<p>You might like to visit the College Essay section and read some of the pinned threads at the top for tips. </p>
<p>But these are good questions. Fact is that admissions has only so much time and can’t know every little thing about you. So you paint a picture the best you can. Seeing how you spend your time outside of school, reading your recommendation letters that, hopefully, touch on your character and personal traits and the ‘voice’ you bring to your essays. I can remember back (a while back now) to the story my daughter told in her essay and distinctly remember that you could see so many things in it: resourcefulness, logic, drive and hard work, engagement with people, enthusiasm, overarching ambitions, experience, versatility in different environments. It was a good and interesting story too, a slice of life and she got a lot of compliments on it (from colleges too.) It came from rich experiences. You don’t say ‘I am these things’ or make an essay ‘On Goodheartedness’ and reel off a selection of things you do to be goodhearted. You will have to do some drafts and see if you can just tell a story that gives a bit of taste of what you are like, what motivates you, influences you, It helps to do mini drafts of essays with different prompts to get the juices flowing in preparation.</p>
<p>No one can tell if you do things from heart or volunteer because you have to. The good news is that people are helped either way so just showing up is a good thing and can lead to developing heart. But some people it really stands out, maybe from duration of devotion to something or working in an interest from many angles.</p>