The college admission process has become more competitive than ever. Today, colleges place a great deal of emphasis on an individual’s ability to write. Therefore, almost all colleges require students to submit an application essay as part of the student’s college application. This program has been carefully designed to walk you through the college application process. The writing workshop will particularly focus on the college application essay.

The THR writing workshop will be broken down into two individual parts:

    Introduction to the College Application Essay

    The Writing Workshop

The Introduction to the College Application Essay will include video classroom instructions and written tutorial packets. In addition, each student athlete will also receive two individualized writing instructions taught by one of our Writing Workshop Instructors. These individualized writing instructions will be conducted via email and telephone. The first individualized writing instruction will focus on helping the student athlete to develop an introductory paragraph and outline the body of the essay. The second individualized writing instruction will be devoted to helping the student revise, edit, and polish the final essay.

    Wordiness and Repetition | In the college admissions essays, wordiness is by far the most common problem. In most cases, students could cut one-third of an essay, lose no meaningful content, and make the piece much more engaging and effective. Wordiness comes in many forms with many different names -- deadwood, repetition, redundancy, filler, fluff -- but whatever the type, those extraneous words have no place in a college admissions essay that can determine weather or not you make your college or university of choice.

    Vague and Imprecise Language | Watch out for vague and imprecise language in your college application essay. If you find that your essay is filled with words like 'stuff' and 'things' and 'aspects' and 'society,' you may also find that your application ends up in the rejection pile. Vague language can be removed easily by identifying what exactly you mean by 'things' or 'society.' Find the precise word. Are you really talking about all of society, or a much more specific group of people? When you mention 'things' or 'aspects,' be precise -- what exact things or aspects?

    Excessive Digression in your Essays | Digression isn't always wrong in a college admissions essay. Sometimes a colorful aside or anecdote can help engage the reader and enhance the reading experience.

    Clichés in a College Essay | A cliché is an over-used and tired phrase, and use of clichés makes prose unoriginal and uninspiring. With your essay you are trying to get the admissions officers excited about you and your essay topic, but there is nothing exciting about clichés. Instead, they diminish the essay's message and reveal the student's lack of creativity.

    Overuse of Flowery Language in Admissions Essays | When writing your admissions essay, be careful to avoid overusing flowery language. Too many adjectives and adverbs can ruin the reading experience. Strong verbs, not adjectives and adverbs, are what will make your admissions essay come to life. When an essay has two or three adjectives or adverbs in every sentence, the admissions folks will quickly feel like they are in the presence of an immature writer who is trying too hard to impress them.

    Weak Verbs in a College Admissions Essays | Think about what you are trying to accomplish with your college admissions essay: you want to grab your readers' attention and keep them engaged. Lots of adjectives and adverbs often make prose seem wordy, fluffy and over-written. Strong verbs animate prose. The most common verb in the English language is 'to be' (is, was, were, am, etc.). Without doubt you will use the verb 'to be' multiple times in your admissions essay. However, if the majority of your sentences rely on 'to be,' you're sapping your essay of energy.

    Too Much Passive Voice in College Application Essays | Passive voice is not a grammatical error, but overuse can lead to essays that are wordy, confusing and un-engaging. To identify passive voice, you need to map out a sentence and identify the subject, verb and object. A sentence is passive when the object takes the position of the subject. The result is a sentence in which the thing performing the action of the sentence is either missing or tacked onto the end of the sentence.

Here are a few simple examples:

    Passive: The window was left open. (we are left wondering who left the window open).

    Active: Joe left the window open. (now we know that Joe is the one performing the action).

    Passive: The ball was kicked into the goal by Wendy. (Wendy is the one doing the kicking, but she isn't in the subject position in the sentence)

    Active: Wendy kicked the ball into the goal. (note that the active form of the sentence is shorter and more engaging).

Expletive constructions involve a couple of the stylistic errors outlined in this article -- they are wordy and employ weak verbs. Many (but not all) sentences that begin with 'it is,' 'it was,' 'there is' or 'there are' have expletive constructions. In general, an expletive construction begins with the empty word 'there' or 'it' (sometimes called a filler subject). In an expletive construction, the word 'there' or 'it' is not functioning as a pronoun. That is, it has no antecedent. The word does not refer to anything, but is simply an empty word taking the place of the sentence's true subject. The empty subject is then followed by the uninspiring verb 'to be' (is, was, etc.).

The resulting sentence will be more wordy and less engaging than it would be if written with a meaningful subject and verb. Consider, for example, these sentences with expletive constructions:

    It was the final goal of the game that determined the state championship.
    There were two students at my summer camp who had severe psychological problems.
    It is Saturday when I get to spend time at the animal shelter.
 

All three sentences are unnecessarily wordy and flat. By removing the expletive constructions, the sentences become far more concise and engaging:

    The final goal of the game determined the state championship.
    Two students at my summer camp had severe psychological problems.
    On Saturday I get to spend time at the animal shelter.
 

Note: That not all uses of 'it is,' 'it was,' 'there is,' or 'there are' are expletive constructions. If the word 'it' or 'there' is a true pronoun with an antecedent, no expletive construction exists.

For example:

    I have always loved music. It is one of the most important parts of my life.  (In this case, the word 'it' in the second sentence refers to 'music.' No expletive construction exists.  Too Many Expletive Constructions.)