Revise and Polish Your Graduate School Application Essays
You’ve completed your first essay draft – this is a great milestone! But outstanding essays are the result of multiple drafts, so now it’s time to revise and edit.
Here’s how to get the job done:
1. Let your essay rest for a day or two, particularly after an intensive writing session.
You’ll return to it with fresh eyes, and you might be amazed at how many ways you’ll see that you can improve it. It’s important to remember that one of the most common problems plaguing application essays is bland, forgettable prose. One reason for this is that while you know your backstory and the details of the experiences you are writing about, your reader does not. For that reason, as you review your graduate school application essay, try your best to root out generic writing that lacks color and details, such as the following example:
“Although I have been responsible for a lot of exciting projects, I want to move into management, which might not happen on my current path.”
What kind of projects? What made them exciting? Why wouldn’t a management path be open to the writer? Has this been explained? Let’s wake up this sleepy prose by adding appropriate details:
“My role as a product manager for a midsized giftware business has allowed me to develop my creativity as well as my communication, market research, and social media skills. As exciting as it has been to have helped plan and release our innovative kitchen tabletop lines, I want to move into management, which seems unlikely at this family-owned and -managed company.”
Adding details takes up more room, but those details make your essay come alive. When you are tight on space, rather than cutting back on detail, choose to write about fewer examples, and provide greater detail for each of them. This will serve you far better than offering a laundry list of vague accomplishments or character traits you feel you have.
Also check to make sure that you have responded to the specific prompt and to every part of the prompt. Did you adhere to the word/character/page requirements? If you wrote multiple essays for the same graduate program, did you avoid repeating yourself? Is your essay targeted to the particular graduate degree you wish to earn at this institution?
2. Ditch the passive voice. Using the active voice instead will liven up and tighten your writing.
Consider the following passive-voice sentence:
“Client assessments were carried out by the clinical team and me.”
Revise the sentence by moving the “doer” of the action to the beginning. Doing so in this case highlights the writer’s role (while also cutting three words):
“I conducted client assessments with the clinical team.”
3. Read your essay aloud.
Hearing your essay allows you to catch small mistakes you missed during the editing process and that can be easily overlooked when reading silently. When you read out loud, you will also be able to tell which sentences could benefit from some tightening, expanding, or other improvements. Avoid repeating words throughout your essay. And check to make sure you didn’t use overly “flowery” language that would detract from the main points of your essay. Your essay should sound natural and consistent with how you actually express yourself.
4. Assess your essay for overall quality control.
Now that you have come back to your essay and reviewed it after setting it aside for a while, ask yourself whether the draft has achieved the goal you set for it. Do you sound like the focused, thoughtful, and energetic individual you hope to present yourself as? Have you shared distinctive aspects of your academic and experiential background that demonstrate that you are a strong candidate for this particular graduate program? If not, continue revising your essay until you are confident that the voice you have created on the page reflects positively on you.
Summary Tips
- Step away from your draft for a day or two so you can return to it with a fresh perspective.
- Respond to the specific prompt, and follow the length guidelines provided.
- Revise any bland writing and minimize the use of the passive voice by replacing both with specific, detailed, and active prose.
- Read your graduate application essay aloud so you can identify any weak spots and assess the overall voice you have created. Does your essay meet your goals? If not, keep revising.
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