Your college admissions essay is more than just a writing sample – it’s an opportunity to provide admissions officers with a glimpse into your personality, values, and inner life. While strong writing abilities are important, an engaging style and authentic tone are equally crucial to making your essay stand out. The best essays effortlessly balance creative expression and technical skill.
Here are some style and tone tips for your college admissions essay.
Strike a balance between casual and formal
Find the right stylistic middle ground – not too casual with slang nor too stuffy and formal. Your essay should have a smart, mature voice that still feels conversational and natural. Aim for a tone that is personal and honest while remaining polished.
| Too casual | Too formal | Alternative |
| “My summer road trip with the girls was straight fire.” | “One shall endeavor to undergird the forthcoming anecdotal narrative concerning my parental units’ dissolution of marital unity.” | “The summer after my parents divorced, a road trip with my closest friends provided much-needed laughter and healing.” |
| “That bio test kicked my butt, but I’mma ace the next one.” | “The comprehensive examination concerning the biological sciences did prove a substantial academic obstacle; however, one is circumspect that satisfactory preparation will engender an auspicious subsequent performance evaluation.” | “While the biology exam proved challenging, dedicated studying will ensure I’m better prepared for the next test.” |
Write with your authentic voice
Don’t try to completely reverse your communication style or mimic corpspeak. Let your unique voice and way of expressing yourself shine through in the writing. Prioritize using first-person singular pronouns like “I”, “me” and “my” to create an intimate, personal narrative tone.
Write within your vocabulary range, using advanced words you’re truly comfortable with. Overcompensating with flashy vocabulary can come across as disingenuous. Sprinkle in a few well-placed idioms and clichés if they fit your authentic voice.
Prioritize using the first-person singular
In a college admissions essay, you should narrate your story employing a first-person singular perspective using pronouns like “I,” “me,” and “my.” This creates an intimate, personalized tone that allows your unique voice and point of view to take center stage.
Avoid distancing the reader with overgeneralized third-person phrasing like “one thinks…” as it comes across as unnatural and impersonal. Limit use of the first-person plural “we” unless you are representing a specific group’s shared experiences, such as your family, community or friends. Carelessly using “we” to make blanket statements about beliefs can inadvertently project your individual perspective onto others.
While addressing the reader directly with second-person “you” should be used judiciously, it can be an effective technique when the narrative calls for momentarily inviting the reader into your anecdote or stream of consciousness. Just don’t overdo it by writing the entire essay in second-person – that can feel gimmicky.
Primarily framing your essay through first-person singular allows you to intimately connect with admissions officers and showcase your authentic individual identity. It personalizes your storytelling in a way that helps you truly stand out.
| Bad example | Good example |
| “One hopes to explore the intersections of sociology and gender studies at University X.” | “I’m driven to examine the intersections of sociology and gender studies, combining my two greatest academic passions.” |
| “The author believes an interdisciplinary approach will shed light on these complex issues.” | “Fusing multiple perspectives will illuminate the nuances of these issues in a way I find deeply compelling.” |
Write within your vocabulary range
While you want your essay to showcase strong language skills, don’t try to force an elevated vocabulary that doesn’t align with your authentic communication style. Using overly advanced words you aren’t truly comfortable with can come across like you’re putting on an act. Let your natural vernacular and typical word choice reflect who you really are.
| Too simplistic | Too complex | Alternative |
| “My bro Jake helps me with hard math. He’s real smart!” | “My perspicacious elder sibling provides auxiliary tutelage in the arithmetical disciplines.” | “My brother Jacob’s patient tutoring has substantially strengthened my math skills over the years.” |
| “Me and my buds had a fun hang sesh at Dani’s crib last weekend.” | “This previous Sabbath, a cohort of my closest compatriots convened for a leisurely sojourn at the domicile of Danielle.” | “My friends and I enjoyed a relaxing get-together at Danielle’s house last weekend.” |
Use clichés and idioms with discretion
Use clichés and idioms with discretion: A few well-chosen clichés and idiomatic expressions can actually make your writing sound more conversational and personal when used selectively. However, overusing these stock phrases can quickly make your essay feel unoriginal.
| Bad example | Good example |
| “Shooting for the stars while keeping my feet on the ground…” “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade..” | “I need to dream ambitiously but remain grounded in reality.” “Facing unexpected obstacles taught me optimism and resourcefulness.” |
| “It was a dream come true to join the math team.” “We were two peas in a pod.” | “Being accepted to the elite math club felt like the ultimate reward after years of hard work.” “Amanda and I just innately clicked from the day we met.” |
Maintain a fast pace
Maintain an engaging and lively narrative pace by writing concisely and favoring the active voice throughout your essay. Use precise, economical phrasing to propel the story forward without excessive details or wordiness. Only provide definitions or explanations if they are absolutely crucial for the reader’s understanding.
Write concisely
Keep your writing short and direct, using simple language. Only use more descriptive details if you’re purposefully trying to paint a vivid picture of a particular scene. Be intentional with each word since college essays have strict word limits. The goal is achieving a good balance by writing concisely overall, but allowing your sentences to be longer when you need to give more details.
| Bad example | Good example |
| “My mother is someone who I have always been extremely close with ever since I was a very small child, and it is due to her encouragement and support that I developed my deep-seated love of academics and my consequential desire to continue pursuing higher education.” | “My mother’s steadfast encouragement fostered my early love of learning, catalyzing my passion for academic excellence and ambition for higher education.” |
| “His actions that day, when he made the ultimate sacrifice for his fellow soldiers by putting himself in mortal danger to save their lives, were truly the embodiment of bravery and heroism.” | “His courageous act of risking his own life to rescue his fellow soldiers that day epitomized true heroism.” |
Don’t provide definitions just to sound smart
It’s okay to explain terms or ideas that the reader may not be familiar with. Providing a definition can help make sure they understand what you’re talking about. However, you shouldn’t try to sound smarter by defining a bunch of words unnecessarily. Throwing in too many definitions that aren’t really needed comes across as trying too hard to impress. The admissions officers want to see your true voice, not a thesaurus performance. Only define things if it’s genuinely helpful for clarifying a concept .
| Bad example | Good example |
| “My inchoate apprehensions concerning the cataclysmic transition proving too labyrinthine were assuaged upon matriculation.” “Quotidian tribulations oft beset me during this penultimate annum.” | “Initially intimidated by the adjustment to college life, those fears quickly dissipated after my first few weeks on campus.” “This final year of high school brought its share of everyday struggles.” |
| “When failing to achieve fruition, I am apt to experience psychological dismay and deplored self-admonition.” | “Setbacks understandably sting and force some self-critique, but I’ve learned to rebound with resilience.” |
Prioritize the active voice to maintain a lively tone
When writing your essay, try to mostly use an active voice instead of a passive voice. The active voice is more direct and moves things along at a brisker pace. It prevents your writing from feeling dull or sluggish. The passive voice can be useful if you don’t know or don’t want to state who performed an action.
| Bad example | Good example |
| “My transformation into an avid community gardener was facilitated by involvement with the local nonprofit Urban Plantarians.” “The ecological sustainability fellowship was attended by myself for two consecutive summer seasons.” | “My involvement with the Urban Planarians non profit inspired me to become an avid community gardener.” “For two consecutive summers, I participated in the ecological sustainability fellowship.” |
| “Lifelong memories were created during that annual family road trip across the American Southwest.” | “That annual family road trip across the American Southwest created lifelong memories.” |
Use a paraphrasing tool for better style and tone
AI-powered paraphrasing tools like Quillbot can help refine and polish your essay’s tone and narrative flow. These tools allow you to input drafts or passages of your writing. The AI will then suggest alternative ways to rephrase, reword or restructure the content to improve elements like:
- Sentence structure and syntax
- Word choice and vocabulary variation
- Transitions and narrative pacing
- Concision and eliminating redundancy
- Active vs passive voice usage
By experimenting with the paraphrasing suggestions, you can edit your essay to achieve smoother flow between ideas, and a more consistently engaging tone from start to finish.
Bend language rules for stylistic reasons
Most of the time, you should follow proper grammar and writing rules. However, it can be okay to purposefully break some of the rules once in a while if it helps your writing sound more unique and stylistic. Bending the rules in small ways can make your voice stand out from others. But you have to be careful not to break too many rules, or else your meaning may get confusing for the reader. If your stylistic choices make your writing unclear or look like mistakes, it’s better to follow the normal rules instead.
Sentence fragments
Sometimes using incomplete sentence fragments can be effective. Fragments can make your writing feel faster-paced, more immediate, and emotional. However, you shouldn’t overuse them. Too many fragment sentences one after another can make your essay feel choppy, confusing, and distracting for the reader. Use fragments only occasionally when you specifically want to convey a particular emotion, thought, or quicker moment. But most of the time, stick to complete sentences to ensure your writing flows smoothly and is easy to follow.
| Bad example | Good example |
| “And so I learned a very important lesson that day. That I should never give up no matter how difficult things became.” | “And so I learned a profound lesson that autumn day about resilience in the face of adversity. Never give up.” |
| “We arrived at the trailhead. The early morning mist hung low in the forest.” | “We arrived at the trailhead, our boots crunching on the gravel path. The early morning mist hung low in the forest, dressing the trees in delicate veils.” |
Non-standard capitalization
Normally, you shouldn’t capitalize regular common nouns in your writing. Only proper nouns like people’s names or place names should be capitalized, following standard writing rules.
However, occasionally capitalizing a common noun in an unexpected way can serve a purpose. It can add humor, emphasis, or show that a particular thing is important or unique in that sentence.
But you shouldn’t overuse this technique. Capitalizing too many common words unnecessarily will just look sloppy and make your writing harder to read naturally.
| Bad example | Good example |
| “I hurried down the path, leaves CRUNCHING beneath my feet.” | “I hurried down the path, leaves crunching beneath my feet.” |
| “She was a True friend indeed.” | “She was a true Friend indeed, a pillar during my darkest days.” |
| “I had HIGH hopes for the celebration, but it was sadly a dud.” | “My love of science was born Under the crucible of that old microscope.” |
Use American English
If you are an international student applying to colleges and universities in the United States, make sure to write your application essays following the conventions of American English rather than British English.
Pay close attention to details like using double quotation marks (“”) to enclose quotes instead of single quotation marks (”), and placing periods and commas inside the closing quotation marks.
Additionally, be mindful that some common words have different spellings between American and British English. Words like “color” (American) versus “colour” (British), or “fiber” versus “fibre” contain slight variances in vowels or consonants that you’ll want to use the American style for.