Your essay is what rounds you at as an applicant.

It is the only chance you have to speak directly to the admissions officer tasked with deciding whether to admit you to your dream college or not.

Make sure to follow these tips to ensure that your essay showcases the depth of your talents, accomplishments, and personality.

1. Start early but not too early: Junior Spring is ideal

Though people have different personal preferences, and you should write when you feel your able to produce your best work, Junior Spring tends to be the best time for most students to start their college essay writing process.

There are several reasons for this:

1. You have the luxury of being able to try out many different ideas and essay formats, completely scrap a draft and start fresh, and get many people to review and comment on your essays.
2. If you procrastinate, at least you have a few months to get back on track. If you procrastinate in December, well, you'll have the next 4 years to regret.
3. Unless something incredible happens your Junior Summer, you’ve likely already experienced the story that you’ll write about for your college essays.
4. And, unless you magically become possessed by the spirit of John Steinbeck during your Senior Fall English class, you probably are already in peak writing form.

2. Throw everything at the wall and see what sticks

No idea is too dumb or too risky to try out. 650 words is not a lot — it takes about an hour to get that much onto a page, so what do you have to lose?

Experimenting with style and what story you want to tell will help you refine your thoughts and perfect your narrative.

Imagine you are a writer on the staff of a popular comedy TV show, and imagine what some of those brainstorming sessions must be like. You’ve probably seen some really funny, really wacky stuff on TV, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg — what about all the even wackier ideas that got filtered out during those brainstorming sessions? If people didn’t feel comfortable throwing out bad ideas for feedback and refinement, then you’d never get the quality of TV that gets delivered to you, the end consumer.

Extending this analogy, the end consumer for your college application is an admissions officer, and they’re going to spend a maximum of 5 minutes watching your TV pilot. It's much better to get all your ideas out during the brainstorming sessions and see where they naturally go than risk delivering a half-baked essay built around one of those bad ideas.

3. Your essay is a story with a beginning, conflict, and resolution

Your essay should tell the reader something unique about yourself that is not captured elsewhere in your application.

If your essay simply restates the extracurriculars listed on your Common App, then the reader gains nothing from reading your essay. Instead, you’ve just wasted 650 precious words that could have added an entirely new dimension to your application.

Admissions officers read 100's of essays every year. Multiplied over a 10-year career, and they’ve seen pretty much every cliche. To get a sense of truly how bored real admissions officers get, see this Quora thread .

Their eyes will glaze over and skim paragraphs the second your essay loses steam. You need to keep things compelling and interesting enough to ensure that your essay gets fully read, as well as memorable enough to not be instantly forgotten.

4. Read other successful admissions essays for inspiration

Good artists copy, great artists steal.

For college essays, this only applies to high-level concepts and stylistic suggestions -- Obviously, don’t plagiarize. However, there are many resources online and in bookstores that contain past examples of successful essays.

For example, The Crimson (Harvard's student newspaper) published several books containing successful Harvard essays .

Other books have also been published for other Ivy League schools and for Stanford University

If you want direct feedback on your essays from Harvard students, or want to work 1-on-1 with an experienced mentor to craft your application, visit us here.

1. Take a Few Days Off

Being waitlisted in March or April can be incredibly frustrating. After fervently crafting your application for months, there is no easy way to accept being told to wait even longer for a clear decision.

It is important to take some time off from thinking about college -- hang out with your friends, pick up a book you’ve been meaning to read, or take a much needed nap.

Acting immediately will not make the waitlist move any faster, or move at all, so ensuring you are in a positive headspace is the best first step to take.

2. Assess Your Other Options

It is more than likely you have a wealth of other college options to consider from the regular decision round. Attend prospective student events if offered, reach out to friends who attend schools you have been accepted to, or even purchase an article of school swag.

It is important to get excited about the options you have and ultimately select an option to put a deposit down. You can always unenroll if you are taken off the waitlist, but failing to put a deposit down can land you in hot water in terms of enrollment down the line.

3. Patiently Submit Additional Materials

Quality over quantity is the best motto to adopt when on the waitlist. By waitlisting you, a school is already admitting that you would be a fantastic addition to their school. After taking a few weeks away from the college grind, review your application and see if there are any additional materials that can shed light on a new aspect of your candidacy.

The two most common options for additional materials are submitting a Letter of Continued Interest (LOCI) or an additional letter of recommendation.

However, some schools do not allow waitlisted candidates to submit supplemental materials, so be sure to check your admission’s portal for waitlist expectations.

A LOCI should be a simple one-pager addressed to a school’s admissions office that begins with a brief paragraph stating your desire to attend if accepted. It is then crucial to list 3-5 bullet points of new developments in your candidacy since submission that you would like to bring to the attention for the school.

Content may range from extracurricular accolades accomplished during senior year to personal circumstances that have recently changed. It is incredibly important that these new pieces of information are unique from what you included in your application. If you cannot come up with enough new information, then it may make sense to submit an additional letter of recommendation.

If you decide to submit an additional letter of recommendation, you must ensure that the individual who writes it can speak to different elements of your candidacy than the two letters of recommendation you submitted in your Common Application.

For example, a student who received a letter of recommendation from their English and Science teachers should approach an athletics coach, dance instructor, or volunteering supervisor instead of another subject teacher. Be sure to choose someone who actually knows you -- many students will try to choose the most prestigious person they know to boost their applications, when a letter spoken from the heart will go farther in practice.

Ultimately, the waitlist is a black box. Be sure to keep up your grades, spend time building excitement towards your accepted schools, and enjoy senior year. If you would like a member of Veritas Essays waitlist team to review your LOCI, check out our services!

We asked our team of Ivy League editors:

If you could spend just 1 hour as a student at each of the 8 Ivy League schools, what would you do at each one?

Here are their answers.

Harvard

As a student at Harvard, I’ve been lucky enough to spend multiple hours in Cambridge! However, if left just one, I would go see some of the amazing speakers that draw huge crowds weekly. As a professor once remarked to me: “You come to Harvard and the world comes to you.”

Yale

Being stuck in the middle of New Haven, CT doesn’t mean there aren’t amazing things going on at campus. I would go browse the shelves at Beinecke Rare Books Library.

Dartmouth

Dartmouth is often thought of as the inspiration for Animal House but surprisingly offers amazing opportunities that don’t involve binge-drinking. In an hour, I would check out the HOP (Hopkins Center for the Arts) and see a show.

Columbia

Despite being in NYC, Columbia’s breathtaking campus is a sight in itself. Not to copy my answer for Yale, but Butler Library is far and away the most enticing building on campus. I’d grab a cup of coffee at the library’s cafe and do some people watching!

Princeton

At Princeton, I would visit a spot at Whitman College that is known for its echo effect. As explained by a student:

If you have a chance, swing by the north Whitman courtyard and have some fun shouting at yourself! Just find this circle of steps, stand right in the middle of the black plaque, face out into the courtyard, start talking really loudly, and you'll be pleasantly surprised by an echo ringing back to you.

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania hosts WXPN 88.5 FM , a listener supported radio broadcast from its campus. I would check out the student interns and staff members that keep the station running.

Brown

At Brown, I would head to the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES). IBES researches Conservation Science, Land Change Science, Climate Science, Environmental Health, and Institutions and Human Behavior — and their building is pretty awesome as well!

Cornell

With it being winter in cold Ithaca, I would partake in a student tradition and go sledding on Libe Slope. Pictured below, it offers the perfect trajectory for a fun snowy ride!