Write Yourself In: The Definitive Guide to Writing Successful College Admissions Essays

Write authentic, memorable college essays that will help you get into the right school for you with this guidebook from a veteran college admissions expert.

Every spring, over one million high school juniors embark on an annual rite of passage: applying to college. And with college admission rates at an all-time low, getting into a competitive school is now tougher than ever. At the top schools, a strong transcript and great test scores will get your application noticed, but it’s your essays, and the personal story that they highlight, that will get you admitted.

But often, students don’t know where to start. Teens fret over topics because they don’t know what college admissions officers are looking for. They bend over backwards to write what they think colleges want to read, instead of telling their authentic story—which is what admissions officers actually want—in a way that will resonate with their readers. They also struggle because college essays, which are narrative, first-person, and introspective require a different set of skills from academic, expository writing they’ve been learning for years in the classroom.

Seasoned college admissions expert and educator Eric Tipler has seen this firsthand. Teens and their parents spend countless, anxiety-filled hours crafting and refining essays that are often lackluster. In Write Yourself In, Tipler meets students where they are, and provides comprehensive actionable advice in a warm and conversational tone. He demonstrates how to craft a winning essay, one that is authentic, vulnerable, and demonstrative of qualities like personal growth and emotional maturity. Instead of formulas, Write Yourself In gives students step-by-step processes for brainstorming, outlining, writing, and revising essays. It encourages them to seek out feedback at key points in the process, something Tipler has found to be vital to helping students produce their best writing. Further, the book includes sidebars that teach essential components of good storytelling, a “secret weapon” in the admissions process.

In addition to the admissions essay, Write Yourself In also covers the most common supplemental essays on topics like community, diversity, openness to others’ viewpoints, and why their school is a good fit for the student scholarship essays, as well as scholarship essays. Tipler includes sections that address current topics like the widespread use of ChatGPT and the discussion of race in the admissions essay, a facet of the student’s application that will have newfound importance given the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action.

Written with both the parent and teen in mind, Write Yourself In is the go-to handbook for writing a great college essay.

Eric Tipler graduated from Harvard (BA) and Yale (MA) and has spent the last nineteen years working with teenagers, first as a high school teacher and more recently as a writing coach, tutor, and college admissions counselor. Eric has taught writing to students from an incredibly wide range of socioeconomic backgrounds: kids from marginalized inner-city neighborhoods, as well as some of the most privileged teens in the country. He taught social studies at Friendship Public Charter School, a charter school in inner-city Washington, DC, and at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, often ranked the #1 public high school in America. He also taught and advised Yale undergraduates as a teaching fellow and served as an Associate Head of College for Yale Summer Session. As a writing coach and admissions consultant, Eric currently works with students across the country. In addition to teaching and tutoring, Eric writes musical theater and works as a story consultant for Broadway-bound musicals.