing with any financial and medical issues. I avoided going on certain school trips, and at times I was discouraged to even meet new people. I felt isolated and at times disillusioned; my grades started to slip. Over time, however, I grew determined to improve the quality of life for my family and myself. Without a father figure to teach me the things a father could, I became my own teacher. I learned how to fix a bike, how to swim, and even how to talk to girls. I became resourceful, fixing shoes with strips of duct tape, and I even found a job to help pay bills. I became as independent as I could to lessen the time and money mom had to spend raising me. I also worked to apply myself constructively in other ways. I worked hard and took my grades from Bs and Cs to consecutive straight A’s. I shattered my school’s 1ooM breaststroke record, and learned how to play the clarinet, saxophone, and the oboe. Plus, I not only became the first student in my school to pass the AP Physics 1 exam, I’m currently pioneering my school’s first AP Physics 2 course ever. These changes inspired me to help others. I became president of the California Scholarship Federation, providing students with information to prepare them for college, while creating opportunities for my peers to play a bigger part in our community. I began tutoring kids, teens, and adults on a variety of subjects ranging from basic English to home improvement and even Calculus. As the captain of the water polo and swim team I’ve led practices crafted to individually push my comrades to their limits, and I’ve counseled friends through circumstances similar to mine. I’ve done tons, and I can finally say I’m proud of that.  But I’m excited to say that there’s so much I have yet to do. I haven’t danced the tango, solved a Rubix Cube, explored how perpetual motion might fuel space exploration, or seen the World Trade Center. And I have yet to see the person that Fernando will become.   I’ll do as much as I can from now on. Not because I have to. Because I choose to. 

There’s so much to love about this essay.

Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how the author wrote this essay so you can figure out how to write yours:

First, the author brainstormed the content of his essay using the Feelings and Needs Exercise. 

Did you spot the elements of that exercise? If not, here they are: 

Challenges: Domestic abuse, alcoholic step-dad, little brother Fernando’s birth, family’s undocumented status

Effects: Author and his brother shared the mental strain, father was arrested, funds were tight, mom worked two jobs, brothers took care of one another, they kept to themselves when dealing with financial and medical issues, avoided going on certain school trips, at times author was discouraged from meeting new people, grades started to slip

Feelings: Confused yet understanding, anxious, worried, relieved, alone, lost, vulnerable, lonely, disconnected, alone, heartbroken, ashamed, disillusioned

Needs: Order, autonomy, reassurance, growth, safety, understanding, empathy, hope, support, self-acceptance

What He Did About It: Took care of his youngest brother; became his own teacher; learned how to fix a bike, swim, socialize; found a job to help pay bills; improved his grades; broke a school swimming record; learned to play instruments; became the first student in his school to pass the AP Physics 1 exam; took a leadership role in clubs; and tutored and counseled friends and peers

What He Learned: He’s proud of what he’s done, but wants to do more: dance the tango, solve a Rubix Cube, explore perpetual motion, see the World Trade Center, see his little brother grow up … and do you notice the value here? Hunger . That was his number one value, by the way. And he ends by saying he’ll do these things not because he has to, but because he chooses to. This sounds like autonomy . Another one of his top values. 

That’s why I love beginning with this exercise. With just 15-20 minutes of focused work, you can map out your whole story.

Next, the author used Narrative Structure to give shape to his essay.

Did you spot the Narrative Structure elements? If not, here they are: 

Inciting Incident: While the author is brushing his teeth, his father is arrested for domestic abuse.

Status Quo: His father had hurt his mom physically and mentally, and the author and his brother had shared the mental strain. “It’s what had to be done,” he writes.

Raising the Stakes: The entire second and third paragraphs, which describe how living without a father meant money was tight. Things improved for a while after his mother remarried, but his stepdad’s chronic alcoholism (raise the stakes) plus a new little brother (raise the stakes again) made things even tougher. As if that weren’t enough, the author raises the stakes even further by revealing that his family was undocumented at the time. 

Moment of Truth: At his lowest point, he decides to do something about it. “I grew determined to improve the quality of life for my family and myself,” he writes, then goes on to tell us all the amazing things he taught himself, the skills he learned, and interests he pursued. It’s inspiring.

New Status Quo: Remember that the initial Status Quo was the author doing “what had to be done.” Not so, by the end of the essay. In the final lines, he writes, “I’ll do as much as I can from now on. Not because I have to. Because I choose to.”

And again, notice that those fit within the framework of: 

⅓: Challenges he faced and their impacts on him

⅓: What he did to work through them

⅓: What he learned through the process

Narrative essay structure FAQs

Q: Are there any situations where I may not want to write about my life struggles?

A: Yes. Sometimes it can be too difficult to discuss them. Or you may be actively dealing with a challenge. If this is the case, reach out to your counselor, a trusted mentor, or, if possible, a therapist. 

If money is an issue (i.e., you feel you can’t afford a therapist) and you don’t feel comfortable sharing your struggles with your counselor, ask them if they can refer you to a therapist or counselor who works on a sliding scale. Many mental health professionals work with clients at low rates or for free. 

You may also choose to write about the struggles you’ve faced without getting into all the details. Saying, for example, that you experienced verbal abuse from your father, for example, may be enough; you don’t necessarily need to share the specifics.

Q: Should I write about mental health challenges?

A: Mental health can be very difficult to write about for a few reasons: 

If a student is still very much struggling through the challenges they describe, the admission reader may wonder if the student is ready for college.

In some cases, the admission officer may feel that a student is ready for college, but their institution may not be adequately equipped to help them thrive (not all colleges have the same kinds of resources, unfortunately). 

Unfortunately, mental health challenges have become so common these days that many students write personal statements about them, and so it can be difficult to stand out. If you’re feeling compelled to write about a mental health challenge, consider brainstorming some uncommon connections .

Questions to ask yourself if you’re considering writing about mental health challenges: 

Do I have any other topics I could write on? Are there other interesting parts of myself I’d like to share that could reveal important skills, qualities, and values? Or must I write about this? (Beware the trap discussed earlier of feeling like you must write about a challenge to write a great personal statement—it’s not true! The authors of the “ My Laptop Stickers” essay the "Home” essay were students who faced challenges but chose not to write about them.)

Have I truly worked through this? Am I able to devote the middle third of my essay to actions I’ve taken to work through the challenge and the final third to what I’ve learned? (You may not know the answers to these questions until you’ve done some writing. Maybe run your challenge through the Feelings and Needs Exercise to see what surfaces. Even if this doesn’t end up being your personal statement topic, you might learn something important about yourself.)

If I were an admission officer reading this essay, would I feel like this student has their situation handled and they are truly ready for college? (If you’re unsure, it’s a great idea to have 2-3 folks read it who have a good understanding of what colleges are looking for.) 

Could the mental health challenge be a brief explanation in the Additional Info section? To see if this might work for you, see how briefly you can describe your mental health challenge using factual bullet points. Devote one bullet point to the challenge, another bullet point to what you’ve done about it, and a final bullet point describing briefly what you’ve learned.

Important: If you have a counselor, I strongly recommend consulting with them as you decide whether to discuss a mental health challenge in your personal statement. If your counselor is writing a letter on your behalf, some of the information you’d like to share may already be accounted for. Talk to them and find out.

Q: Are there any situations where I may not want to write about my career in my personal statement … even if I know what it is?

A: For sure. Say you’re interested in becoming a doctor, but you’re applying to a medical program with a supplemental prompt asking why you want to become a doctor. If you want to avoid repetition, you might not explicitly mention becoming a doctor at the end of your personal statement (you don’t have to discuss your career at all in a personal statement; many students are unsure.). Instead, you might describe how you’ve developed qualities that will equip you for a career as a doctor (e.g., creativity, for example, or the ability to lead a team). 

Narrative Structure step-by-step recap : 

Complete the brainstorming exercises, as these will help no matter which structure you choose. Take special care to complete the Feelings and Needs Exercise, as it will help you outline your essay. 

Create an outline using the Narrative Structure described above. 

Write a first draft.

Check out my blog for more Narrative Structure examples.