For high school students, the most dreaded part of the college and application processes is writing the mandatory essay. In their minds, that essay is what will make or break their future academic and career goals. What most high school students don’t realize is that they’ve been writing essays for the better part of the past dozen years of their lives. Most students can write a fantastic college or scholarship application essay if they just follow the following five steps.

Read the instructions
Every college and scholarship application clearly states the requirements for the essay. The instructions often are very thorough and cover everything from the topic to be written about to the word limit. Some applications go so far as to explain what not to include in the essay. Read the directions thoroughly several times to ensure that you understand them. If there are any doubts, contact the admissions counselor or scholarship committee to have all your questions answered.

Also, it’s generally not a good idea to contact the admissions officer or scholarship committee for guidance the day before the essay is due.

Follow the instructions
When I was an admissions officer, I’d spend a lot of time with admission candidates guiding them through the whole application process, which included the essay submission portion. I’d eagerly look forward to receiving the essays from the students I helped only to be disappointed time and time again because many would not follow simple directions. They would submit the essay on the wrong type or size of paper or send in a video essay instead. They would address the essay to the wrong person or would write about topics other than the ones the school asked for.

I remember on one occasion where we had about 10 scholarships to award and we received about 100 applications. Once the scholarship committee completed their initial review of the submissions, over half of them were disqualified because they hadn’t followed submission procedures. After the initial review then, there were less than 50 applicants for the 10 scholarships. Those who perhaps didn’t have the strongest work yet followed directions made it to the final review process.

Give yourself time
Writing the essay can take as little as a few hours depending on how well a writer you are. Depending on the topic of the essay, you may need time to conduct research ...