How to Write a College Essay in 15 Days
With summary and detailed plan
Haven’t started your college essay yet? Don’t panic. Although it’s not ideal, numerous students before you have written their college essays last minute and completed them. Even if you don’t have a lot of time to pour into edits and re-edits, you can still have a high-quality essay in the end. Continue to read this article to follow our 15 day essay writing plan.
In case you don’t have time, just read this summary
Summary
- Write an outline first: the outline should be made up of the details of the overall format and points you want to include in your essay.
- Set mini-deadlines: what needs to be done each day to finish the essay on time? Refer to our step-by-step guide above!
- Don’t get multiple feedback from numerous people — stick to a select few to receive feedback.
- Don’t change your topic multiple times: believe in yourself and commit to one topic after you’ve decided!
Step by Step Guide: 15 Days
This is a step-by-step guide to finishing an essay when you have 15 days left before the deadline. You can use this guide as mini-guidelines as well — the subtitles next to each day can be used as deadlines for yourself!
Day 1~3: Write 5 Possible Ideas
The first three days should be used to brainstorm ideas for the essay. Pick out keywords from the essay prompt and think of specific experiences in your life that can be related to the keyword. For example, if the prompt asks you to write about community engagement, think of all the experiences you’ve had volunteering or giving back to the communities you’re part of. Even the most trivial experiences can be excellent topics. Use our app, USSIST if you’re having trouble with this process! Use up to 3 days for brainstorming, and you should write down at least 5 possible ideas for the essay.
Day 4: Write an Outline
Day 4 is where you write the outline for the essay. Choose the idea that best conveys your values and who you are to admissions officers. If you’re having difficulties choosing topics, write outlines for both to see which is better. When writing the outline, remember what we said above in part 2 of this article. Jot down the details of the experience and what you learned from it. Afterward, structure the details into the workings of an essay — what details will go in the beginning, middle, and end?
Day 5~6: Write the First Draft of your Essay
Day 5 and 6 should be used to write the first draft of your essay. Don’t think about the word limit- refer to the outline while writing everything you think should be part of the essay.
Day 7: Cut Down
This is when you cut down on what you wrote. Are there details that don’t contribute to the overall theme of the essay? Any unnecessary adjectives and adverbs? Try to look for sentences that disrupt the flow of the essay, or ones that simply repeat what’s already been said. Use this day to trim the essay down to the word limit that’s been given to you.
Day 8: Ask for Feedback
Now is the time to ask for feedback! We recommend going to a teacher that knows you well and has experience with college admissions. Or, it can be a college student that’s been accepted to the college you’re applying to with this essay. Ask him or her politely if you can receive feedback! Remember, you’re under a time crunch, so don’t ask for feedback from as many people as possible and choose a select few.
Day 9: Edit the Essay
Compile the feedback that’s been given to you and look for a common theme. Is there a problem everyone’s noticing? That will be the biggest problem area of your essay, and the area you should focus most on when editing the essay. Afterward, look through the feedback again and edit it accordingly to what others have written.
Day 10: Take a Break
This might be the last thing you expected to hear from us! But taking a break is important to get a more objective look into your essay. You’ve worked on it non-stop for the last week, and this is often when it gets extremely difficult to find problems with the essay. So, take a break and don’t feel guilty about it. It’s all part of the writing process!
Day 11 ~12: Restructure the essay
You’ve taken a break, and now it’s time to come back to the essay with a fresher perspective. Read the essay again, and focus on restructuring. This means looking for points you made that don’t contribute to the overall message you’re trying to convey. It also means moving around sentences and paragraphs to improve the overall flow of the essay. Right now, it’s okay to make big changes that affect the overall structure!
Day 13: Edit, edit, edit
Spend your whole day with the essay and focus on editing. However, this is not when you make big changes. Focus on minor edits, and don’t be too harsh on yourself. You can record yourself reading the essay out loud and listen to it again. Are there sentences that don’t go well together? Or, are there better word choices for what you want to express?
Day 14: Proofread
This is when you proofread your essay to make sure it doesn’t contain any major spelling or grammatical errors. We recommend you use “Grammarly” (grammarly.com). You can also read your essay out loud, or print the essay to look for mistakes on paper.
Day 15: Last-minute edits
Read the essay one last time, and make some last-minute edits. Lastly, submit the essay on time!
We know this isn’t the end.
Let’s get started on other application tasks with a step-by-step mobile guide.
