Brainstorming those essays and conveying your voice!

Before drafting my essays, I came up with 3-4 main topics I wanted to cover across my application. There's really no right format or template your essays need to follow or topics you must cover- in fact, colleges are truly looking for what unique background and voice you can bring to their school! So that being said, I think the best thing to do when drafting your essays is sitting down and coming up with 3-4 broad points that "define" who you are/what your background and perspective is on your life/what are you most passionate about and proud of/lessons you have learned through your experiences/etc. Feel free to write your drafts as you would normally express yourself to someone! Obviously, make sure there are no grammatical errors and that your writing flows and is easy to follow, but don't try to be serious or use complicated vocab thinking that's what colleges are looking for. I think my best essays were the ones I had most fun with because I expressed my personality in how I wrote them!

The essay prompts are usually really broad and there's literally no right answer to them. When I read other people's essays, I felt myself subconsciously trying to copy their "flow" and style and realized my voice wasn't coming through. Also, realize that these essays are also ones colleges (and so many ppl applying to college) have already seen and the best thing that I felt worked for my college essays was having a unique voice and perspective- which reading other essays doesn't help with!