Graduate School FAQs
Questions
- General
- Does your service ever write the essays for the students?
- Are there services out there that actually write the essays? Is this good or bad, if it gets a student into a school?
- Does myEssay.com review essays?
- The Essay: General
- The Essay: Content
- What can I do to get started?
- What kind of brainstorming tips do you have for the planning period?
- What should the applicant remember while choosing a topic?
- What should the applicant remember when writing the conclusion?
- The Essay: Style
- The Essay: Mechanics
- Should I title my essay?
- Should one avoid using quotations?
- Is an introduction absolutely necessary?
- Recommendations
- The Application: General
Answers
General
- Does your service ever write the essays for the students?
No, myEssay.com does not write essays for students ever. - Are there services out there that actually write the essays? Is this good or bad, if it gets a student into a school?
There are services that actually write the essay, but we do not recommend using them for three reasons.
1. No writing service can write a successful application essay. How can a third party write a personal essay where the applicant's character and personality shine through?
2. Admission officers can spot a phony from the other side of the room. They will know immediately that it wasn't the applicant who wrote the essay.
3. It is fraud. If you are caught you will automatically be denied admisson. And even if the school finds out years later, you may risk expulsion. - Does myEssay.com review essays?
No, myEssay.com does not provide an essay review service.
The Essay: General
- What practical advice would you give student beginning to write their admission essays?
1. Begin early. Start working on your essays in the summer.
2. Visit our site (www.myEssay.com). Within the world of the application essay, we really do provide you with everything. The application kits are the best products by far available in the market today.
The Essay: Content
- What can I do to get started?
Try some stream-of-consciousness exercises. Pick any topic and fill up a piece of paper with words as fast as you possibly can, essentially writing down your thoughts as they come to you. You may find it helpful to impose a time limit on yourself. At this stage, don't worry about content, style, or grammar; just get the words going and you might be able to find a usable topic in that mess of words. Also try myEssay.com's innovative interactive tool, The Brainstormer™, to help generate essay topics. - What kind of brainstorming tips do you have for the planning period?
Brainstorming is an integral part of writing the essay. Most students spend zero to very little time brainstorming and as a result, end up sitting in front of a blank computer screen for hours.1. Be willing to invest a significant amount of time (time unit is days) brainstorming. Get started early so time will not be an issue.
2. But create a deadline. Don't spend weeks brainstorming, or rather daydreaming.
3. First spend time thinking about yourself and the question. You must reflect thoroughly. Ultimately you will want to focus one to two themes and develop those thoughts. Then spend time thinking about approach and style.
4. Try free writing for ten minutes at a time. Choose a topic and do nothing but write for ten minutes. Try to stay with your topic, but if you can't, just continue writing. The important thing is to keep writing and avoid any interruptions that could hinder your flow of thought, such as editing what you've written. Save the editing for later.
5. Use myEssay.com's brainstorming workshop. - What should the applicant remember while choosing a topic?
The topic itself is not important. What is important is what the essay reveals about you. So if you choose your grandfather as the topic of your essay for instance, the focus of your essay should not only be about your grandfather; instead, it should be about your relationship with your grandfather and why that relationship in particular is meaningful or significant to you.Don't ask too much of your essay. Don't try to fit your life history in one page. Share a snippet instead, a piece of yourself with the reader. Give the reader an insightful glimpse into your life.
- What should the applicant remember when writing the conclusion?
Conclusions and summaries are for term papers; endings are for admissions essays. Don't use phrases like in conclusion or in summary. First, good writing doesn't require these kinds of clauses. Second, you have a stated or implied word limit and using clauses like these is wasteful. A good ending rounds out your essay, resolves any hanging issues, and provides a lasting impact so the admissions committee won't forget you. Remember...Schools want bright, active people-- not wet blankets. So finish on a positive note. Tie up and resolve any loose or hanging issues. You don't want to leave the reader hanging.
Beginnings can also make a difference. You need to grab your reader's attention, right from the start. Why? Because if the admissions officer doesn't get beyond the opening few sentences, you've missed your opportunity. Now you're just another face in the crowd, one of a thousand applicants. With the right beginning, you draw the reader in and have him or her not wanting to put the essay down until the very end.
The Essay: Style
- Is it acceptable to be funny?
Part of writing a good essay is making yourself memorable, and one way to do that is with a little humor. You should, however, be careful. If overused or used too flippantly, humor can make the writer seem too casual, too glib, or uninterested in getting admitted. - How can I sound self-confident without sounding arrogant?
The key to differentiating confidence from arrogance is your tone. Do not be overtly boastful about your accomplishments. Rather than telling admissions committees what you have achieved just for the sake of telling them, use your specific achievements as a springboard for more personal insights. Do not, for example, just write an essay on how many state championships your soccer team won; write about why your last state championship game was so important to you, what it meant to play with your team for the last time....
The Essay: Mechanics
- Should I title my essay?
The use of titles is acceptable, but is superfluous to most admissions committees, who are far more concerned with the content of the essay itself. Go ahead and title your essay if you think it would help communicate your message; otherwise, leave your essay untitled. - Should one avoid using quotations?
You should quote sparingly. Using too many quotations can make your essay sound overly scholarly or, perhaps even worse, cliched. Keep in mind that your essay is supposed to reflect your ideas-what do you think it says if you use your one opportunity to express yourself in your own words to cite those of other people? - Is an introduction absolutely necessary?
Most essays require an introductory paragraph to identify the topic and present the theme. Exceptions to this include short one- to two-paragraph essays, which require only a few sentences to introduce the topic. An introduction is also unnecessary in an inductive essay, which takes the reader through a discussion without a clear focus, and reveals its intention only at the end. A third exception is a narrative essay, which could survive without an introduction. Most of the time, however, it is a good idea to provide some sort of introduction.
Recommendations
- How do I ensure that my recommendations are good?
Ask your recommenders early, give them all the necessary materials (forms; stamped, addressed envelopes; a list of deadlines), and provide materials that will help them be as specific as possible about you (papers; presentations; your résumé). A good recommendation should relay insightful anecdotes about you and attest to your character and abilities.