A few more things to keep in mind when writing your college essay:

*Write the essay about YOU! No matter which essay question you choose from the Common Application, it is important that your essay shows the admission staff who you are, and that when we put your essay down, we have a better sense of what is important to you, what you are passionate about, and hopefully even a sense of your personality. Each year, we receive essays from students about a certain topic that are well-written, but that don't tell us anything about the student. Here's an example: a student uses essay prompt #3, and writes his essay about his grandfather, and all of the wonderful things his grandfather did during his life. But when we reach the end of the essay, the student hasn't brought the essay back around to how his grandfather influenced him. This essay has shown us a great picture of Grandpa Charlie, but Grandpa's not applying to Providence College. Here's the actual essay question: "Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence." No matter which essay topic you decide upon, don't forget the part of the question about your topic's impact or influence on you - that's what admission counselors want to read about!

*Spelling and grammar count! In our office, we refer to the application essay as "the first college assignment." That's important to keep in mind when you are writing it - make sure that you are spelling words correctly, capitalizing letters at the beginning of sentences, and using proper punctuation. As a liberal arts college, your writing ability is an important consideration in the application review process for us. Even if you're not an English major, you will be writing essays as part of our core curriculum and specifically the Development of Western Civilization program, and it's important that we see strong writing in your college essay.

*Remember, your college essay is a formal piece of writing! In other words, you are not writing an e-mail, an instant message, or posting on your friend's Facebook wall. The application essay should be written like you would write an essay for your high school English class - to put it simply, it should have an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.

*Don't mention other colleges or universities! This one's self-explanatory, and seemingly an easy mistake not to make - but it happens all the time. A student wants to personalize each essay to the seven different schools he or she is applying to... and forgets to change the school in each of the essays. Oops.

*Have your essay proofread! Your computer spell-checker isn't going to catch everything. Have a teacher, a counselor, your parents, or your friends read your essay over to catch any little mistakes you may have in there. And read it over yourself, too! Don't send the essay without reading it from beginning to end yourself!

*Start the essay early! If you haven't already started at least a rough draft of your essay, please take some time to do that before you head back to school this fall. It's a lot easier to write without the added pressure of an approaching application deadline.

Still have questions about writing your essay? Feel free to post them in the Comments section- and I'll do my best to get you the answers. Good luck with your writing!