The Most Effective Essay "Tone"...?

College Essays
1

<p>There are bound to be just infinite number of essay topics, from the frequently used ones to the really obscure. But essays in their essence cannot be extremely variegated in terms of its prevailing “tone”. I’m sure I don’t need to define the term.</p>

<p>These are the generic categories I can think of at this moment: optimistic, confident, ambitious, dreamy, melancholic, objective/scholarly, nostalgic, humorous, cynical, and critical. At the highest I’d say:</p>

<p>Optimistic
Sentimental
Critical
Scholarly
Humorous</p>

<p>My question is, which one works the best?</p>

<p>Of course, the tone must be properly matched with the topic, but limiting the topic to the very usual ones (hardships, dreams, self-reflection, observations), which tone would be most appealing or striking to the admission officers, especially those of the top schools? If you can provide information on your own essays (not the details, of course) or others’ essays that either opened the gates to the most selective schools or conjured up the cold rejection letters, please do so.</p>

<p>For your information, I’m not trying to craft my own essay according to the discussion in this thread. This is purely out of curiosity.</p>

2

<p>I would suggest you use the tone that sounds most right for you. Different writers tend to have a unique voices because different personalities are unique, so I would say write in the tone that feels most natural to you. In my essays, I would say I leaned on ‘sentimental’ and ‘nostalgic’, but that’s because that’s the kind of person I am and my writing tends to just be that way even when I’m not thinking about it. Colleges are looking for a piece of you in your essay, so just be genuine and write in a way that feels natural. Don’t try to force a tone to be strategic.</p>