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How to Start a College Essay – 12 Techniques and Tips

August 1, 2023

Your college tours are scheduled, you’re knee-deep in SAT/ACT prep , application deadlines are quickly approaching, and then it happens: writer’s block hits you hard. You’re stumped, wondering how to start a college essay. It’s all too easy to overthink it when acceptances are on the line. But don’t fret! We’ve got you covered with 12 tips and techniques, plus answers to common questions like: Can I start my essay with a quote? Should I try to sound as smart as possible? Is it okay to use humor?

Keep reading for all you need to know about how to start a college essay:

  • Common Mistakes to Avoid

How to Start a College Essay: The Content

How to start a college essay: the style.

  • More Resources

How to Start a College Essay: Common Mistakes to Avoid

Since admissions readers are looking to be surprised and engaged right away, it’s safest to avoid these overused techniques.

1) Pulling out the dictionary

Chances are, your reader already knows the definition of the word you’re tempted to copy and paste from Merriam-Webster . Unless you’re starting with a word in a non-English language or a word that 98% of the population truly does not know, there’s no need to turn to the dictionary. Assume your reader is a smart person who is already in the know.

2) Choosing clichés

Clichés are boring in writing because they’re, well…cliché. Before you tell an admissions reader that all that glitters isn’t gold or there’s a silver lining to every cloud, remember that their job involves reading hundreds if not thousands of college essays. The way to impress them is to stand out as someone with unique insights, opinions, or creativity. Not sure if the phrase you’re using is trite or overused? Look it up online and see if there is an overabundance of results.

How to Start a College Essay (Continued) 

3) beginning broadly.

Since the dawn of time, students have been starting essays too broadly. Your college admissions essays are about you, your experiences, your values, and your goals. So, starting with general statements like “Different cultures have different traditions and values” or “We have to be the change we want to see in the world” don’t center you as the topic of your essay. If you’re writing your essay about, say, your Polynesian identity and your love of Hula dance or the summer you spent making vats of soup for a food kitchen, jump right into sharing a vivid memory from those experiences instead.

4) Leading with a quote

“Can I start my college essay with a quote?” is one of the most common questions we get. The problem with starting with a quote is the same as starting too broadly: you don’t center yourself as the topic of your essay. Since college essays are short, the quote itself and the many sentences it will take to transition to the rest of your content will eat up precious word count. Unless it’s a deep-cut quote that’s highly particular to you and your niche interests, quotes anywhere in your essay can come across as cliché.

A stand-out college admissions essay will grab your reader’s attention and immediately give them a sense of who you are, what you value, and what’s unique about you. Trying to decide how to start a college essay? First, take a look at our guide to the Common App Prompts . Then, use one of these five techniques to brainstorm content:

1) Share a challenge you’ve overcome

Since college is all about growth and learning, one tried and true strategy is describing a challenge you’ve overcome that you’ve learned a lot from. Example:

For my first three months of middle school choir, I was nothing more than a ventriloquist’s dummy, mouthing words with no sound coming out. I was terrified to use my voice. Then, one fateful morning, Mrs. Garcia asked me to solo in front of the whole class.

A strong essay about a challenge you’ve overcome will explain who you were before, how you overcame the challenge, and who you are now. Taking this approach allows you to demonstrate that you’re able to rise to meet challenges, learn through difficulty, and apply yourself even when you’re uncomfortable. A word of warning though: avoid writing about very common challenges like pushing yourself to beat your cross-country time, studying for the SAT/ACT or other big tests, or transitioning from middle to high school. Since so many students share these experiences as common ground, these topics will make it hard to stand out from the crowd.

Want even more tips on writing about a challenge you’ve overcome? Check out our full guide to the Overcoming Challenges prompt.

2) Show your funny side

Yes, humor works well in college essays! Poking fun at one of your quirks or (inconsequential) shortcomings can be a great way to reveal your personality. Example:

Every day, I begged. At bedtime, at breakfast, for my birthday, for Christmas—I begged for a skateboard. Mom said it was too dangerous, Dad thought they were too noisy, but still I dreamed of cruising the neighborhood and learning to ollie in our driveway. My 14th birthday was the day my begging finally ended. It was also the day I learned I have absolutely no sense of balance.

Opening with a humorous story paints a vivid picture of you right away, but where you take it from there matters. You probably wouldn’t want to write a whole essay about breaking your tailbone and this isn’t the right forum for a stand-up routine. But you could take an opening like this in a variety of directions that reveal more meaningful truths about you. For example, after this opener, this writer could go on to:

  • Talk about other new skills they tried that they were able to land better than an ollie.
  • Describe how they learned about balance in other avenues of their life.

3) Clear up a misconception about you

Although college essays are brief, you’ll want to squeeze in as much depth and breadth as you can. Starting by addressing an assumption or stereotype you’ve faced can be an efficient and engaging way to move past the superficial. Example:

Blonde. Four foot eight. Size five feet. Strangers and well-meaning friends sometimes offer me a booster seat or ask if I need help carrying heavy things. Little do they know I can deadlift 135 pounds. My first teen powerlifting competition is coming up this spring.

Clearing up a misconception allows you to surprise your admissions reader and share something meaningful about yourself in one stroke. When using this strategy, think about all the different layers of your identity. What assumptions do others make of you and what might casual acquaintances or strangers be surprised to learn? A word of warning: steer clear of being too critical of others. Although stereotypes and assumptions are difficult to bear, for this essay, you’ll want to focus on you —your accomplishments, skills, and passions—instead of others.

4) Invite us in

Are Shabbat dinners with your whole extended family the highlight of your week? Do you feel most alive when you’re at your keyboard composing a new song or when you’re at a Robotics Club meeting, throwing out wild design ideas with your team? When you invite us in, you’re letting your reader in on the places you’re most at home, most excited, or most yourself. Example:

When I was seven years old, my grandma sat me down at her sewing table and taught me how to sew back on the button that had popped off my sweater. I can still feel her hands on mine, showing me where to place the needle. It was the first of what became weekly lessons on backstitching, basting, hemming pants, and embroidery. I didn’t know it then, but it was the first day of my journey into fashion design.

To brainstorm for this technique, list experiences that have helped shape your values, goals, and interests. Think of things you do every week but also once-in-a-lifetime events. You’ll want to begin this essay by choosing one meaningful experience to share in the beginning of your essay. Use vivid details that help a reader imagine the experience for themselves and then explain why this experience matters to you.

5) Nerd out about a problem you’ve solved

If you’ve hit the library stacks to find the answer to a burning question, stayed after class to ask your teacher for more homework, worked with a student club to improve a campus issue, or concocted your own science experiment, this might be the essay tactic for you. Example:

As a volunteer at my local pet rescue, I surprised myself by becoming a crusader for birds. Dogs and cats were adopted all the time, but the parrots, cockatiels, and parakeets sat in their cages for ages, chattering away and waiting for their forever homes. I realized it was an issue of awareness: no one knew our shelter rescued birds. Thirty YouTube tutorials and one online digital marketing class later, I had developed a ten-step social media strategy.

A great way to share your unique interests, this technique lets you showcase the curiosity and eagerness to learn you’ll be bringing with you to college. To brainstorm for this essay, think of times when you’ve worked solo or with a team to discover something new or solve a tricky problem. As you write about this experience, describe the initial problem, any difficulties you encountered, and the strategies you used to find a solution.

We’ve covered essay content, but you may still be wondering how to start a college essay that grabs your reader’s attention. Here are three key style tips that will help breathe life into your writing:

1) Share a story

As you can probably tell from the examples above, we recommend starting your essay off with an engaging story. Before you tell a reader that you’re an introvert who also loves performing in musical theater, you’ll want to tell the tale of the first time you braved the spotlight. Before you explain that you plan to major in political science, describe the town hall meeting you attended in the 7 th grade that started it all.

2) Use vivid descriptions

When we read, we’re most engaged when we feel like we can clearly imagine the scene. To draw a reader in, use the same storytelling strategies that fiction writers use: sensory descriptions, concrete details, and passing time.

  • Sensory descriptions: Describe the smell of your mother’s biryani cooking on the stove, the temperature of the air at the start of your first half marathon. Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste. Engage as many of the five senses as you can.
  • Concrete details: Concrete details are particular descriptions of places, people, and objects. If you’re describing a service trip to Honduras, describe the buildings, streets, and food you ate so your reader can imagine it.
  • Passing time: Making time pass means ensuring you have a clear sense of the beginning, middle, and end of your story. To keep things clear, put your details in linear order and make sure to include temporal transitional phrases like “When I was six years old,” “Later, in high school,” and “Now, as I reflect back.”

3) Use your own voice

When you’re wondering how to start your college essay, it can be tempting to write in the same style you use for academic essays. But the college essay is a personal essay, not an essay for school. For this style of writing, you’ll want to be clear, thoughtful, and grammatically correct, but you’ll also want to be personable, engaging, and, most importantly, yourself. With that in mind, skip the SAT vocabulary words and opt for a more conversational tone instead.

How to Start a College Essay: More Resources

Looking to learn even more about how to start a college essay? If you’re ready to get started on your supplemental essays, check out our walk-through of the Why This College essay and explore our blog posts discussing the supplemental essay prompts for 50+ schools . You may also wish to read our piece on How to End a College Essay .

  • College Essay

Christina Wood

Christina Wood holds a BA in Literature & Writing from UC San Diego, an MFA in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis, and is currently a Doctoral Candidate in English at the University of Georgia, where she teaches creative writing and first-year composition courses. Christina has published fiction and nonfiction in numerous publications, including The Paris Review , McSweeney’s , Granta , Virginia Quarterly Review , The Sewanee Review , Mississippi Review , and Puerto del Sol , among others. Her story “The Astronaut” won the 2018 Shirley Jackson Award for short fiction and received a “Distinguished Stories” mention in the 2019 Best American Short Stories anthology.

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Last updated August 1, 2024

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Blog > Common App , Essay Advice > 9 Biggest College Essay Mistakes

9 Biggest College Essay Mistakes

Admissions officer reviewed by Ben Bousquet, M.Ed Former Vanderbilt University

Written by Alex McNeil, MA Admissions Consultant

Key Takeaway

Sometimes the best way to learn how to do something is to learn how not to do something.

Learning from the mistakes of others can be one of the most effective ways to improve because you can skip the trouble of making the mistakes yourself.

Some mistakes have minor consequences, but college essay mistakes can seriously hurt your chances of admission. You want to avoid them at all costs.

In this post, I break down nine of the biggest mistakes I see students making when writing their college essays.

These mistakes range the gamut, from college essay themes to tone. By the end of the post, you’ll know exactly what not to do.

Let’s dive in.

Mistake #1: Staying shallow.

College essays aren’t a time to mess around. As I’ve described at length in the college essay writing guide , they are a time to be deeply personal, even vulnerable.

Shallow personal statements tell an admissions officer nothing about who you are as a person or student. They ooze boredom, and an admissions officer is likely to simply skim your essay. A shallow essay is one you can get the gist of pretty quickly because you’ve already read hundreds of essays just like it. It has few to no unique identifiers and makes generic statements about life.

So what does it mean to write vulnerably instead? It means taking your essay beyond a surface-level look at who you are. I recommend doing this by honing in on one or two of your core strengths.

By writing about a strength, you immediately get at one of the central characteristics that makes up who you are. You show an admissions officer something personal about yourself, and you clearly demonstrate how your strength influences the way you interact with the world around you.

College essay writing requires courage to be so personal with readers you’ve never met. But pushing yourself to write meaningfully instead of superficially will have a big payoff.

Mistake #2: Trying to game the system

I said you need to focus on your strengths. But the strengths you choose to highlight in your college essay matter. There are good strengths to highlight and, well, less-good ones.

The main type of "bad strength" I see students regularly talk about (like, in half of the essays I read, especially the ones that come from places like Reddit) are those that focus on achievements or skills. When students write about strengths that are actually covert ways to try to game the system, admissions officers can see right through it.

Often these essays will start out with a false problem: “Oh god, I can't seem to perfectly master my argument for the debate championship!”

Then, they'll proceed to a "revelation" that feels a bit... fake? "Then it hit me: I just needed to allow my creative spirit to work alongside my analytical one!"

Finally, they finish stronger than before: "Now, as a debater who unifies my left and right brains, I am truly capable of anything at the podium."

There are a couple reasons why this doesn't work. First, this kind of essay progression violates the basic rules I laid out in the college essay writing guide about choosing a truly meaningful topic. While debate may be very meaningful to you, the story feels like a convenient way to write about an accomplishment rather than a deep, organic transformation in the way you see or operate in the world. It reads like a vessel to highlight your capacity for self-improvement.

When students write these essays, they’re unwilling to be real about the struggles or meaningful periods in their life. They think schools want to hear neat stories about "overcoming obstacles" or "undergoing self-improvement."

They may seem safe, but they're actually the most damaging essays you can write because they feel ingenuine and fail the main goal of the personal statement: to make you stand out as an individual human being with real experiences to write about.

Don't be this person. Don't try to mind game admissions offices and write an "impressive" essay. Focus on the real but dark stuff, or talk with unbridled enthusiasm about something you love. Always go for real emotions and complexity over a simple, linear narrative that handily resolves itself by the final paragraph.

Mistake #3: Not focusing on yourself

Lots of writers have a tendency when writing about someone (or something) who has played a big role in their life to allow that thing to become the subject of the essay.

I think a grammar lesson here can be helpful. Remember the difference between the subject and the object of a sentence?

Alex used the broom. "Alex" is the subject of the sentence, and "broom" is the object. In this sentence, which is about an action I took, the focus is on me.

Here's a different sentence: "The broom was a perfect instrument for Alex to clean the house." While I'm still the one performing the action here, cleaning the house, the new sentence construction has placed the broom front and center. The sentence is about how good the broom is as a tool. It's no longer about my action.

Analogously, many students will write an essay about a family member, a loved one, or something in their life, which ends up taking the subject position rather than the object position.

A subject-position essay says too much about the person/thing in question, foregrounding them in the essay. An object-position essay, by contrast, foregrounds YOU as the subject and talks about your development using them to illustrate your growth. But you remain at the "beginning of the sentence."

That may be a bit abstract. Ask yourself this question to evaluate whether you need to go back to the drawing board:

If someone I've never met were to read my essay, would they come away with more information about me or about ______?" (With _______ meaning the person or thing that shares the spotlight.)

If the answer is even a close tossup, that's a sign you might need to rethink your approach.

Mistake #4: Getting lost in the sauce

Lots of essays get lost in the sauce. They start off well, maybe giving a long exposé about a topic that connects to the writer's life and development. But then they never bring it home to focus on themselves. They spend half the essay on an extended metaphor about how split pea soup is a major metaphor for personal growth or for the greatest lessons one can learn in life. They revel in the creative writing process but don’t sufficiently personalize their essay.

At the end of the day they may be left with a solid essay with personal elements, but a pretty lousy personal reflection.

You can avoid getting lost in the sauce by forming a plan upfront for your essay and sticking with it.

Try to identify the core strengths and themes that you'll anchor your essay around. Usually, you can do this as soon as you know what story you're going to be telling. Or sometimes, you can even identify the values you want to hit first and then find a meaningful story that fits.

But after you have this basic combination—an idea about your values and a story to encase them in—you can identify the basic "shape" of your story.

A story shape is like an outline, but even less granular. You can think about it as a set of instructions that you'll rely on to make sure your personal essay gets from point A to point B. A basic idea of the direction your essay needs to take will help you avoid situations where you veer hopelessly off course and fail to make a coherent point or narrative.

Don't get lost in the sauce. Don't just start writing stuff. Have a basic plan in place before you start writing and stick to it as faithfully as you can. (Need help formulating your plan? Read the college essay writing guide.)

Mistake #5: Feeling obligated to write about a specific topic

We’ve all heard the conflicting advice. You should write your college essay about your greatest trauma. No, you should write about an academic interest. Wait—no, you should write about an achievement. Maybe the perfect topic is actually a combination: an academic interest that showcases an achievement but actually traumatized you…? Of course not. That’s how ridiculous that advice is.

Forget all of it.

You’re not obligated to write about any specific topic. When an admissions officer opens up your essay, they aren’t sitting on the edge of their office chair saying, “Wow, I hope this one’s about something sad.” or “This person better tell me about their robotics final.” Admissions officers are way too busy for that.

What they are saying is, “I can’t wait to get to know this student.”

The best college essay topic is the one that’s right for you. There’s no shortcut, no hack. What is perfect for you might be the worst choice for someone else. Choosing the right topic is a simple matter of thoughtful reflection on your strengths and experiences.

Mistake #6: Writing something other than a personal statement

A personal statement isn’t an academic essay. It’s not a diary entry or a school newspaper article. It’s probably unlike anything you’ve written before.

Because a personal statement is its own kind of writing, there are specific conventions for you to follow.

In short, your personal statement should…

  • be strengths-based and communicate something positive about yourself.
  • have a clear theme or central message.
  • be written in your authentic voice.
  • show some level of creative writing and personal reflection.

If your college essay isn’t doing any of these things, then you might consider some revisions. Your personal statement is the centerpiece of your cohesive application narrative , so it's important that it's doing its job.

Mistake #7: Being too negative

One of the biggest issues students have when trying to write about a serious topic is being too negative. This issue is often perpetuated by the idea that your college essay should be about something sad to increase your chances of admission. But this isn’t a good approach.

Don’t get me wrong. Your college essay can definitely be sad, somber, poignant, or difficult. If that’s the story you want and need to tell, then by all means go for it.

But there are many ways to approach essays about hard topics, and some are better than others.

One of the worst ways is to revel in the negative emotions. Whether that means harping on someone you don’t like or hounding your reader with unnecessary sad details, being too negative doesn’t do you any good. You might need to write out all those negative emotions, but they probably shouldn’t make it to your final draft.

Why shouldn’t your essay be too negative? Because it goes against the underlying purpose of a personal statement. Remember that, at the end of the day, your personal statement is intended to get you into college. Lingering on negative emotions also leaves your readers—the admissions officers who decide whether or not to admit you—with negative emotions. They want to see your strength and resilience, so it’s important to end whatever you write on at least a small note of hope. If you don’t feel that you’re ready to do that, then you might explore different topic options.

I’ve written before about u/AdmissionsMom’s concept of “more phoenix, fewer ashes.” The idea is from the mythology of the phoenix, which comes to life from the ashes of the phoenix before it. It essentially means that your essay should focus less on the rough stuff—the ashes—and more on the positive stuff—the new life. This approach is a perfect way to imagine a college essay about a negative topic because it helps you keep the course and write an essay that is ultimately hopeful in its message.

Mistake #8: Bragging too much

On the flip side of being too negative is being too braggadocious. While your college essay should convey a core strength, leaning too far into positive emotions can lead to an essay that sounds inauthentic and braggy.

One of the worst ways you can use your college essay is to restate your resume. Remember that admissions officers can already see your activities section; you don’t need to write an essay that lists all of your accomplishments again. Doing so might even make your accomplishments less impressive because it’ll look like your accomplishments are the only noteworthy thing about you. Similarly, going on and on about why you’re so amazing paints you as a one-dimensional person.

Answering a question about what diversity you bring to a community, for example, by saying something like “I care more than the average person” is akin to answering an interview question about your greatest weakness with something like “I work too hard.”

This approach doesn't work. These essays fall flat because they are boring, inauthentic, and reductive. It goes back to mistake #2. Admissions officers will see right through the brags to the lack of substance underneath.

Instead of writing an essay that brags, write one that is vulnerable and shows the good, bad, and real parts of you and your life. That doesn’t mean that your essay necessarily has to have a negative component, but it’s important to be realistic in how you portray yourself.

If you want to write your personal statement about winning a big essay competition, you wouldn’t say, “I won the competition because I was the best writer in my district. I was born naturally gifted with words, and I know how to write beautifully about anything.” No. You’d write about the effort it took to get there, the emotional work you went through, the care you spent revising and revising again, or the fact that this was the fifth time you’d submitted a piece. While the former is boring (and, frankly, annoying), the latter shows that you’re a whole human being, an interesting person an admissions officer would love to meet.

Mistake #9: Overthinking

It may seem like BS advice to tell you "don't overthink" in a college essay. But I'm gonna say it anyway.

Don't overthink.

If you try to play mind games with admissions officers, anticipating the formula for the perfect college essay, you'll lose. Not because they're smarter than you or better at mind games. There just is no formula for a perfect essay. Go out and read 100 example essays. You'll find merit in each one, and you'll probably notice that each one has an entirely different structure, tone, and emotional arc. Some will be funny, others poignant, some inspirational and others will seem like an indulgent reflection about some niche intellectual topic.

There is no perfect formula for an essay. Heraclitus pointed to the river and said that the only constant was change itself. With college essays, the only constant indicator of quality is your ability to fashion a meaningful story out of your own voice and genuine expression. That's really, really hard to do. But successful essays come from that place—from careful, genuine writing—not from any formula that derives the perfect essay.

When we're working with students, a lot of our time is spent reading between the lines of a resume, listening for moments when students lose themselves in a story. Often, their whole demeanor will change, even though they may not realize it. That's where the pay-dirt lies: in a meaningful story that may or may not have anything to do with your formal accomplishments.

Now you know exactly what not to do in your college essays. Instead of writing surface-level pleasantries that don’t do much for you (and can actually make things worse for you), write authentically about your strengths.

With these mistakes in mind, go forth and write your essays. If you want more information about the right way to approach your college essays, you can find a step-by-step walkthrough in our ultimate guide to college essays . 

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Hookers vs. Chasers: How Not to Begin an Essay

Student Essays We Never Finished Reading

  • Writing Essays
  • Writing Research Papers
  • English Grammar
  • Ph.D., Rhetoric and English, University of Georgia
  • M.A., Modern English and American Literature, University of Leicester
  • B.A., English, State University of New York

When was the last time you ran across a really good hooker ?

That's Stephen King' s term for a particularly enticing opening sentence in a story or essay —a "knock-you-dead first line" that compels you to keep reading. In "Great Hookers I Have Known," King says that an effective hooker-sentence offers readers "the pleasure of instant gratification" ( Secret Windows , 2000).

The opposite of a hooker might be called a chaser —a bore-you-to-tears introduction that drives readers away. At best, a chaser may hint at delayed gratification. More often it provides little more than an excuse to stop reading.

Examples of the Worst Kinds of Essay Opening Lines

Here are 10 examples of such boring or baffling opening lines—chasers that you'll want to avoid when composing your own essays . The examples are in italics , and the explanations are in bold .

  • According to my dictionary . . . Avoid leads [or ledes] that quote Webster's—"the Jim Belushi of openings," according to Annie Edison in Community . "It accomplishes nothing, but everyone keeps on using it."
  • When you gave us this assignment to "describe in detail a place you know well," my first thought was to write about my bedroom closet. . . . As a general rule, avoid openings that comment on the writing assignment itself.
  • One dark and stormy night, the ghost of General Oglethorpe grabbed me by the goolies and hurled me down the castle stairs. . . . Don't strain too hard to shock or amaze, especially if you can't maintain that level of excitement.
  • Sometimes you've got to stick your neck out on a limb and keep your nose to the grindstone. . . . Avoid clichés and mixed metaphors .
  • In this essay, after giving the subject a lot of thought, I am going to write about . . .. Skip the announcements.
  • "Life is like a box of chocolates," my Mama used to say, quoting Forrest Gump. . . . Don't get too cute.
  • Your mama has terrible opinions on essay writing . . . Don't get belligerent.
  • Framed fantastically against the expansive cerulean sky was a soaring wedge of gossiping, gabbling geese, a shimmering cocaine-colored V haloed in sunlight and dusted with the durable dreams of earthbound warriors . . .. Avoid excessive alliteration , needless modifiers , and Roget's Thesaurus .
  • Wikipedia says . . . Challenge questionable facts and steer clear of dubious sources.
  • It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms.* . . . No matter what else you do, never plagiarize .

* This is the opening sentence of Jonathan Swift's satirical essay "A Modest Proposal." Now it's time to take a more positive approach. For examples of fresh and compelling opening lines—that is, some truly good hookers—see these two articles:

  • How to Begin an Essay: 13 Engaging Strategies With Examples
  • "Whack at Your Reader at Once": Eight Great Opening Lines
  • 'Whack at Your Reader at Once': Eight Great Opening Lines
  • How to Write a Persuasive Essay
  • Structure of a Descriptive Essay
  • How to Write a Good Thesis Statement
  • What Is Expository Writing?
  • How to Use Anecdotes to Nail Your Next Speech
  • Tips on How to Write an Argumentative Essay
  • How to Break in a New Baseball Glove
  • Examples of Great Introductory Paragraphs
  • 67 Causal Essay Topics to Consider
  • Study for an Essay Test
  • How to Structure an Essay
  • Write a Compare and Contrast Essay
  • Complete List of Transition Words
  • 50 Great Topics for a Process Analysis Essay
  • How to Start an Essay: 13 Engaging Strategies

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  1. Worst College Essay Ever: Causes and Tips how to Avoid Fail

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  2. The 5 Worst Academic Essay Writing Mistakes to Avoid

    worst ways to start a college essay

  3. 9 College Essay Mistakes (And How to Avoid Them!)

    worst ways to start a college essay

  4. Top 10 College Essay Mistakes to Avoid

    worst ways to start a college essay

  5. The 5 Worst Academic Essay Writing Mistakes to Avoid

    worst ways to start a college essay

  6. Bad college essay breakdown

    worst ways to start a college essay

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  2. Ranking the Most Common College Application Essay Topics

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  6. worst college essay topics #collegeadmissions #highschool #harvard #studytips #advice