When should I start writing practice essays?

OnMyWay2013
Thu, 21 May 2015 01:03:06 +0000

Sure, if you want. I generally recommend that you think of the content and get your story down before you start to work on grammar and flow and things like that. But at the very least, getting familiar with the prompts will help you understand the kinds of life experiences you should be looking out for (e.g. failure, facing obstacles, things you are passionate about, etc.). I guess it could also help you recognize your “writing voice” and work on sounding natural when you write, versus being too formal.

You can use the prompts from colleges you’re interested in, but note that 1. some schools change their prompts from year to year, and 2. you’ll have another year of life experiences to draw from by the summer of your junior year, so what you write now might not be the best thing to use.