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Welcome to the College Admissions Essays college selection and
admission advice book review site brought to you in
association with Amazon.com. The following books have been selected based on
our personal judgments. We hope you will find
these useful.
You can click on the links below for book
reviews for:
As we state on our
plagiarism page, we
most strongly object to using others' essays. We also believe that examining
others' essays is usually counterproductive, particularly when no objective
critique is given to accompany the essay. There are many factors admissions
committees examine and the "successful" essay you read in a published
book may not work for you for any number of reasons. As a result, we recommend
books on admission essays that give advice on how to write essays and include no
more than a few sample application essays.
How to Write a Winning College
Application Essay (Revised 4th Edition)
Click here to buy this book from Amazon.com
We are particularly fond of this book because it
unequivocally states that writing winning essays is not easy. By the author's
estimates it should take at least 20 hours to write the essay. We applaud his
candor and we certainly advise you to beware of anyone selling a "quick
fix" solution for your essays. The book contains 26 different aspects of
the essay writing process which are explained in adequate detail. There are also
chapters that cover the SAT II writing test and scholarship essays.
On Writing the College Application
Essay
Click here to buy this book from Amazon.com
This is a relatively short 138 page book that is easily
read. It harps on two basic points: know your audience and present yourself as a
truly unique applicant. Adept humor is used to illustrate these two points. A
couple sample essays are also presented in this book. Perhaps most importantly,
the samples given illustrate first, second and final round drafts of the essays.
The Admissions Essay
Click here to buy this book from Amazon.com
Although two-thirds of this book is dedicated to sample
essays, the first third of the book contains very good advice for getting
organized. We also enjoyed the second chapter's comments about what the
admissions committees want. Warning: Not all of the sample essays contain
commentary.
50 Successful Harvard Application Essays : What Worked for
Them Can Help You Get into the College of Your Choice, 2nd Edition
Click here to buy this book from Amazon.com
We have included this book in our review because we
realize many of you are going to buy a book of successful application essays
regardless of what we say. With that disclaimer made, this is the best book from
this genre. Beware though that the book's author, the Harvard Crimson, is the
school newspaper as opposed to the admissions committee!
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