Step One: Getting Started (the "raw material" for your essay):

1. List the groups and activities in which you are involved in school
2. List the aspects of your education you like best
   • subjects
   • activities (such as writing, drawing, math
3. List the groups and activities in which you are involved outside of school.
4. List your attributes as a learner.
5. List your attributes in roles other than as a student in school.
6. List why you want to go to college.

 Step Two: Selecting and Planning

1. Highlight or circle the parts of those lists in Step One that describe you the best (and/or that make you look like the kind of person a university would welcome into their midst).
2. Pick one element of those highlighted bits that seems to encapsulate who you are.
3. Pick three or four more elements that really excite or interest you.

 Step Three: Drafting

1. Start with the one element you picked that really encapsulates who you are. Let that be the centralizing focus of your admissions essay. Draft one or two paragraphs developing that element or characteristic.
2. Draft one or two paragraphs for each of the other three or four elements or attributes that you picked.

 Step Four: Shaping

1. Look at your paragraphs to determine how best to order them.
2. Make sure that everything you say about yourself comes alive with an example.
3. Make sure you have an introductory and concluding statement.

 Step Five: Polishing

1. Edit for mechanical and grammatical correctness.
2. Use a computer, if possible, for a polished and professional look.
3. Have someone else read it one last time before you send it in.