by Caroline Fraissinet

Created on: May 08, 2008

So, you're applying to college. You've gotten your transcript together, you made your activities list and finally memorized your Social Security number because of countless applications asking for your personal information. You're about to crack your knuckles and pat yourself on the back because you think you're finally done...only to realize that your college of choice has left the best for last.

"Please write an essay describing yourself in 250 words or less."

"How am I possibly going to describe myself in a measly 250 words?" you ask yourself, "And what do even I say?"

The college application essay can be challenging, and sometimes, downright frightening. However, it is far from impossible to write a good college application essay that will make you stand out from the crowd. In order to figure out how to write an outstanding college application essay, it is important to understand that while most schools will have you write an essay for their application process, they often ask the same questions. Once you've written a good answer, you can just change the name of the school in the heading, give it a quick spell check and you should be fine (leaving you plenty of time to go to all those club meetings you listed on your activities list). But first, let's discuss three of the most common types of essays, so that you can prepare yourself:

-The Letter of Intent (or "Why the Heck Are You Majoring in THAT?")

If you've already decided what you're majoring in, you'll probably come across one of these in your college application process. These are usually phrased somewhere along the lines of, "Why do you want to study [insert major] at [insert college]?" This is actually one of the easier college application questions. If you've picked a major, you've probably got a reason why. For example, if you want to major in medicine because you really liked biology in high school, you can say that you were introduced to the subject through high school and it opened up your mind to larger possibilities and you realized it was something that you really enjoy doing. Also, if possible, be sure to mention any experience you've had with your major. Let's take the pre-med scenario again; let's say that you did some volunteer work helping the staff at a nursing home. That would be a great fact to bring up in your essay, because it shows that you've been in a patient-care setting and that you might have some experience with health care before starting. Basically, colleges want to know through

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