Last Minute College Essay Writing

Don’t write your college essays at the last minute. It’s never a good idea and we have reasons why (photo credit: Runneryoshi105).

Don’t wait until the last minute to write your college essays! It’s a really bad idea. Maybe you pulled it off when you wrote your A.P. U.S. History paper on the Cold War the night before. Maybe you pulled off studying for an A.P. Calculus exam with only a few hours to spare. But for college essays, this is a really, really bad idea. Good writing doesn’t happen overnight. Good writing is rewriting. Even for the pros! There are professional writers in Hollywood who are paid to rewrite the scripts of other writers. There are executives who are paid to give feedback on scripts. Good writing doesn’t come out of a vacuum. Good writing is, quite often, a collaborative process.

If you wait until the last minute to write your college essays, the process invariably is less collaborative because you won’t have the time and opportunity to share your writing with others. Even if you don’t have a private college counselor helping you, how can your guidance counselor review your essays if you write them the night before they’re due? How can your English teacher look them over for content, spelling, and grammar? What if you write something that you really shouldn’t say in a college essay? The vast majority of college applicants indeed do this!

Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you shouldn’t have help with your college essays. The writing process in Hollywood with screenplays and TV scripts is collaborative for a reason. So is the book business. There are editors, publishers, etc. Don’t submit your college essays in a vacuum. It’s a major mistake that you can easily avoid by starting your college essays well in advance of the deadlines! It’s that easy!

Check out this post on College Essay Mistakes!