Essay Tips The college admission essay is often the most difficult part of an application for admission to a college. To help you get off to a good start, we’ve put together the following tips and hints. These are comments from from our admissions staff who actually read your essays and evaluate them in the admission process. We can’t guarantee results, but this advice might help you get started. Top 15 Essay Tips from The Readers View it as an opportunity. The essay is one of the few things that you’ve got complete control over in the application process, especially by the time you’re in your senior year. You’ve already earned most of your grades; you’ve already made most of your impressions on teachers; and chances are, you’ve already found a set of activities you’re interested in continuing. So when you write the essay, view it as something more than just a page to fill up with writing. View it as a chance to tell the admissions committee about who you are as a person. Be yourself. If you are funny, write a funny essay; if you are serious, write a serious essay. Don’t start reinventing yourself with the essay. Make it fun. If you’re recounting an amusing and light-hearted anecdote from your childhood, it doesn’t have to read like a Congressional Act — make it fun! Tell us something different from what we’ll read on your list of extracurricular activities or transcript. Take the time to go beyond the obvious. Think about what most students might write in response to the question and then try something a little different.

Resume Format: Text and Space On average, employers spend between 20-30 seconds skimming a professional resumes to decide if they want to contact you for an interview. Thus, your resume should be easy to read and, upon first glance , should provide a positive visual impression. Regardless of your years of experience, your resume should be one page in length. Davis Scholars with longer work histories may want to write a two-page resume, but the gained space should be carefully weighed against the tightness of a one-page resume. Margins: Should be approximately 1” all around. Even if you’re pressed for space, try not to go below 1/2” margins, which creates a visually “crowded” impression and turns readers off intuitively. For readability, we also recommend left-aligned margins over block justified text.

Think You Can’t Afford a professional resume service? Think again.Many individuals, including HR professionals, career counselors, friends and neighbors, can critique a résumé, but few can actually craft a résumé. A well-crafted, targeted résumé will improve your odds of being invited to interview. After all, how can you land the job if you don’t have an opportunity to interview? A résumé is one of the key marketing tools that you need to demonstrate your brand, your unique selling proposition, and most importantly, the results that you have achieved in the workplace. A résumé is not an autobiography, it is a marketing tool designed to get you noticed and your foot in the door for a critical first interview. In nine years of writing and re-writing résumés, I have found that most are relatively weak. But the majority of job seekers who send me their résumé to review think theirs is just fine.

Resume Writing Choose a job target (also called a “job objective”) Find out what skills, knowlege and experience are needed to do that target job. Make a list of your 3 or 4 strongest skills, abilities or knowledge that make you a good candidate for the target job. For each key skill, think of several accomplishments from your past work history that illustrate each skill. Describe each accomplishment in a simple, powerful, action statement. List the primary jobs you’ve held, in chronological order. List your training and education that are related to the new job you want. Choose a résumé format that fits your situation: either chronological, functional or a combination of both. Summarize your key points (skills) at or near the top of your resume. PROOFREAD and correct all errors with resume help.

Editing Faculty clients request a range of assistance from copyediting and proofreading to more extensive editing and guidance with the writing process itself. Often a single document requires several different kinds of assistance before it is ready for submission. Editing services are delivered both online and in person. Online editing service allows a client to communicate easily and rapidly with an editor multiple times while working on a single document. Clients frequently ask for help with specific problems and sections. Editors often ask clients for clarification on content and goals. A document is not considered finished until it is free of errors, clearly written, and ready for submission. In person consultations take place in the office of the Writing Consult Center at 2010 Robinson. Consultations require an appointment and generally last one hour each.