Motivational essays: Jivka’s experience

Jivka has taken time to read the Fiske Guide and write down everything she liked about the colleges of her choice + some doubts she had about them. That’s really cool! ( I would also read the websites and copy/paste).

You can’t remember everything you liked about every college you liked, but you’ll need it when you’re trying to write good motivational essays. You also need to consult me about your doubts. Creating files for all colleges is a good idea. You might use them when preparing for college interviews as well. In case you’re not accepted and wish to try again next year, you’ll have a lot of work already done.

When you start working on your motivational essays, you have to bear in mind that you cannot just present colleges with lists of your likes about them. You should assign your notes to a number of categories and refrain from using every detail in your essays. You should work on a bit more abstract plane.

As people cannot remember more than a couple of items in a row (advertising gurus say no more than 7, but I feel it’s too many for overworked admissions officers), make sure you don’t come up with too many paragraphs, and don’t forget the golden rule: 1 issue per paragraph.

What could these items be? If I were a college applicant, I would probably focus on people (they might be divided into students and faculty), the educational philosophy. Some people might focus on some physical facilities as well – labs, theatres, sports fields, etc. Other people might focus on extracurriculars – clubs, projects, etc. Still others – on the class format or the student-faculty ratio, etc., etc., etc.

You don’t need to write about all the nice things offered by a college. You should focus only on the ones that matter to you.