Application Essays

You must write an application essay. This essay might accompany an application to college, graduate school, or professional school. Or it might be part of a job application or a request for a scholarship or other funding. Regardless of the nature of the application, all of these essays are united by a common purpose: you want something, and this essay is part of the formal request made to the person or organization with the power to give it to you.

Even though you might have seen other application essays, you still might not know how to compose yours. Maybe you have never written an essay like this before, so you are unsure about how it differs from other kinds of essays. Maybe you have written an essay like this in the past, but you were unhappy with the product or the result and you want to improve your chances this time. Maybe, no matter your skills and experiences, you are just looking for extra help so that this kind of essay will be easier to complete.

Few of us have been taught how to write this type of essay. Is it casual or academic? Is it supported with research? How much should you reveal about yourself? These and many more questions can make it tricky to even know where to begin. And it is very likely that you might not have anyone to help you with this. Because application essays are extra-curricular, even if you are a current student with access to writing instructors, your application essay will not be part of that syllabus. The writing expert teaching your class might not be available to instruct you in this type of writing in their time off.

This booklet can help you by showing you the complete process of writing an application essay for a scholarship, academic program, or employment opportunity. This practical, systematic method will start with a basic discussion of the purpose of application essays and end with a final proofreading. In between that first and last step, you will learn how to write each section of an application essay, piece by piece. These sectional breakdowns show you exactly what to include in different places within the essay. You will no longer need to guess what to write and where to write it. By using the breakdown, the various pieces of the document will work together to create a coherent and complete whole.