Nowadays, the college application process is more difficult than it was years ago. In addition to asking applicants to state the major they want to pursue and other pertinent information, many colleges today ask for essays as well. Writing a college essay, or a personal statement for a college/university application, is often a challenging task.

It is a great opportunity for prospective students to introduce themselves, but writing a winning personal statement is not as easy as it sounds. However, this should not paralyze or scare students who want to join a college. This article outlines the top 5 tips for online writing help for college students  to understand what they need to do to write the best possible college essay.

Some of the tips to writing a winning personal statement include:

1. Avoid Being Tedious

You do not need to include all of your activities and accomplishments on your college essay. Doing this will make your essay too tedious. College application forms provide adequate space for applicants to include such information; therefore, you need to save that part of your pitch for areas where it belongs. The most compelling and engaging personal statements have a clear focus, and, most importantly, tell a story.

To include the most relevant and helpful details in your essay, for example, you should expose your personality and passions using a comprehensive and thoughtful narration of a specific challenging time in your life. This will give a clearer picture of whom you are, as opposed to accomplishments and honors that simply show that you are bright. Essentially, your personal statement should highlight your maturity, depth, and thoughtfulness.

2. Use the Right Tone

The overall tone or attitude of the personal statement is one of the most important aspects of your college application process; however, it is extremely tricky to get right. If you are writing about some of your accomplishments, for example, you do not want to sound arrogant. Likewise, your personal statement should not paint you as a whiner. Instead, you need to find the right balance between humility and pride, with a generous pinch of generosity.

3. Show your Character

Many colleges today also rate application essays bested on the personal qualities and characters they seem to display. Actually, your will reveal your character in three different areas of your application; i.e., your listed extracurricular activities, the interview, and your application essay.

The essay, however, is the most important among the three because it is the most revealing to admissions people as they go through tons of applications. In addition to looking for bright students, colleges are also looking for good and mature citizens for their student communities.

4. Humor is a Good Touch

In addition to being mature, informative, and thoughtful, a good college essay should also have a touch of humor. You do not want your personal statement to be too heavy and formal; instead, lighten it up by adding some witticism and an intelligent metaphor, but do not turn into a comedian. Off-color jokes and uncomfortable puns will only land you into the rejection pile.

It is also important to understand that humor will not act as a substitute for material or substance. Essentially, your essay needs to be thoughtful and informative, in addition to making the reader smile and want to know more. One of the biggest mistakes that applicants make is submitting essays that are too serious, which often end up sounding more boring than clever.

5. Focus on the Mechanics

Spelling, punctuation, and grammar mistakes will hurt your chances of a favorable outcome. They will distract from the content of your application and show a lack of quality and care in your work. Strong writing skills, therefore, are necessary when it comes to writing a college essay. If writing skills are not your forte, you will find tons of online tools and top tips for writing a college essay to help get you to your preferred college.

Most colleges rate colleges as either very important or important when it comes to making decisions about the applications they approve. Many of the most selective colleges will even reject an application from a brilliant based on his/her poorly written college essay. Fortunately, there are ways to learn how to execute a stellar college essay to get most students, even those with marginal academic scores, into their chosen college.