Admissions Essay Editing

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Editing your essays includes reviews for both content and grammar. While each writer will have his or her own preferences, we personally prefer waiting until the end to proofread your essays for grammar. Quite simply, why do it several times (at the end of each revision) when you can just do it once at the end?

Admissions Essay Content Editing

There are 4 key components to content editing:

Does the essay directly address and answer the question asked?
Does the essay topic support your candidacy and drive home the points you need to make to separate yourself from the many other applicants who have similar grades and test scores?
Is there any extraneous verbiage in the essay that does not address or support the essay question?
Can an independent party (i.e. the admissions committee) read this essay and understand your points without ambiguity?

Admissions Essays Grammar Editing

We believe the most important thing you can do to ensure your essays are grammatically correct is to have someone else look at the essays on your behalf. It is all too common for a writer to be less than objective when editing his or her own essays. Why? Because the writer knows what he or she was trying to say. As a result, spliced commas, misplaced modifiers, and other grammatical mistakes are overlooked. Ideally, your proofreader will give a critical review of the content as well. (They are especially useful for determining that all the necessary information is included in the essay so the reader can follow your conclusion.)

While there are far too many grammar rules to cover than our website allows, keep in mind that while an admissions staff may overlook one slight mistake, misspellings are viewed extremely harshly in light of the "spell check" features available on word processors.