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14 Best College Essay Services for 2024 (40 Services Reviewed)

Research conducted by Emily Kierkegaard , PhD, and expert-reviewed by Kevin Wong, PrepMaven Co-founder

Not sure which college application essay coaching and editing service is the best? We compared the top 40 services, created in-depth reviews for 14 of them, and narrowed it down to the 4 best that will help guide you through the process of writing amazing college application essays.

What is the Best College Essay Service?

PrepMaven – best college application essay service overall
College Essay Mentor – best for individual consultants
The College Essay Guy – best for unlimited essay assistance
College Vine – best of the big platforms

The best of the rest:

Individual essay consultants:

College Essay Editor – small editing team
Allison Karpf – former English teacher helping students
Your College Vision – former journalist with more affordable rates
The College Guru – good on paper but unresponsive
Sofia Zapiola – budget-friendly application assistance

Mid-size teams:

Lotus Learning – focus on health sciences

Large platforms:

Study Point – larger platform with mystery editors
Ivy Select – larger platform with mystery editors
Empowerly – larger platform with mystery editors
BeMo – expensive and aggressive with wrong expertise

Schedule a college essay consultation

Best College Application Essay Services in 2024

#1 – prepmaven.

Our Verdict — Best College Essay Assistance Overall Price: $79–349/hour (minimum $510 package) PrepMaven’s one-on-one college essay assistance is the best option overall. Founded by brothers and Princeton grads Greg and Kevin, almost all of PrepMaven’s essay coaches have Ivy-League experience, primarily from Princeton and Harvard. All essay coaches also undergo a thorough training program in PrepMaven’s methods, developed by professional writers with deep understanding of the college admissions process, for helping students to discover the most compelling stories for their essays. Unlike other services, PrepMaven offers college essay assistance at several different price points. At the most accessible rate, students can work with current Ivy-League undergraduates who specialize in writing and have recently aced the college application process. At higher rates, students can work with coaches who are both Ivy-League grads and professional writers (screenwriters, journalists, editors) with many years of experience helping students to craft compelling essays. Interested students can even work directly with founders Greg and Kevin, who have over 15 years of experience helping students through the entire essay-writing process. PrepMaven’s services combine many of the best features of other good options into one, and it’s hard to beat their experience.

Any student wanting college essay help, at any point in the process, with a range of budgets.

At a glance:

Cost: $79–349/hour (minimum $510 package)
Writing coach qualifications: Princeton graduates and professional writers (or current Princeton students); all trained

What we like:

Ivy League experience —most of their writing coaches are Princeton grads or current students, with some from Harvard and other Ivies
Different pricing options to meet different families’ circumstances
More flexible and greater capacity to take on new students compared to individual consultants

#2 – College Essay Mentor

Our Verdict — Best of the Individual Consultants Price: unknown but high Some college essay consulting services consist of just one expert. Of these individual essay consultants, Chris Hunt at College Essay Mentor is our favorite. He combines writing experience as a journalist for the Economist and the Wall Street Journal with personal experience as a graduate of Dartmouth. However, he only works with a small number of students each year, and students need to apply to work with him — he only accepts students with top grades and test scores who are already strong applicants for top schools. Chris offers the option for one-time written feedback, but this only gives big-picture generalizations. (And written-only feedback is always limited.) In order for help with the essay process, students need to purchase a complete essay package.

Students with top grades and test scores who want to work with a one-person business, who have a sizable budget, and who are ready to get started early.

Cost: $210 for a one-time written essay feedback (big picture only), then $110 per draft feedback; pricing for essay process packages unknown
Essay coach qualifications: professional journalist, Dartmouth grad
Professional writing experience as a journalist
Extensive experience working with college applicants
Partners with Debra Felix, former Director of Admissions at Columbia, for full application review

What we don’t like:

One-on-one work is limited to very high-achieving students, who need to apply with a resume : “I limit my one-on-one work to students who I believe will be strong applicants to elite universities. As a rule, this means having high grades in challenging classes, a test score of ACT 34+ or SAT 1500+, and substantial activities outside of the classroom.”
Works with a limited number of students (60 per year), so often no availability
All-or-nothing packages don’t allow students to work with Chris for just a few hours or for part of the essay-writing process
Secretive about pricing (he’ll only give pricing details once he’s reviewed the student’s resume and agreed to work with them), but we expect the minimum cost of working one-on-one to be several thousand dollars

#3 – The College Essay Guy

Our Verdict — Best for Unlimited Essay Assistance Price: $4900 for application to 3 schools, $8050 for application for 10 schools We’re fans of Ethan Sawyer, the original “college essay guy”— his book, College Essay Essentials , is a great guide to the essay-writing process. Ethan doesn’t work directly with many students these days, but he now has a team of consultants who help students follow his principles. Their assistance is really all-or-nothing — they prefer to work with students from the very beginning of the process, and their minimum package is $4900, which includes assistance with essays for three schools. If students are applying to ten schools (a more realistic number for students aiming at competitive colleges), the fee is a hefty $7400.

Students who want unlimited help through the entire process, who have a sizable budget.

Cost: $4900 (supplemental essays for 3 schools) – $7400 (supplemental essays for 10 schools)
Essay coach qualifications: mix of Ivy grads and former teachers, some writers/screenwriters; all trained
Great free resources about the essay-writing process
Their Matchlighters Scholars Program gives back to the community by providing admissions consulting for select qualifying students
All-or-nothing packages have a high minimum fee and don’t work for students who want just a few hours of feedback or help with just part of the process

#4 – College Vine

Our Verdict — Best of the Big Platforms Price: $140–180/hour There are plenty of large platforms with large stables of part-time tutors and coaches available to work with students. Of these big platforms, we think CollegeVine has the best offerings. Compared to other large companies, CollegeVine provides more information about their tutors, and students can pick individual tutors to work with from their roster. However, this model is really just a way of finding individual tutors to hire. Tutors don’t receive any training and don’t share a common approach, so it’s a mixed bag. Their rates are fairly high for part-time tutors who don’t have specific expertise and training in college essay consulting. Because CollegeVine is really just a marketplace where individual tutors can find students, the quality and price will vary widely.

Students who want to work with a big company, or those who want a quick session or two to go over their essays.

Cost: Typically $140–180/hour
Essay coach qualifications: no specific qualifications, but a few are Ivy League graduates
Possible to select individual editors to work with from their roster.
Easy to schedule ad-hoc sessions with a tutor through the website.
No training or common approach for tutors
Editors are part-time , with no option to work with full-time college admissions experts
Relatively expensive for this level of expertise

College Essay Editing Alternatives (that Didn’t Make the Cut)

Individual essay consultants, #5 – college essay editor.

Our Verdict — Small Editing Team Price: Roughly $5,950 for applications to 10 schools College Essay Editor comprises two graduates of Stanford. This means that they have personal experience applying to highly competitive schools. One member of the team also has a college counseling certification, which is a good background for college essays. Based on their website, they appear to focus on the editing and proofreading phase of the essay-writing process. This can be helpful to students, but we recommend working with a service who can help students to uncover their values and brainstorm really great material that allows them to really shine—and if this doesn’t happen at the beginning of the process, it’s much harder to add in later on.

Cost: $195/1000 words for proofreading, $495/1000 words for 3 rounds of editing and proofreading, or $595/1000 words for unlimited rounds of editing and proofreading; for the purposes of comparison, complete applications to 10 competitive colleges would be around 9,650 words, or $5950.
Writing coach qualifications: Stanford graduates, one of whom has college counseling certification
Editors are graduates of Stanford University , and one is a member of NACAC, the national association of college counselors
They focus on editing and proofreading only , not on the crucial earlier steps of brainstorming and strategy
Small team with very limited availability
All asynchronous editing so you won’t be able to cultivate a real relationship with your essay coach.

#6 – Allison Karpf

Our Verdict — Former English Teacher Helping Students Price: $385/hour or $3850 package for application to one school Another option for students looking to hire an individual consultant is Allison Karpf. Allison is a former high school English teacher and a graduate of UC Berkeley who also holds a Masters of Education from Stanford. Her rates are definitely on the higher side, especially for someone who doesn’t have a professional writing background, but she does have extensive experience working with students to craft their essays.

Cost: $385/hour or $3850 unlimited counseling (includes supplemental essays for one college)
Essay coach qualifications: former high school English teacher; Berkeley grad, Stanford MEd
Lots of experience helping students improve their college essays
Very quick to respond to client requests
No professional writing experience or Ivy-Plus undergraduate experience
High rates relative to other options
Limited availability , since she works alone

#7 – Your College Vision

Our Verdict: Former Journalist with More Affordable Rates Price: $180/hour, or packages starting from $3500 Laurie Lande is another individual consultant who helps students through the essay-writing process. She comes recommended by other consultants like Chris from College Essay Mentor . Laurie did not herself attend a highly competitive school, so she doesn’t have that personal experience of going through the selective admissions process, but she does have a professional writing background as a journalist for the Wall Street Journal in Hong Kong.

Cost: $180/hour or packages starting at $3500
Essay coach qualifications: journalism background
Affordable pricing , relative to other options
Not a graduate of a highly selective school

#8 – The College Guru

Our Verdict — Good on Paper but Unresponsive Price: unknown Yet another individual essay consultant is Geanine Thompson from The College Guru. Geanine attended Dartmouth as an undergraduate and also holds an MBA from Duke. She also has a professional writing background as an assistant book editor at Berkley Publishing Group. Like Greg and Kevin at PrepMaven , she combines experience in the business world and at Wall Street firms with experience in education.

Cost: unknown
Essay coach qualifications: former assistant book editor; Dartmouth grad, Duke MBA
Dartmouth graduate and former book editor
Not responsive to emails and client requests

#9 – Sofia Zapiola

Our Verdict — A budget-friendly, personal essay editor. Price: $80/hour Yet another individual essay consultant is Sofia Zapiola, who offers a mix of essay editing and college application counseling services.

Cost: $80/hour
Essay coach qualifications: M.A. from Harvard; certificate in College Counseling from UC San Diego.
Individual approach, budget-friendly rates, commitment to working within families’ budgets.
Very few testimonials, so it’s difficult to evaluate how effective she is.

Mid-size Teams

#10 – lotus learning.

Our Verdict — Expensive for Tutor Background Price: $165/hour Founded by a Harvard grad who is a former teacher and veteran of the publishing industry, Lotus learning offers college essay help in the Boston area. They have a small team of tutors, mostly recent grads from good but not Ivy-Plus colleges, and mostly with focus in health sciences.

Cost: $165/hour (minimum 8 hours)
Essay coach qualifications: tutors are recent grads, but not Ivy-Plus schools
Reasonable pricing with flexible packages
Essay editors aren’t graduates of Ivy-Plus schools and don’t have professional writing experience

Large platforms

#11 – study point.

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: Rates Between $60 and $120/hr Study Point is a larger essay editing service. They claim to have several decades of experience helping students to craft their college essays, but they do not give information about who their essay coaches are and what qualifications they might have.

Cost: $60-120/hr, depending on tutor experience
Essay coach qualifications: unknown
Larger company with several decades of experience
Unclear who the essay coaches are
Lack of statistics about their results

#12 – Ivy Select

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: unknown Ivy Select makes a lot of big promises on their website about having the best college essay consultants in the business, but they offer no information on who these consultants are, or on their backgrounds. They also brag that each consultant “only” works 20 students in one application cycle, but in our experience, that’s quite high.

Long list of impressive (but anonymous) testimonials
Only work with “top students”
No information on their website about who the editors are
Each essay coach works with up to 20 students at one time

#13 – Empowerly

Our Verdict — Larger Platform with Mystery Editors Price: High, from $6000/year Empowerly has over 60 college counselors who each work with an average of 5 students per year, in order to have more time to devote to each student. Their counselors come from “different educational backgrounds,” and while they do not provide specific biographical details we can assume that most of their essay coaches did not attend highly selective schools.

Cost: typically from $6000/year
Essay coach qualifications: college counselors
Counselors work with just a few students per year
You have to upgrade to “Empowerly Elite” to guarantee a counselor with a more selective educational background
No professional writing experience

#14 – Prepory

Our Verdict — Expensive but with Good Expertise Price: $325/hr Prepory is a college application and career counseling service that offers a comprehensive program for college applications at any stage of the process (including as early as 9th grade). They make a lot of impressive claims about the expertise of their coaches, but it’s quite difficult to actual find much information about their essay coach qualifications.

Cost: $325/hr
They have a comprehensive college application program that begins as early as 9th grade.
Limited information about essay coaches
High prices

Top 40 College Essay Services Considered

College Essay Editor
The College Essay Guy
College Vine
College Essay Mentor
Study Point
Allison Karpf
The College Guru
Lotus Learning
Summit Prep
Sofia Zapiola
Ivy Global / New Summits
College Essay Solutions
Your College Vision
Essay Edge*
ServicEscape*
PapersForge*
QuickWriter*
JustEditMyEssay*
JustDoMyEsssay*
ExpertWriting*
SpeedyPaper*
GradeMiners*

* A number of services will edit essays directly for students, or even write portions of the essay for students. We do not condone this. Admissions officers can tell when essays have been written or edited by adults and this can have severe consequences. We have excluded these services from our reviews.

Why are college application essays important?

Can a great college essay alone get you into Harvard?

No. You’ll need your grades, test scores, and extracurricular activities (as well as letters of recommendation and interview) to be outstanding.

But can a mediocre essay be the reason you didn’t get into Harvard?

Yes. There are thousands of amazingly-qualified students who graduate from high school each year. Great grades and test scores might be a prerequisite for admission to a competitive college, but they alone aren’t enough.

College essays are a key component of a student’s application . When done well, they transform a collection of numbers—GPA, class rank, SAT or ACT scores , number of AP classes taken, AP scores—into a glimpse of a real, individual person.

Essays do many things. Good college essays can highlight extracurricular achievements which otherwise would be overlooked in a sterile list. Strong essays often indicate the student’s future plans —how they plan to leave a mark on their college campus and on the world. They can shine a light on unique challenges that a student may have had to face on their journey.

College admissions officers only have a few minutes to spend on each application. College essays need to be original, interesting, and memorable . They need to grab the attention of the admissions officer and persuade them that this is the student out of hundreds or thousands of other similarly-qualified applicants who should be admitted.

College admissions essays are usually unlike any other kind of writing that students have done before. They’re a combination of memoir and marketing pitch, and they need to be creative but also highly strategic. That’s a tough assignment!

What’s more, students are left to figure this assignment out on their own. A thoughtful and generous high school English teacher may provide guidance or offer to read essays and give feedback, but these teachers are responsible for many students, and they’re (usually) not experts in admissions strategies.

There’s another reason college essays are especially important from 2024 on. After the recent Supreme Court decision, the application essay has become one of the main ways that you can communicate how your racial identity has affected your life.

In fact, the New York Times published an article about how important it can be for students to discuss race in their college application essays!

Why work with a college essay service?

You may want to consider a college essay service if:

You have no idea where to start in order to write your college application essays
You feel overwhelmed by all of the different ideas you have and don’t know what would be the most strategic for college admissions—and what topics to definitely avoid for college essays
You don’t know how to craft a compelling stor y
You’re not sure how to edit and refine what you’ve written
You have a hard time keeping yourself on track and want an external structure to hold you accountable
You’re tired of conflict between students and parents about college essays
You’re aiming at a competitive college (not just the Ivy League!) and know that you need your essays to be outstanding
Your grades, test scores, and extracurriculars aren’t exceptional, so you need your essay to make your essay stand out from the pack
You’re unfamiliar with the US college admissions process (a common situation for international students and first-generation families in the US)

Any of these are strong reasons to consider working with a college essay service!

It’s also worth remembering that a lot of the free advice on college’s website isn’t always very clear. For example, NYU’s admissions Senior Assistant Director of Admissions says that “There is no right or wrong way to answer as long as your answer is genuine to you.”

While that’s true, that doesn’t offer much guidance on how to actually write the essay!

Though many college applicants might not mention it, more and more students are using professional college application consultants. Research at the University of Chicago has shown that over a quarter of high-achieving seniors employed private specialists to help with the college application process.

In fact, according to NPR , some companies are even offering college admissions counseling to their top employees as an incentive–that’s just how important professional help can be in the current landscape of college admissions.

It’s important to note that a good college essay service will not write your college application essays for you . This is unethical and illegal. That’s not just coming from us: take it from a school like Princeton, whose website insists on the importance of writing your own application essays.

A good college essay service will guide you through each step of the process , teaching you how to self-reflect and write well while sharing insider insight about admissions strategy .

What makes a good college essay service?

We strongly believe that students need to write their own college essays , and we do not condone plagiarism or “buying” a college essay.

However, writing college application essays requires a completely new set of skills that is rarely taught in high school!

Writing a personal essay is much more creative than simply writing a good paper for English class. It requires a compelling narrative and a great deal of writing craft . A good essay service will teach how to do this kind of writing.

There are many college essay services that will provide only written feedback to students, usually in the form of comments added to an essay draft. (Remember, it’s important that students write their own essays, so avoid any college essay service that will make edits directly to an essay document .)

Written comments can be an effective component of good essay coaching. However, writing college essays is a deeply personal process , and it’s incredibly difficult to guide a student through the process of self-reflection, brainstorming, and planning purely through written comments.

In addition, a great college essay coach will teach students how to do this entire process of brainstorming, planning, outlining, writing, and revising . It’s difficult to learn why an essay coach is advising certain changes through written comments alone.

For these reasons, look for a college essay service with live, one-on-one services , not just written feedback. These days, it’s easy to work with the best college essay consultants in the country over Zoom!

Students need to reflect on their goals, their passions, and what drives them to be the person they are. This requires a great deal of self-awareness and self-analysis . An experienced college essay coach can help draw these ideas out of students through tested introspection techniques and brainstorming exercises .

On top of all of that, students need to be cognizant of which traits and accomplishments will be most appealing to colleges , and which stories will be cliche and boring. Personal statements and supplementary essays need to fit together to tell a cohesive story, and they need to work together with the rest of the student’s application (extracurriculars, grades, and other accomplishments).

In other words, there’s a great deal of strategy here! An experienced college essay service can help students decide how to present themselves in the best possible light .

Furthermore, most students don’t know how to edit effectively . A really top-notch college essay service will also teach students how to edit their own writing —how to reorder sections for better flow, cut unnecessary words to meet a word count, eliminate passive verbs, and make their writing vivid and exciting. Our students are routinely amazed by how transformative this step can be, and how much they learn by doing it together with the essay coach.

Finally, the best college essay services can also help students to make a writing plan and keep them on track , so that parents don’t have to be involved directly.

Ready to work on your college essays? Schedule a free 15- to 30-minute consultation with Jessica or one of our founders.

Best overall: PrepMaven’s tutors offer the highest quality at the best price. With three tiers of tutors, they make it easy to work with an Ivy League undergraduate for as little as $79/hr. Or, families can work with education professionals or Ivy League graduates from $150/hr. PrepMaven’s track record means that you can be sure every hour is being spent productively, so that you can expect real results from the work.

Best for individual consultants: College Essay Mentor. In theory, College Essay Mentor would offer an unparalleled level of individual attention and guidance: his website boasts of some very impressive results. You might find it hard to actually schedule with him, however, since he’s very selective about his clients.

Best for unlimited essay assistance: The College Essay Guy might not offer that personalized attention you get from live, face to face essay coaching, but they do offer unlimited essay editing for up to 10 schools (if you’re comfortable paying a hefty package price).

Best of the big platforms: College Vine will always be a bit of a gamble. Because it’s a tutor marketplace, your results (and costs) will really depend on how lucky you get with your consultant. From our research, however, many of their essay coaches look to have solid track records.

Ready to work on college essays with one of our experienced writing coaches? Schedule a free test prep consultation with Jessica (Director of Tutoring) or one of our founders to see what would be the best fit for your family.

It’s always best to start early and not wait until the last minute to write your college essays! Remember that essays can be used to earn scholarships as well as college admission, so a few months of writing now can pay off with up to $300,000 in tuition saved later.

We work with students at all stages of the writing process, from I-have-no-idea-what-to-write to final edits. To start working with an Ivy-League writing coach today, set up a quick free consultation with our team.

Schedule a free college essay consultation

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How to Write a College Essay | A Complete Guide & Examples

The college essay can make or break your application. It’s your chance to provide personal context, communicate your values and qualities, and set yourself apart from other students.

A standout essay has a few key ingredients:

A unique, personal topic
A compelling, well-structured narrative
A clear, creative writing style
Evidence of self-reflection and insight

To achieve this, it’s crucial to give yourself enough time for brainstorming, writing, revision, and feedback.

In this comprehensive guide, we walk you through every step in the process of writing a college admissions essay.

Why do you need a standout essay, start organizing early, choose a unique topic, outline your essay, start with a memorable introduction, write like an artist, craft a strong conclusion, revise and receive feedback, frequently asked questions.

While most of your application lists your academic achievements, your college admissions essay is your opportunity to share who you are and why you’d be a good addition to the university.

Your college admissions essay accounts for about 25% of your application’s total weight一and may account for even more with some colleges making the SAT and ACT tests optional. The college admissions essay may be the deciding factor in your application, especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurriculars.

What do colleges look for in an essay?

Admissions officers want to understand your background, personality, and values to get a fuller picture of you beyond your test scores and grades. Here’s what colleges look for in an essay :

Demonstrated values and qualities
Vulnerability and authenticity
Self-reflection and insight
Creative, clear, and concise writing skills

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

It’s a good idea to start organizing your college application timeline in the summer of your junior year to make your application process easier. This will give you ample time for essay brainstorming, writing, revision, and feedback.

While timelines will vary for each student, aim to spend at least 1–3 weeks brainstorming and writing your first draft and at least 2–4 weeks revising across multiple drafts. Remember to leave enough time for breaks in between each writing and editing stage.

Create an essay tracker sheet

If you’re applying to multiple schools, you will have to juggle writing several essays for each one. We recommend using an essay tracker spreadsheet to help you visualize and organize the following:

Deadlines and number of essays needed
Prompt overlap, allowing you to write one essay for similar prompts

You can build your own essay tracker using our free Google Sheets template.

College essay tracker template

Ideally, you should start brainstorming college essay topics the summer before your senior year. Keep in mind that it’s easier to write a standout essay with a unique topic.

If you want to write about a common essay topic, such as a sports injury or volunteer work overseas, think carefully about how you can make it unique and personal. You’ll need to demonstrate deep insight and write your story in an original way to differentiate it from similar essays.

What makes a good topic?

Meaningful and personal to you
Uncommon or has an unusual angle
Reveals something different from the rest of your application

Brainstorming questions

You should do a comprehensive brainstorm before choosing your topic. Here are a few questions to get started:

What are your top five values? What lived experiences demonstrate these values?
What adjectives would your friends and family use to describe you?
What challenges or failures have you faced and overcome? What lessons did you learn from them?
What makes you different from your classmates?
What are some objects that represent your identity, your community, your relationships, your passions, or your goals?
Whom do you admire most? Why?
What three people have significantly impacted your life? How did they influence you?

How to identify your topic

Here are two strategies for identifying a topic that demonstrates your values:

Start with your qualities : First, identify positive qualities about yourself; then, brainstorm stories that demonstrate these qualities.
Start with a story : Brainstorm a list of memorable life moments; then, identify a value shown in each story.

After choosing your topic, organize your ideas in an essay outline , which will help keep you focused while writing. Unlike a five-paragraph academic essay, there’s no set structure for a college admissions essay. You can take a more creative approach, using storytelling techniques to shape your essay.

Two common approaches are to structure your essay as a series of vignettes or as a single narrative.

Vignettes structure

The vignette, or montage, structure weaves together several stories united by a common theme. Each story should demonstrate one of your values or qualities and conclude with an insight or future outlook.

This structure gives the admissions officer glimpses into your personality, background, and identity, and shows how your qualities appear in different areas of your life.

Topic: Museum with a “five senses” exhibit of my experiences

Introduction: Tour guide introduces my museum and my “Making Sense of My Heritage” exhibit
Story: Racial discrimination with my eyes
Lesson: Using my writing to document truth
Story: Broadway musical interests
Lesson: Finding my voice
Story: Smells from family dinner table
Lesson: Appreciating home and family
Story: Washing dishes
Lesson: Finding moments of peace in busy schedule
Story: Biking with Ava
Lesson: Finding pleasure in job well done
Conclusion: Tour guide concludes tour, invites guest to come back for “fall College Collection,” featuring my search for identity and learning.

Single story structure

The single story, or narrative, structure uses a chronological narrative to show a student’s character development over time. Some narrative essays detail moments in a relatively brief event, while others narrate a longer journey spanning months or years.

Single story essays are effective if you have overcome a significant challenge or want to demonstrate personal development.

Topic: Sports injury helps me learn to be a better student and person

Situation: Football injury
Challenge: Friends distant, teachers don’t know how to help, football is gone for me
Turning point: Starting to like learning in Ms. Brady’s history class; meeting Christina and her friends
My reactions: Reading poetry; finding shared interest in poetry with Christina; spending more time studying and with people different from me
Insight: They taught me compassion and opened my eyes to a different lifestyle; even though I still can’t play football, I’m starting a new game

Brainstorm creative insights or story arcs

Regardless of your essay’s structure, try to craft a surprising story arc or original insights, especially if you’re writing about a common topic.

Never exaggerate or fabricate facts about yourself to seem interesting. However, try finding connections in your life that deviate from cliché storylines and lessons.

Common insight	Unique insight
Making an all-state team → outstanding achievement	Making an all-state team → counting the cost of saying “no” to other interests
Making a friend out of an enemy → finding common ground, forgiveness	Making a friend out of an enemy → confront toxic thinking and behavior in yourself
Choir tour → a chance to see a new part of the world	Choir tour → a chance to serve in leading younger students
Volunteering → learning to help my community and care about others	Volunteering → learning to be critical of insincere resume-building
Turning a friend in for using drugs → choosing the moral high ground	Turning a friend in for using drugs → realizing the hypocrisy of hiding your secrets

Admissions officers read thousands of essays each year, and they typically spend only a few minutes reading each one. To get your message across, your introduction , or hook, needs to grab the reader’s attention and compel them to read more..

Avoid starting your introduction with a famous quote, cliché, or reference to the essay itself (“While I sat down to write this essay…”).

While you can sometimes use dialogue or a meaningful quotation from a close family member or friend, make sure it encapsulates your essay’s overall theme.

Find an original, creative way of starting your essay using the following two methods.

Option 1: Start with an intriguing hook

Begin your essay with an unexpected statement to pique the reader’s curiosity and compel them to carefully read your essay. A mysterious introduction disarms the reader’s expectations and introduces questions that can only be answered by reading more.

Option 2: Start with vivid imagery

Illustrate a clear, detailed image to immediately transport your reader into your memory. You can start in the middle of an important scene or describe an object that conveys your essay’s theme.

A college application essay allows you to be creative in your style and tone. As you draft your essay, try to use interesting language to enliven your story and stand out .

Show, don’t tell

“Tell” in writing means to simply state a fact: “I am a basketball player.” “ Show ” in writing means to use details, examples, and vivid imagery to help the reader easily visualize your memory: “My heart races as I set up to shoot一two seconds, one second一and score a three-pointer!”

First, reflect on every detail of a specific image or scene to recall the most memorable aspects.

What are the most prominent images?
Are there any particular sounds, smells, or tastes associated with this memory?
What emotion or physical feeling did you have at that time?

Be vulnerable to create an emotional response

You don’t have to share a huge secret or traumatic story, but you should dig deep to express your honest feelings, thoughts, and experiences to evoke an emotional response. Showing vulnerability demonstrates humility and maturity. However, don’t exaggerate to gain sympathy.

Use appropriate style and tone

Make sure your essay has the right style and tone by following these guidelines:

Use a conversational yet respectful tone: less formal than academic writing, but more formal than texting your friends.
Prioritize using “I” statements to highlight your perspective.
Write within your vocabulary range to maintain an authentic voice.
Write concisely, and use the active voice to keep a fast pace.
Follow grammar rules (unless you have valid stylistic reasons for breaking them).

You should end your college essay with a deep insight or creative ending to leave the reader with a strong final impression. Your college admissions essay should avoid the following:

Summarizing what you already wrote
Stating your hope of being accepted to the school
Mentioning character traits that should have been illustrated in the essay, such as “I’m a hard worker”

Here are two strategies to craft a strong conclusion.

Option 1: Full circle, sandwich structure

The full circle, or sandwich, structure concludes the essay with an image, idea, or story mentioned in the introduction. This strategy gives the reader a strong sense of closure.

In the example below, the essay concludes by returning to the “museum” metaphor that the writer opened with.

Option 2: Revealing your insight

You can use the conclusion to show the insight you gained as a result of the experiences you’ve described. Revealing your main message at the end creates suspense and keeps the takeaway at the forefront of your reader’s mind.

Revise your essay before submitting it to check its content, style, and grammar. Get feedback from no more than two or three people.

It’s normal to go through several rounds of revision, but take breaks between each editing stage.

Also check out our college essay examples to see what does and doesn’t work in an essay and the kinds of changes you can make to improve yours.

Respect the word count

Most schools specify a word count for each essay , and you should stay within 10% of the upper limit.

Remain under the specified word count limit to show you can write concisely and follow directions. However, don’t write too little, which may imply that you are unwilling or unable to write a thoughtful and developed essay.

Check your content, style, and grammar

First, check big-picture issues of message, flow, and clarity.
Then, check for style and tone issues.
Finally, focus on eliminating grammar and punctuation errors.

Get feedback

Get feedback from 2–3 people who know you well, have good writing skills, and are familiar with college essays.

Teachers and guidance counselors can help you check your content, language, and tone.
Friends and family can check for authenticity.
An essay coach or editor has specialized knowledge of college admissions essays and can give objective expert feedback.

The checklist below helps you make sure your essay ticks all the boxes.

College admissions essay checklist

I’ve organized my essay prompts and created an essay writing schedule.

I’ve done a comprehensive brainstorm for essay topics.

I’ve selected a topic that’s meaningful to me and reveals something different from the rest of my application.

I’ve created an outline to guide my structure.

I’ve crafted an introduction containing vivid imagery or an intriguing hook that grabs the reader’s attention.

I’ve written my essay in a way that shows instead of telling.

I’ve shown positive traits and values in my essay.

I’ve demonstrated self-reflection and insight in my essay.

I’ve used appropriate style and tone .

I’ve concluded with an insight or a creative ending.

I’ve revised my essay , checking my overall message, flow, clarity, and grammar.

I’ve respected the word count , remaining within 10% of the upper word limit.

Congratulations!

It looks like your essay ticks all the boxes. A second pair of eyes can help you take it to the next level – Scribbr's essay coaches can help.

Colleges want to be able to differentiate students who seem similar on paper. In the college application essay , they’re looking for a way to understand each applicant’s unique personality and experiences.

Your college essay accounts for about 25% of your application’s weight. It may be the deciding factor in whether you’re accepted, especially for competitive schools where most applicants have exceptional grades, test scores, and extracurricular track records.

A standout college essay has several key ingredients:

A unique, personally meaningful topic
A memorable introduction with vivid imagery or an intriguing hook
Specific stories and language that show instead of telling
Vulnerability that’s authentic but not aimed at soliciting sympathy
Clear writing in an appropriate style and tone
A conclusion that offers deep insight or a creative ending

While timelines will differ depending on the student, plan on spending at least 1–3 weeks brainstorming and writing the first draft of your college admissions essay , and at least 2–4 weeks revising across multiple drafts. Don’t forget to save enough time for breaks between each writing and editing stage.

You should already begin thinking about your essay the summer before your senior year so that you have plenty of time to try out different topics and get feedback on what works.

Most college application portals specify a word count range for your essay, and you should stay within 10% of the upper limit to write a developed and thoughtful essay.

You should aim to stay under the specified word count limit to show you can follow directions and write concisely. However, don’t write too little, as it may seem like you are unwilling or unable to write a detailed and insightful narrative about yourself.

If no word count is specified, we advise keeping your essay between 400 and 600 words.

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Buying College Essays Is Now Easier Than Ever. But Buyer Beware

Tovia Smith

Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market for essays that students can buy and turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it. Angela Hsieh/NPR hide caption

Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market for essays that students can buy and turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it.

As the recent college admissions scandal is shedding light on how parents are cheating and bribing their children's way into college, schools are also focusing on how some students may be cheating their way through college. Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market that makes it easier than ever for students to buy essays written by others to turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it.

It's not hard to understand the temptation for students. The pressure is enormous, the stakes are high and, for some, writing at a college level is a huge leap.

"We didn't really have a format to follow, so I was kind of lost on what to do," says one college freshman, who struggled recently with an English assignment. One night, when she was feeling particularly overwhelmed, she tweeted her frustration.

"It was like, 'Someone, please help me write my essay!' " she recalls. She ended her tweet with a crying emoji. Within a few minutes, she had a half-dozen offers of help.

"I can write it for you," they tweeted back. "Send us the prompt!"

The student, who asked that her name not be used for fear of repercussions at school, chose one that asked for $10 per page, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

"For me, it was just that the work was piling up," she explains. "As soon as I finish some big assignment, I get assigned more things, more homework for math, more homework for English. Some papers have to be six or 10 pages long. ... And even though I do my best to manage, the deadlines come closer and closer, and it's just ... the pressure."

In the cat-and-mouse game of academic cheating, students these days know that if they plagiarize, they're likely to get caught by computer programs that automatically compare essays against a massive database of other writings. So now, buying an original essay can seem like a good workaround.

"Technically, I don't think it's cheating," the student says. "Because you're paying someone to write an essay, which they don't plagiarize, and they write everything on their own."

Her logic, of course, ignores the question of whether she's plagiarizing. When pressed, she begins to stammer.

"That's just a difficult question to answer," she says. "I don't know how to feel about that. It's kind of like a gray area. It's maybe on the edge, kind of?"

Besides she adds, she probably won't use all of it.

Other students justify essay buying as the only way to keep up. They figure that everyone is doing it one way or another — whether they're purchasing help online or getting it from family or friends.

"Oh yeah, collaboration at its finest," cracks Boston University freshman Grace Saathoff. While she says she would never do it herself, she's not really fazed by others doing it. She agrees with her friends that it has pretty much become socially acceptable.

"I have a friend who writes essays and sells them," says Danielle Delafuente, another Boston University freshman. "And my other friend buys them. He's just like, 'I can't handle it. I have five papers at once. I need her to do two of them, and I'll do the other three.' It's a time management thing."

The war on contract cheating

"It breaks my heart that this is where we're at," sighs Ashley Finley, senior adviser to the president for the Association of American Colleges and Universities. She says campuses are abuzz about how to curb the rise in what they call contract cheating. Obviously, students buying essays is not new, but Finley says that what used to be mostly limited to small-scale side hustles has mushroomed on the internet to become a global industry of so-called essay mills. Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but research suggests that up to 16 percent of students have paid someone to do their work and that the number is rising.

"Definitely, this is really getting more and more serious," Finley says. "It's part of the brave new world for sure."

The essay mills market aggressively online, with slickly produced videos inviting students to "Get instant help with your assignment" and imploring them: "Don't lag behind," "Join the majority" and "Don't worry, be happy."

"They're very crafty," says Tricia Bertram Gallant, director of the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California in San Diego and a board member of the International Center for Academic Integrity.

The companies are equally brazen offline — leafleting on campuses, posting flyers in toilet stalls and flying banners over Florida beaches during spring break. Companies have also been known to bait students with emails that look like they're from official college help centers. And they pay social media influencers to sing the praises of their services, and they post testimonials from people they say are happy customers.

"I hired a service to write my paper and I got a 90 on it!" gloats one. "Save your time, and have extra time to party!" advises another.

"It's very much a seduction," says Bertram Gallant. "So you can maybe see why students could get drawn into the contract cheating world."

YouTube has been cracking down on essay mills; it says it has pulled thousands of videos that violate its policies against promoting dishonest behavior.

But new videos constantly pop up, and their hard sell flies in the face of their small-print warnings that their essays should be used only as a guide, not a final product.

Several essay mills declined or didn't respond to requests to be interviewed by NPR. But one answered questions by email and offered up one of its writers to explain her role in the company, called EduBirdie.

"Yes, just like the little birdie that's there to help you in your education," explains April Short, a former grade school teacher from Australia who's now based in Philadelphia. She has been writing for a year and a half for the company, which bills itself as a "professional essay writing service for students who can't even."

Some students just want some "foundational research" to get started or a little "polish" to finish up, Short says. But the idea that many others may be taking a paper written completely by her and turning it in as their own doesn't keep her up at night.

"These kids are so time poor," she says, and they're "missing out on opportunities of travel and internships because they're studying and writing papers." Relieving students of some of that burden, she figures, allows them to become more "well-rounded."

"I don't necessarily think that being able to create an essay is going to be a defining factor in a very long career, so it's not something that bothers me," says Short. Indeed, she thinks students who hire writers are demonstrating resourcefulness and creativity. "I actually applaud students that look for options to get the job done and get it done well," she says.

"This just shows you the extent of our ability to rationalize all kinds of bad things we do," sighs Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. The rise in contract cheating is especially worrisome, he says, because when it comes to dishonest behavior, more begets more. As he puts it, it's not just about "a few bad apples."

Felicity Huffman And 12 Other Parents To Plead Guilty In College Cheating Scandal

"Instead, what we have is a lot ... of blemished apples, and we take our cues for our behavior from the social world around us," he says. "We know officially what is right and what's wrong. But really what's driving our behavior is what we see others around us doing" or, Ariely adds, what we perceive them to be doing. So even the proliferation of advertising for essays mills can have a pernicious effect, he says, by fueling the perception that "everyone's doing it."

A few nations have recently proposed or passed laws outlawing essay mills, and more than a dozen U.S. states have laws on the books against them. But prosecuting essay mills, which are often based overseas in Pakistan, Kenya and Ukraine, for example, is complicated. And most educators are loath to criminalize students' behavior.

"Yes, they're serious mistakes. They're egregious mistakes," says Cath Ellis, an associate dean and integrity officer at the University of New South Wales, where students were among the hundreds alleged to have bought essays in a massive scandal in Australia in 2014.

"But we're educational institutions," she adds. "We've got to give students the opportunity to learn from these mistakes. That's our responsibility. And that's better in our hands than in the hands of the police and the courts."

Staying one step ahead

In the war on contract cheating, some schools see new technology as their best weapon and their best shot to stay one step ahead of unscrupulous students. The company that makes the Turnitin plagiarism detection software has just upped its game with a new program called Authorship Investigate.

The software first inspects a document's metadata, like when it was created, by whom it was created and how many times it was reopened and re-edited. Turnitin's vice president for product management, Bill Loller, says sometimes it's as simple as looking at the document's name. Essay mills typically name their documents something like "Order Number 123," and students have been known to actually submit it that way. "You would be amazed at how frequently that happens," says Loller.

Using cutting-edge linguistic forensics, the software also evaluates the level of writing and its style.

"Think of it as a writing fingerprint," Loller says. The software looks at hundreds of telltale characteristics of an essay, like whether the author double spaces after a period or writes with Oxford commas or semicolons. It all gets instantly compared against a student's other work, and, Loller says, suspicions can be confirmed — or alleviated — in minutes.

"At the end of the day, you get to a really good determination on whether the student wrote what they submitted or not," he says, "and you get it really quickly."

Coventry University in the U.K. has been testing out a beta version of the software, and Irene Glendinning, the school's academic manager for student experience, agrees that the software has the potential to give schools a leg up on cheating students. After the software is officially adopted, "we'll see a spike in the number of cases we find, and we'll have a very hard few years," she says. "But then the message will get through to students that we've got the tools now to find these things out." Then, Glendinning hopes, students might consider contract cheating to be as risky as plagiarizing.

In the meantime, schools are trying to spread the word that buying essays is risky in other ways as well.

Professor Ariely says that when he posed as a student and ordered papers from several companies, much of it was "gibberish" and about a third of it was actually plagiarized.

Even worse, when he complained to the company and demanded his money back, they resorted to blackmail. Still believing him to be a student, the company threatened to tell his school he was cheating. Others say companies have also attempted to shake down students for more money, threatening to rat them out if they didn't pay up.

The lesson, Ariely says, is "buyer beware."

But ultimately, experts say, many desperate students may not be deterred by the risks — whether from shady businesses or from new technology.

Bertram Gallant, of UC San Diego, says the right way to dissuade students from buying essays is to remind them why it's wrong.

"If we engage in a technological arms race with the students, we won't win," she says. "What are we going to do when Google glasses start to look like regular glasses and a student wears them into an exam? Are we going to tell them they can't wear their glasses because we're afraid they might be sending the exam out to someone else who is sending them back the answers?"

The solution, Bertram Gallant says, has to be about "creating a culture where integrity and ethics matter" and where education is valued more than grades. Only then will students believe that cheating on essays is only cheating themselves.

Ultimate Guide to Writing Your College Essay

Tips for writing an effective college essay.

College admissions essays are an important part of your college application and gives you the chance to show colleges and universities your character and experiences. This guide will give you tips to write an effective college essay.

Want free help with your college essay?

UPchieve connects you with knowledgeable and friendly college advisors—online, 24/7, and completely free. Get 1:1 help brainstorming topics, outlining your essay, revising a draft, or editing grammar.

Writing a strong college admissions essay

Learn about the elements of a solid admissions essay.

Avoiding common admissions essay mistakes

Learn some of the most common mistakes made on college essays

Brainstorming tips for your college essay

Stuck on what to write your college essay about? Here are some exercises to help you get started.

How formal should the tone of your college essay be?

Learn how formal your college essay should be and get tips on how to bring out your natural voice.

Taking your college essay to the next level

Hear an admissions expert discuss the appropriate level of depth necessary in your college essay.

Student Stories

Student Story: Admissions essay about a formative experience

Get the perspective of a current college student on how he approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about personal identity

Get the perspective of a current college student on how she approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about community impact

Student story: admissions essay about a past mistake, how to write a college application essay, tips for writing an effective application essay, sample college essay 1 with feedback, sample college essay 2 with feedback.

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Sat / act prep online guides and tips, getting college essay help: important do's and don’ts.

College Essays

If you grow up to be a professional writer, everything you write will first go through an editor before being published. This is because the process of writing is really a process of re-writing —of rethinking and reexamining your work, usually with the help of someone else. So what does this mean for your student writing? And in particular, what does it mean for very important, but nonprofessional writing like your college essay? Should you ask your parents to look at your essay? Pay for an essay service?

If you are wondering what kind of help you can, and should, get with your personal statement, you've come to the right place! In this article, I'll talk about what kind of writing help is useful, ethical, and even expected for your college admission essay . I'll also point out who would make a good editor, what the differences between editing and proofreading are, what to expect from a good editor, and how to spot and stay away from a bad one.

What Kind of Help for Your Essay Can You Get?

What's Good Editing?

What should an editor do for you, what kind of editing should you avoid, proofreading, what's good proofreading, what kind of proofreading should you avoid.

What Do Colleges Think Of You Getting Help With Your Essay?

Who Can/Should Help You?

Advice for editors.

Should You Pay Money For Essay Editing?

The Bottom Line

What's next, what kind of help with your essay can you get.

Rather than talking in general terms about "help," let's first clarify the two different ways that someone else can improve your writing . There is editing, which is the more intensive kind of assistance that you can use throughout the whole process. And then there's proofreading, which is the last step of really polishing your final product.

Let me go into some more detail about editing and proofreading, and then explain how good editors and proofreaders can help you."

Editing is helping the author (in this case, you) go from a rough draft to a finished work . Editing is the process of asking questions about what you're saying, how you're saying it, and how you're organizing your ideas. But not all editing is good editing . In fact, it's very easy for an editor to cross the line from supportive to overbearing and over-involved.

Ability to clarify assignments. A good editor is usually a good writer, and certainly has to be a good reader. For example, in this case, a good editor should make sure you understand the actual essay prompt you're supposed to be answering.

Open-endedness. Good editing is all about asking questions about your ideas and work, but without providing answers. It's about letting you stick to your story and message, and doesn't alter your point of view.

Think of an editor as a great travel guide. It can show you the many different places your trip could take you. It should explain any parts of the trip that could derail your trip or confuse the traveler. But it never dictates your path, never forces you to go somewhere you don't want to go, and never ignores your interests so that the trip no longer seems like it's your own. So what should good editors do?

Help Brainstorm Topics

Sometimes it's easier to bounce thoughts off of someone else. This doesn't mean that your editor gets to come up with ideas, but they can certainly respond to the various topic options you've come up with. This way, you're less likely to write about the most boring of your ideas, or to write about something that isn't actually important to you.

If you're wondering how to come up with options for your editor to consider, check out our guide to brainstorming topics for your college essay .

Help Revise Your Drafts

Here, your editor can't upset the delicate balance of not intervening too much or too little. It's tricky, but a great way to think about it is to remember: editing is about asking questions, not giving answers .

Revision questions should point out:

Places where more detail or more description would help the reader connect with your essay
Places where structure and logic don't flow, losing the reader's attention
Places where there aren't transitions between paragraphs, confusing the reader
Moments where your narrative or the arguments you're making are unclear

But pointing to potential problems is not the same as actually rewriting—editors let authors fix the problems themselves.

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Bad editing is usually very heavy-handed editing. Instead of helping you find your best voice and ideas, a bad editor changes your writing into their own vision.

You may be dealing with a bad editor if they:

Add material (examples, descriptions) that doesn't come from you
Use a thesaurus to make your college essay sound "more mature"
Add meaning or insight to the essay that doesn't come from you
Tell you what to say and how to say it
Write sentences, phrases, and paragraphs for you
Change your voice in the essay so it no longer sounds like it was written by a teenager

Colleges can tell the difference between a 17-year-old's writing and a 50-year-old's writing. Not only that, they have access to your SAT or ACT Writing section, so they can compare your essay to something else you wrote. Writing that's a little more polished is great and expected. But a totally different voice and style will raise questions.

Where's the Line Between Helpful Editing and Unethical Over-Editing?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether your college essay editor is doing the right thing. Here are some guidelines for staying on the ethical side of the line.

An editor should say that the opening paragraph is kind of boring, and explain what exactly is making it drag. But it's overstepping for an editor to tell you exactly how to change it.
An editor should point out where your prose is unclear or vague. But it's completely inappropriate for the editor to rewrite that section of your essay.
An editor should let you know that a section is light on detail or description. But giving you similes and metaphors to beef up that description is a no-go.

Proofreading (also called copy-editing) is checking for errors in the last draft of a written work. It happens at the end of the process and is meant as the final polishing touch. Proofreading is meticulous and detail-oriented, focusing on small corrections. It sands off all the surface rough spots that could alienate the reader.

Because proofreading is usually concerned with making fixes on the word or sentence level, this is the only process where someone else can actually add to or take away things from your essay . This is because what they are adding or taking away tends to be one or two misplaced letters.

Laser focus. Proofreading is all about the tiny details, so the ability to really concentrate on finding small slip-ups is a must.

Excellent grammar and spelling skills. Proofreaders need to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Good proofreaders should correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. They should put foreign words in italics and surround quotations with quotation marks. They should check that you used the correct college's name, and that you adhered to any formatting requirements (name and date at the top of the page, uniform font and size, uniform spacing).

Limited interference. A proofreader needs to make sure that you followed any word limits. But if cuts need to be made to shorten the essay, that's your job and not the proofreader's.

A bad proofreader either tries to turn into an editor, or just lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job.

Some signs that you're working with a bad proofreader are:

If they suggest making major changes to the final draft of your essay. Proofreading happens when editing is already finished.
If they aren't particularly good at spelling, or don't know grammar, or aren't detail-oriented enough to find someone else's small mistakes.
If they start swapping out your words for fancier-sounding synonyms, or changing the voice and sound of your essay in other ways. A proofreader is there to check for errors, not to take the 17-year-old out of your writing.

What Do Colleges Think of Your Getting Help With Your Essay?

Admissions officers agree: light editing and proofreading are good—even required ! But they also want to make sure you're the one doing the work on your essay. They want essays with stories, voice, and themes that come from you. They want to see work that reflects your actual writing ability, and that focuses on what you find important.

On the Importance of Editing

Get feedback. Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College )

Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. This exercise reveals flaws in the essay's flow, highlights grammatical errors and helps you ensure that you are communicating the exact message you intended. ( Dickinson College )

On the Value of Proofreading

Share your essays with at least one or two people who know you well—such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or friend—and ask for feedback. Remember that you ultimately have control over your essays, and your essays should retain your own voice, but others may be able to catch mistakes that you missed and help suggest areas to cut if you are over the word limit. ( Yale University )

Proofread and then ask someone else to proofread for you. Although we want substance, we also want to be able to see that you can write a paper for our professors and avoid careless mistakes that would drive them crazy. ( Oberlin College )

On Watching Out for Too Much Outside Influence

Limit the number of people who review your essay. Too much input usually means your voice is lost in the writing style. ( Carleton College )

Ask for input (but not too much). Your parents, friends, guidance counselors, coaches, and teachers are great people to bounce ideas off of for your essay. They know how unique and spectacular you are, and they can help you decide how to articulate it. Keep in mind, however, that a 45-year-old lawyer writes quite differently from an 18-year-old student, so if your dad ends up writing the bulk of your essay, we're probably going to notice. ( Vanderbilt University )

Now let's talk about some potential people to approach for your college essay editing and proofreading needs. It's best to start close to home and slowly expand outward. Not only are your family and friends more invested in your success than strangers, but they also have a better handle on your interests and personality. This knowledge is key for judging whether your essay is expressing your true self.

Parents or Close Relatives

Your family may be full of potentially excellent editors! Parents are deeply committed to your well-being, and family members know you and your life well enough to offer details or incidents that can be included in your essay. On the other hand, the rewriting process necessarily involves criticism, which is sometimes hard to hear from someone very close to you.

A parent or close family member is a great choice for an editor if you can answer "yes" to the following questions. Is your parent or close relative a good writer or reader? Do you have a relationship where editing your essay won't create conflict? Are you able to constructively listen to criticism and suggestion from the parent?

One suggestion for defusing face-to-face discussions is to try working on the essay over email. Send your parent a draft, have them write you back some comments, and then you can pick which of their suggestions you want to use and which to discard.

Teachers or Tutors

A humanities teacher that you have a good relationship with is a great choice. I am purposefully saying humanities, and not just English, because teachers of Philosophy, History, Anthropology, and any other classes where you do a lot of writing, are all used to reviewing student work.

Moreover, any teacher or tutor that has been working with you for some time, knows you very well and can vet the essay to make sure it "sounds like you."

If your teacher or tutor has some experience with what college essays are supposed to be like, ask them to be your editor. If not, then ask whether they have time to proofread your final draft.

Guidance or College Counselor at Your School

The best thing about asking your counselor to edit your work is that this is their job. This means that they have a very good sense of what colleges are looking for in an application essay.

At the same time, school counselors tend to have relationships with admissions officers in many colleges, which again gives them insight into what works and which college is focused on what aspect of the application.

Unfortunately, in many schools the guidance counselor tends to be way overextended. If your ratio is 300 students to 1 college counselor, you're unlikely to get that person's undivided attention and focus. It is still useful to ask them for general advice about your potential topics, but don't expect them to be able to stay with your essay from first draft to final version.

Friends, Siblings, or Classmates

Although they most likely don't have much experience with what colleges are hoping to see, your peers are excellent sources for checking that your essay is you .

Friends and siblings are perfect for the read-aloud edit. Read your essay to them so they can listen for words and phrases that are stilted, pompous, or phrases that just don't sound like you.

You can even trade essays and give helpful advice on each other's work.

If your editor hasn't worked with college admissions essays very much, no worries! Any astute and attentive reader can still greatly help with your process. But, as in all things, beginners do better with some preparation.

First, your editor should read our advice about how to write a college essay introduction , how to spot and fix a bad college essay , and get a sense of what other students have written by going through some admissions essays that worked .

Then, as they read your essay, they can work through the following series of questions that will help them to guide you.

Introduction Questions

Is the first sentence a killer opening line? Why or why not?
Does the introduction hook the reader? Does it have a colorful, detailed, and interesting narrative? Or does it propose a compelling or surprising idea?
Can you feel the author's voice in the introduction, or is the tone dry, dull, or overly formal? Show the places where the voice comes through.

Essay Body Questions

Does the essay have a through-line? Is it built around a central argument, thought, idea, or focus? Can you put this idea into your own words?
How is the essay organized? By logical progression? Chronologically? Do you feel order when you read it, or are there moments where you are confused or lose the thread of the essay?
Does the essay have both narratives about the author's life and explanations and insight into what these stories reveal about the author's character, personality, goals, or dreams? If not, which is missing?
Does the essay flow? Are there smooth transitions/clever links between paragraphs? Between the narrative and moments of insight?

Reader Response Questions

Does the writer's personality come through? Do we know what the speaker cares about? Do we get a sense of "who he or she is"?
Where did you feel most connected to the essay? Which parts of the essay gave you a "you are there" sensation by invoking your senses? What moments could you picture in your head well?
Where are the details and examples vague and not specific enough?
Did you get an "a-ha!" feeling anywhere in the essay? Is there a moment of insight that connected all the dots for you? Is there a good reveal or "twist" anywhere in the essay?
What are the strengths of this essay? What needs the most improvement?

Should You Pay Money for Essay Editing?

One alternative to asking someone you know to help you with your college essay is the paid editor route. There are two different ways to pay for essay help: a private essay coach or a less personal editing service , like the many proliferating on the internet.

My advice is to think of these options as a last resort rather than your go-to first choice. I'll first go through the reasons why. Then, if you do decide to go with a paid editor, I'll help you decide between a coach and a service.

When to Consider a Paid Editor

In general, I think hiring someone to work on your essay makes a lot of sense if none of the people I discussed above are a possibility for you.

If you can't ask your parents. For example, if your parents aren't good writers, or if English isn't their first language. Or if you think getting your parents to help is going create unnecessary extra conflict in your relationship with them (applying to college is stressful as it is!)

If you can't ask your teacher or tutor. Maybe you don't have a trusted teacher or tutor that has time to look over your essay with focus. Or, for instance, your favorite humanities teacher has very limited experience with college essays and so won't know what admissions officers want to see.

If you can't ask your guidance counselor. This could be because your guidance counselor is way overwhelmed with other students.

If you can't share your essay with those who know you. It might be that your essay is on a very personal topic that you're unwilling to share with parents, teachers, or peers. Just make sure it doesn't fall into one of the bad-idea topics in our article on bad college essays .

If the cost isn't a consideration. Many of these services are quite expensive, and private coaches even more so. If you have finite resources, I'd say that hiring an SAT or ACT tutor (whether it's PrepScholar or someone else) is better way to spend your money . This is because there's no guarantee that a slightly better essay will sufficiently elevate the rest of your application, but a significantly higher SAT score will definitely raise your applicant profile much more.

Should You Hire an Essay Coach?

On the plus side, essay coaches have read dozens or even hundreds of college essays, so they have experience with the format. Also, because you'll be working closely with a specific person, it's more personal than sending your essay to a service, which will know even less about you.

But, on the minus side, you'll still be bouncing ideas off of someone who doesn't know that much about you . In general, if you can adequately get the help from someone you know, there is no advantage to paying someone to help you.

If you do decide to hire a coach, ask your school counselor, or older students that have used the service for recommendations. If you can't afford the coach's fees, ask whether they can work on a sliding scale —many do. And finally, beware those who guarantee admission to your school of choice—essay coaches don't have any special magic that can back up those promises.

Should You Send Your Essay to a Service?

On the plus side, essay editing services provide a similar product to essay coaches, and they cost significantly less . If you have some assurance that you'll be working with a good editor, the lack of face-to-face interaction won't prevent great results.

On the minus side, however, it can be difficult to gauge the quality of the service before working with them . If they are churning through many application essays without getting to know the students they are helping, you could end up with an over-edited essay that sounds just like everyone else's. In the worst case scenario, an unscrupulous service could send you back a plagiarized essay.

Getting recommendations from friends or a school counselor for reputable services is key to avoiding heavy-handed editing that writes essays for you or does too much to change your essay. Including a badly-edited essay like this in your application could cause problems if there are inconsistencies. For example, in interviews it might be clear you didn't write the essay, or the skill of the essay might not be reflected in your schoolwork and test scores.

Should You Buy an Essay Written by Someone Else?

Let me elaborate. There are super sketchy places on the internet where you can simply buy a pre-written essay. Don't do this!

For one thing, you'll be lying on an official, signed document. All college applications make you sign a statement saying something like this:

I certify that all information submitted in the admission process—including the application, the personal essay, any supplements, and any other supporting materials—is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented... I understand that I may be subject to a range of possible disciplinary actions, including admission revocation, expulsion, or revocation of course credit, grades, and degree, should the information I have certified be false. (From the Common Application )

For another thing, if your academic record doesn't match the essay's quality, the admissions officer will start thinking your whole application is riddled with lies.

Admission officers have full access to your writing portion of the SAT or ACT so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home. They can tell if these were written by different people. Not only that, but there are now a number of search engines that faculty and admission officers can use to see if an essay contains strings of words that have appeared in other essays—you have no guarantee that the essay you bought wasn't also bought by 50 other students.

You should get college essay help with both editing and proofreading
A good editor will ask questions about your idea, logic, and structure, and will point out places where clarity is needed
A good editor will absolutely not answer these questions, give you their own ideas, or write the essay or parts of the essay for you
A good proofreader will find typos and check your formatting
All of them agree that getting light editing and proofreading is necessary
Parents, teachers, guidance or college counselor, and peers or siblings
If you can't ask any of those, you can pay for college essay help, but watch out for services or coaches who over-edit you work
Don't buy a pre-written essay! Colleges can tell, and it'll make your whole application sound false.

Ready to start working on your essay? Check out our explanation of the point of the personal essay and the role it plays on your applications and then explore our step-by-step guide to writing a great college essay .

Using the Common Application for your college applications? We have an excellent guide to the Common App essay prompts and useful advice on how to pick the Common App prompt that's right for you . Wondering how other people tackled these prompts? Then work through our roundup of over 130 real college essay examples published by colleges .

Stressed about whether to take the SAT again before submitting your application? Let us help you decide how many times to take this test . If you choose to go for it, we have the ultimate guide to studying for the SAT to give you the ins and outs of the best ways to study.

Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points? We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download them for free now:

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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When you think of essay writing, the first thing that comes to mind is those dreadful school papers. Professionals also use essays.

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Our essay writing service works with top American writers who specialize in many different types of essays, including descriptive, narrative, argumentative, comparative, and more. Ultius filters all writers using strict criteria and only selects the top six percent. All writers hold college degrees and have experience using various styles, including MLA, Chicago, APA and more!

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Selecting the best “voice” depends on your audience and type of essay. Descriptive essays are more casual and targets audiences with little to no knowledge of the topic. Argumentative essays are more formal and assumes the audience has at least a basic understanding of the topic. If you are not sure of the audience or essay type as you buy essay papers, talk to your writer. They have experience writing all essay types and will know the best voice to write your project.

Most clients are required to use some type of style guide. Certain disciplines and industries use specific citation styles. Journalists use AP and Chicago style. Lawyers use the Blue Book, and Psychologists use APA. MLA style is the most commonly use style guide for writing essays. If your assignment doesn’t include a specific style, your writer will use MLA or the appropriate style for your topic. Make sure to talk with your writer about these concerns before starting on the project.

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Ultius has a proven track record of providing world class custom writing projects for all kinds of customers who choose to buy essays online. We work with All-American writers who have experience creating several essay formats such as comparative, creative, narrative, and argumentative. Here are just a few examples from our company blog.

Our nation’s political parties argue and create more problems than they solve. These arguments cause a political divide among the people and government. Each action and legislation is heatedly debated in Congress, presidents threaten vetoes, and compromise seldom works. Will the nation come together and agree? Or is this division necessary for the crucial checks and balances? This sample political essay explores the political divide in America.

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These are only a few examples of work our writers have created. When you buy essay writing services, you can count on receiving something of similar or higher quality. Ultius works with writers experienced in writing various project level papers, incorporating all major citations styles, and researching advanced topics. Our writers have tackled complex projects ranging from doctoral level research to more informal literature essays.

Writing your own essay? Here are some key components

Most essays will always have an introduction, a main body, and a conclusion

Constructing an essay is simple. The organization is straightforward and rarely deviates from the following structure. The first section is the introduction. Introductions tell your reader the topics, what type of essay they are reading, and provides a brief description of the organization.

Your main body is divided into sections that explore your subtopics, arguments, and evidence. The conclusion is simply a summary of content explored, why it’s important, and a call to action, if needed, followed by your works cited page to show your research. Whether you choose to buy an essay through Ultius or complete it yourself, keeping these simple requirements in mind will help secure your success.

1 Essays will almost always start with an introduction

Your introduction is a preview of what readers can expect to hear in your essay

Every essay starts with a strong introduction . Introductions tell the reader what to expect, define the hypothesis, and presents the basis for the argument. Readers use the introduction to determine whether the content is worth reading.

How to write a strong essay introduction | Ultius

A strong introduction should also:

Define the hypothesis or topic
Tell the reader what type of essay
Introduce the argument or point of view

Introductions are typically one paragraph long, but longer essays may use two paragraphs. Ask your professor or instructor if you’re not sure or feel free to confer with your expert writer if you decide to buy an essay through Ultius.

2 What makes up the main body of your essay?

The body is where you’ll do the majority of your writing, and convey any points you want to make

The largest section is the body and contains the main content. Breaking the main ideas into five parts helps you keep a clear and concise pattern and prevents random content development. Each section includes two paragraphs, one for the argument or subtopic and one for the evidence or explanation.

Uses five sections
Includes evidence and/or explanation
Follows introductions organization

The main body needs to incorporate all points defined in the introduction and evidence or explanations to complete your thoughts. The end of the second paragraph should clearly define an end to the subtopic or argument.

3 The conclusion is the closing to your essay

Your conclusion hammers home and restates the main point you’re trying to make in your essay

A conclusion is a summary of the main content. It revisits the main points and shows the reader their importance. While argumentative essays show how it impacts the reader, comparative essays for college point out the pros and cons. Other essay types may use a call to action.

Summarizes main points
Shows the importance
May include a Call to Action

Conclusions almost never go over one paragraph, with some exceptions based on specific requirements.

Unlike the introduction, you do not have to include every single key point.

Roughly eight sentences are more than enough to summarize the content and drive your message home.

4 You’ll need a references/work cited page to show your research

How you list your references and works cited depends on the type of essay you’re writing

Every essay includes a reference or works cited page. This section provides a detailed list of all outside sources. All works cited, and reference pages include the author’s name, title and section, publishing information and date, the date you accessed the information, and URL. Anyone who chooses Ultius when they buy an essay online receives this page, properly formatted, for free.

Always include reference or works cited page
The list goes at the end of your essay
Organize according to the style guide

While all lists include the above information, each style guide uses a different organization and structure. Some styles initialize the names. Others may require footnotes and endnotes.

Writing your essay

Before you do the bulk of the writing, a quick outline can help to make your essay flow smoothly

All writing projects start with an outline, and essays are no different. They help you organize the essay and prevent redundancies and random thoughts. Outlines also help with research by pointing you in one direction and preventing wasted time evaluating unnecessary information.

Essay writing follows five stages – outline, introduction, body, conclusion, and works cited page. It is better to start writing the body and conclusion before the introduction. Even if you buy an essay from Ultius, your writer will follow this same basic structure.

Step 1: Outline your essay

A good outline can make sure you cover the points you need to, and keep your essay on track

Outlines act like a roadmap and help structure your ideas. Create an enumerated list and organize it into three main sections – introduction, body, and conclusion. Start filling in the main body first.

Let’s look at a five-point example. Start with the first argument and list your reasons for the argument.

The next subsection will include your research and evidence to back up your argument. Each argument will follow this structure.

The introduction section lists each argument, why it is important, and your thesis statement.

Step 2: Writing your introduction

The main purpose of an introduction is to give the reader a brief overview of the topic at hand

Introductions preview the content. Break it into three parts. Start with your hypothesis and thesis statement. This tells the reader what the essay is about and how you plan to prove it. The next section is a brief explanation of your main points and why they are important.

Let’s look at a purchased descriptive essay you might review. Use the thesis statement to tell the reader what you are describing and why it is important. Follow with a brief explanation of each element being described and how it is beneficial to the reader. It is critical that this section of your paper is strong, whether you write it yourself or choose to buy essays through a platform like Ultius, because this is your first and best chance to capture your reader’s attention.

Each paragraph is roughly six to eight sentences long. MLA citation style is the most common essay style.

Step 3: Writing your main body

Reference your outline to make sure your essay covers everything you need it to

The main body is the largest and most detailed section. Divide your body into two paragraphs for each main point. The first paragraph will describe your thoughts and the next will either provide evidence, explain why it is important, or describe the point in more detail. Executing this structure correctly can be challenging and one great reason that many choose to buy essays from Ultius.

Use two paragraphs for each point
First paragraph explains the point
Second paragraph prove the point

Comparative essays start by explaining the difference in the first paragraph. The second paragraph explains why it is different. Each similarity or difference you want to describe will have two paragraphs.

Step 4: Writing your conclusion

Restate the key points and possible solutions/outcomes from your main body

Your conclusion is similar to the introduction but doesn’t copy it. While the introduction explains what is to come, the conclusion drives home the reason.

Three Key Principles When Writing Essay Conclusions | Ultius

Start by summarizing the main body. Only include the most important parts. You do not have to include the evidence or explanations here.

Conclusions are not meant to prove your point but to show its importance, and to give the reader something to think about. This is an important distinction that Ultius writers understand and a subtlety you can count on when you buy essays through us.

Most conclusions include an impact statement. This shows your reader how they are affected by the items you discussed. You may want to follow with a call to action urging them to take a next step.

Step 5: Writing your work cited/references

Depending on the type of essay you’re writing, you may need a works cited page, a bibliography, or a reference page

One of the most important things to avoid is plagiarism. Using in-text citations and a works cited or reference page in your essay helps prevent plagiarism. One solution is incorporating in-text citations as you write the essay. Being sure of originality and correct citations is one of the major reasons that many choose to buy their essay papers from Ultius.

Example of an MLA style Works Cited page.

Your final writing step is creating the actual works cited or reference page. Use the citation style guide assigned or the one typically used in your field.

If you are uncertain which citation style to use, ask your professor or instructor which style is required.

If you are feeling overwhelmed by all the information presented, consider connecting with a professional writer on the Ultius platform and get 1-on-1 help. We're available 24/7 whenever you are ready to buy an essay online to save time completing your own work.

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Should you buy a university essay?

(Last updated: 18 March 2020)

Since 2006, Oxbridge Essays has been the UK’s leading paid essay-writing and dissertation service

We have helped 10,000s of undergraduate, Masters and PhD students to maximise their grades in essays, dissertations, model-exam answers, applications and other materials. If you would like a free chat about your project with one of our UK staff, then please just reach out on one of the methods below.

Every now and again the UK media whips up a storm about the essay writing industry. For example, BBC Education Correspondent Reeta Chakrabati's recent piece for BBC News. A few months earlier The Independent was gleefully parading the headline 45000 Students Cheating at Britain's Universities.

The media and the British public have, in recent years, developed a jaundiced view of the education system. The media and the man in the street appears to believe that the system is going to hell in a handcart: standards are crumbling; qualifications are worthless; educational outcomes are poor in comparison with other countries.

This is a particularly British attitude. The fact is that the British education system is admired throughout the world. Students compete for scholarships, or general entrance places at our prestigious centres of learning, and we export our public examination system around the world. Students in Singapore study for British 'O' Levels (remember them?) awarded by Cambridge.

The media have to write about something, and 'falling standards' is to the mass media what a conversation about the weather is to gossiping neighbours. It's a perennial favourite. The essay writing industry and the practice of buying essays are not bringing about the collapse of academic civilization.

But not everyone can afford to buy an essay...

The other angle the media like to pursue in educational matters is the matter of equality. The seasoned trope goes something like this:

Everyone should be equally entitled to follow whatever academic dreams they wish to pursue. The state education system, and the application of a standards-based approach to teaching and learning are there to ensure a level playing field for all. Therefore anything that 'queers the pitch' is morally objectionable.

We haven't traced the origins of this way of thinking. We suspect it came to the fore in the days of New Labour, but it may go back further still. The private school system is tolerated because they follow the same curriculum as state schools, so in theory the only difference between the education you receive at a British Public school and a state school is that it costs a pretty penny to sit in rather nicer surroundings. This is just a matter of choice (which government and media alike tell us is a Good Thing). However, when it goes further than that, the media gets a bit twitchy.

Of course, it does go further than that: students from families who can afford to not only go to a good private school, but be sent off for summer schools, attend crammer colleges and have private tutors to help them throughout the term are inevitably going to do better than those who can't.

But economic inequality isn't morally wrong or practicably avoidable. Not everyone can afford to buy a Ferrari, or to give their daughter a pony or have a boat moored on the south coast, or... well, the list goes on. The fact is, the 'one-size-fits-all' education is fine for a large proportion of the population. But for those who want something better for themselves or their children the marketplace has always offered a range of options.

Buying exemplary essays from an established essay writing company which are written by professional academic writers with impeccable credentials is unashamedly aimed at those discerning individuals. Just as being sent to a private tutor is not going to magically afford the student excellent results with no effort, buying a model essay is just the start of the story. That essay needs to be closely examined and analysed. How does the writer approach the question? How do they handle the essay form? How do they articulate the main arguments and conclusion? How do to they synthesise other people's arguments? These are all skills for the budding essay writer to learn, and the best way is to learn from a master.

So, should you buy a university essay?

If you will be taking a subject at university that requires you to write essays, you need to acquire a good essay-writing technique. We can't think of a better way to get started than to spend some time studying a model essay. The real question is 'Can you afford not to buy a university essay?'.

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15% of students admit to buying essays. What can universities do about it?

Sessional Academic in English, Australian Catholic University

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New research on plagiarism at university has revealed students are surprisingly unconcerned about a practice known as “contract cheating”.

The term “contract cheating” was coined in 2006 , and describes students paying for completed assessments. At that time, concerns over the outsourcing of assessments were in their infancy, but today, contract cheating is big business.

In 2017 alone, the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported more than 20,000 students had bought professionally written essays from the country’s two largest essay-writing services.

According to a 2018 study , as many as 31 million university students worldwide are paying third parties to complete their assessments. This staggering figure was drawn by reviewing 65 studies on contract cheating. Since 2014, as many as 15.7% of surveyed students admitted to outsourcing their assignments and essays.

The growth in contract cheating speaks volumes about the modern view of education as a commodity.

Read more: Buying essays: how to make sure assessment is authentic

Who’s cheating?

A recent survey , led by the University of South Australia, found international students demonstrated proportionately higher cheating behaviours. So did students who spoke a language other than English at home.

In 2013, a large online survey on academic honesty at six Australian universities found international students were significantly less aware of academic integrity processes, and much less confident about how to avoid academic integrity breaches.

A 2015 study of US student demand for commercially produced assignments found students with English as their first language who liked taking risks were about as likely to buy an assessment as students who were reluctant risk-takers, but who spoke English as a second language.

It’s no surprise that students whom we aggressively court for their higher fees and who are working in a less familiar language environment are turning to these services at higher rates.

A recent study on contract cheating in Australia concluded that the over-representation of non-native English speaking students in cheating surveys is linked to the failure of universities to provide support for language and learning development. Students are tasked with completing assessments for which they lack the basic English language skills.

What’s being done about it?

Widely used plagiarism-detection companies, such as Turnitin , can detect similarities to material that already exists. But essay-writing companies loudly promote the fact their product is original.

In February this year, Turnitin announced plans to crack down on contract cheating. Its proposed solution , authorship investigation, hopes to automate a process familiar to any human marker: detecting major shifts in individual students’ writing style that may point to help from a third party.

But despite these technological advancements, students who are turning to such services have reasons far more complicated than laziness or disregard for personal responsibility.

Read more: Universities run as businesses can't pursue genuine learning

Is it worth it?

Despite the moral panic over grades for cash, there’s some evidence to suggest students turning to essay mill services are not getting what they pay for. A 2014 mystery shopping exercise in the UK revealed the astonishingly low standard of commissioned work produced by essay mills. Of all the essays purchased, none received the requested grade, and many fell dramatically short of expected academic standards.

Rather than buying top grades, desperate students are being exploited by companies that take advantage of the very shortcomings (lower literacy and an ignorance of plagiarism protocols) students are hoping to mitigate.

One less obvious aspect of contract cheating that can’t be fixed by intelligent software is the predatory nature of essay mill companies. According to a 2017 study on cheating websites, commercial providers rely on persuasive marketing techniques. They often repackage an unethical choice in the guise of professional help for students who are weighed down by a demanding workload.

How can we discourage it?

In recent years, several scholars have explored the legality of contract cheating, along with the possibilities of defining a new offence under criminal law of providing or advertising contract cheating.

In 2011, for example, a law was introduced in New Zealand that makes it a criminal offence to provide or advertise cheating services. Yet the criminalisation of such services leads inevitably to the prosecution of cheating students, something the legal system has so far been reluctant to do.

But even discounting the possibility of legal action, plagiarism has hefty consequences for university students under misconduct policies, including revoking course credits, expulsion, and a permanent record of cheating.

Redesigning assessments is the primary way to tackle the growing problem of contract cheating. Recent suggestions focus on the development of authentic assessments: tasks that more closely mirror the real-world demands students will face after they graduate from university.

Rather than simply completing an essay, for example, a history student might be tasked with interviewing a local non-profit organisation, and producing a podcast episode.

Teachers who use authentic assessments hope to reduce cheating by tying learning to student’s hopes for their futures, but one obvious benefit is the difficulty of cheating in such individualised tasks. One key problem for overhauling assessment design is the troubling proliferation of casual labour in universities. The development of assessments is rarely, if ever, accounted for in casual teaching rates.

Turnitin works to reduce students’ work into patterns and algorithms, weeding out supposed cheats and frauds. But a more considered response must take into account the complex reasons students turn to these services in the first place.

Understanding why students are willing to pay for assessments might also illuminate a problem at the heart of tertiary education – one that is related to our present repackaging of knowledge as a resource to be bought, rather than an ennobling pursuit that is worthy of all the energy, time, and attention teachers and students can devote to it.

Read more: Assessment design won’t stop cheating, but our relationships with students might

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College essays that worked and how yours can too.

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CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS - JULY 08: A view of Harvard Yard on the campus of Harvard University on ... [+] July 08, 2020 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have sued the Trump administration for its decision to strip international college students of their visas if all of their courses are held online. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

The college essay is a pivotal piece of the college application showcasing your individuality and differentiated outlook to admissions officers. What makes an essay truly shine? Let’s dive into the words behind three standout essays highlighted by university websites and a school newspaper's brand studio so you can get into the right mindset for crafting your own narrative.

Embracing Differences: Finding Strength In Uniqueness

Essay Excerpt: ‘Bra Shopping ’ (Harvard)

Featured by the Harvard Crimson Brand Studio , Orlee's essay recounts a student's humorous and insightful experience of bra shopping with her grandmother, weaving in her unique family dynamics and challenges at her prestigious school.

What Works:

Humor and Honesty: The student's humor makes the essay enjoyable to read, while her honesty about her challenges adds depth.
Self-Awareness: She demonstrates a strong sense of self-awareness, embracing her uniqueness rather than trying to fit in.
Resilience: Her narrative highlights resilience and the ability to find strength in differences.

For Your Essay : To write an essay that embraces your uniqueness, start by identifying a quirky or challenging experience that reflects who a key insight into your experience. Think about how this experience has shaped your perspective and character. Use humor and honesty to bring your story to life, and focus on how you have embraced your differences to become stronger and more resilient.

Best High-Yield Savings Accounts Of 2024

Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024, finding connections: humor and self-reflection.

Essay: ‘Brood X Cicadas ’ (Hamilton College)

As an example on Hamilton's admissions website, Nicholas writes about the cicadas swarming his hometown every 17 years and draws a parallel between their emergence and his own transition to college life. He uses humor and self-reflection to create a relatable and engaging narrative.

Humor: Nicholas uses humor to make his essay entertaining and memorable. His witty comparisons between himself and cicadas add a unique twist.
Self-Reflection: By comparing his life to the cicadas’, he reflects on his own growth and readiness for change.
Relatability: His narrative about facing new experiences and challenges resonates with readers who have undergone similar transitions.

For Your Essay: To infuse humor and self-reflection into your essay, start by identifying an ordinary experience or object and think about how it relates to your life. Write down funny or insightful observations about this connection. Use humor to make your essay more engaging, but ensure it still conveys meaningful self-reflection. This balance can make your essay both entertaining and profound.

Persistence and Multicultural Identity: Life Lessons From Tortilla Making

Essay: ‘ Facing The Hot Griddle ’ (Johns Hopkins University)

In this essay published by Hopkins Insider, Rocio uses the process of making tortillas to explore her multicultural identity and the challenges she has faced. Her story beautifully weaves together her Guatemalan heritage and her experiences growing up in the United States.

Metaphor and Symbolism: The process of making tortillas becomes a powerful metaphor for the student’s journey and struggles. The symbolism of the masa harina and water mixing parallels her blending of cultural identities.
Personal Growth: The essay highlights her perseverance and adaptability, qualities that are crucial for success in college.
Cultural Insight: She provides a rich, personal insight into her multicultural background, making her story unique and compelling.

For Your Essay: To write an essay that explores your identity through a metaphor, start by thinking about an activity or tradition that holds significant meaning for you. Consider how this activity relates to your life experiences and personal growth. Use detailed descriptions to bring the activity to life and draw connections between the process and your own journey. Reflect on the lessons you've learned and how they've shaped your identity.

A winning college essay isn’t simply about parading your best accomplishment or dramatizing your challenges. It’s not a contest for which student is the most original or entertaining. Rather, the essay is a chance for you to showcase your authenticity, passion, resilience, social awareness, and intellectual vitality . By sharing genuine stories and insights, you can create an essay that resonates with admissions committees and highlights your unique qualities.

For you to have the best possible essay, mindset is key. Here’s how to get into the zone:

Reflect Deeply: Spend time thinking about your experiences, challenges, and passions. Journaling can help you uncover deep insights.
Discuss and Share: Talking about your stories with friends, family, or mentors can provide new perspectives and emotional clarity.
Immerse Yourself: Engage in activities that you are passionate about to reignite the feelings and memories associated with them.
Draft Freely: Don’t worry about perfection on the first try. Write freely and honestly, then refine your narrative.

The secret to a standout college essay lies in its authenticity, depth, and emotional resonance. By learning from these successful examples and getting into the right mindset, you can craft an essay that not only stands out but also provides a meaningful insight into who you are. Remember, your essay is your story—make it a piece of writing that you will always be proud of.

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The Pros and Cons of Renting vs. Buying a House

Not sure if you should buy a home in this market? These 12 pros and cons can help you decide.

The question of “should you buy or rent” is a lot tougher to answer now than it was only four years ago. U.S. home prices have climbed along with interest rates, while rising rents have made it harder for many renters to save for a down payment.

Those dynamics have changed some of the ways you may be thinking about buying versus renting.

Before the pandemic, the decision usually came down to whether you could afford a down payment since mortgage payments on a typical home — even including taxes and insurance — were hundreds of dollars cheaper than rents.

Now, rents and mortgage payments are much closer. Even when putting 20% down on a home purchase, rents were cheaper than mortgages in nearly three out of five (29/50) major metros at the start of 2024. And it takes a renter four more years to save for a down payment now than it did pre-pandemic.

So on a monthly basis, you’re likely to pay less to rent in most metro areas — even for a comparable home. But that’s only part of the picture.

There are benefits to either option, and everyone will come to their decision with different priorities and values. It all depends on what you expect from the market, whether you see your home primarily as an investment, the length of time you expect to live in your home, and the lifestyle you’re seeking.

Here are some pros to each option to help you weigh your choices.

Pros to buying a home now

Even in today’s housing market, buying a home could be a smart move. Here are six reasons why buying a house could benefit you more than renting:

You may be able to build equity

“Building equity ” means that you increase your financial stake in the home over time. You can do that in two ways: 1) By paying down your mortgage over time, and 2) by buying a home that eventually becomes worth more than you bought it for.

The difference between what you can sell your home for and what you owe on your mortgage is your equity. So if you could sell your home for $350,000 and you owe $200,000 on your mortgage, you would have $150,000 in home equity, including the amount you put toward the down payment.

While there are no guarantees that any given home will appreciate in value, homes typically tend to become more valuable over time. What makes ownership especially attractive in those cases is that you earn appreciation on the entire value of the home, not just the amount you put down toward the purchase.

Affordability Calculator

What’s changed for buyers over the past few years is the amount of time they would have to live in their homes before equity growth helps buying become ultimately cheaper than renting.

For example, if you bought a $350,000 home with 20% down, and home values really struggled to take off this year, you would have to live in that home for around seven years before the net cost of buying and maintaining the home equaled the net cost of renting during that same period. If mortgage rates fall more and home values start growing again, you could break even in a little over four years. Both examples assume you’d be paying $2,000 a month in rent and earning a 6% return by investing the money you would otherwise have put toward the down payment. (“Net costs” means the usual costs, but offset by the homeowner’s growing equity or the renter’s investment account balance.)

“The longer mortgage rates are elevated, the more home buying is for a longer run decision,’’ says Zillow® Chief Economist Skylar Olsen.

Keep in mind that the average homeowner stays in their home 13 years, so if you’re planning to stay in your home past the breakeven point, it could make more sense to buy. The opposite is true if you’re planning to move sooner. This Rent vs. Buy Calculator can help guide your decision-making by showing you how different scenarios might pencil out. And our Affordability Calculator can show you how much you can afford to spend on a home, given your income, assets and debts.

Keep in mind that most experts say that shelter is considered affordable if the monthly outlay doesn’t consume more than 30% of your monthly income.

Every mortgage payment can help you save

When you pay your mortgage each month, some of it goes toward interest on the loan and some goes toward principal or paying down the amount you owe. Over time, the share that goes toward principal gets larger and larger, increasing your share of ownership in the home as time passes.

Those principal payments are considered “forced savings,’’ since they build equity while you’re putting a roof over your head — something you’d have to pay for anyway.

“If you don’t think you’ll be reliably investing in the stock market and making a decent return on it, paying a mortgage can simplify your savings plan,’’ says Olsen.

You’re buying a lifestyle that could be hard to replicate if you’re renting

Buying a home can give you access to a larger variety of neighborhoods, home styles and amenities, and allow you to tailor your home to your liking, whether it’s through home improvements or landscaping. If you’ve ever searched for a single family rental, you know they can be hard to come by in your chosen neighborhood.

The higher demand for single family rentals translates to higher rents for those properties. Rent growth for single-family homes has been stronger than for multi-family homes, a trend that’s likely to continue according to Zillow’s 2024 housing predictions . Single-family rentals are 4.8% more expensive than a year earlier, while rents for multi-family are up 2.55% year over year.

“It’s important to remember: we find intrinsic value in ownership itself — in controlling the path of our lives and writing our own stories,’’ says Olsen. “Buying is a part of that.”

Your mortgage payments will remain relatively stable for as long as you own your home

A fixed-rate mortgage has a monthly payment that stays the same for the life of the loan. Taxes and homeowners insurance, which your lender will typically collect every month, are likely to increase, but the mortgage portion would remain unchanged until you sell or pay off the mortgage.

For that reason, real estate is often considered a hedge against inflation because it offers people a way to lock in the cost of shelter, which is a major part of their monthly budget.

If mortgage rates drop, homeowners can lower their monthly mortgage costs by refinancing . The vast majority of renters have no such control over their rent. Since the pandemic began in 2020, rents have surged more than 29%, and they continue to trend upward, according to Zillow® research .

Olsen says that “even with below-average rent growth, rents could easily double over the next 30 years.”

You could get tax benefits

Homeowners who itemize deductions on their tax returns can write off the interest they pay on mortgages of up to $750,000. Owning a home may entitle you to other tax breaks as well.

Even more impactful to the bottom line, homeowners benefit when they sell, too: A married couple can avoid paying taxes on up to $500,000 in capital gains when they sell their home, a tax break that is not possible when you sell stocks or other capital investments. The capital gains deduction for a single homeowner is up to $250,000.

You may not have to make a fast decision

Depending on your market, your price tier and the season, you could have more time to look for what you want.

After one of the most challenging years on record for buyers in 2023, sellers are cutting prices and homes are taking slightly longer to sell. Zillow® research shows that 22.6% of for-sale listings had price cuts in November, and homes that sold that month went under contract in only 21 days. That’s a day faster than a year earlier, but more than two weeks faster than homes normally sold for in the fall pre-pandemic.

You may be able to use your home to earn rental income.

If you buy a home and later decide to move out or you have a spare room or accessory dwelling unit , you may be able to rent to someone else and use the rental income you receive to help you cover your mortgage payment and other costs.

“My advice to a first-time buyer is always that your first home is not your forever home,” Becky Garcia, team lead of The Garcia Group at eXp Realty in Phoenix, says, adding that potential buyers should look at their first purchase as a three-to-five-year home that will help build a down payment towards a dream home. “I tell them to look at it as a strategy,” she added. “My favorite purchase for a first time buyer is a duplex . They can live in one unit, rent out the other and have their tenant pay a large portion of their mortgage.”

It’s also possible to buy a home or vacation getaway and use it primarily as an investment property before you buy a principal residence for yourself.

Reasons you may consider renting for now

With all the reasons why you should consider buying a home, there are also some good reasons to keep renting. Here are six pros to renting a home vs buying that may be concerns for you:

The cost of renting is generally less expensive than buying the same quality of home

Rent is less expensive than a mortgage on a monthly basis in most places, even when comparing similar homes, according to Olsen.

The typical U.S. home in November 2023 was worth $347,415, and the typical mortgage payment for a buyer who put 20% down was $1,925. That amount was 9% higher than the previous November.

The typical U.S. rent in November 2023 was $1,982 — an increase of 3.3% from a year earlier, according to the Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI), but the trend shows rents flattening as more multi-family homes come on the market.

Zillow’s rent vs. buy calculator can help you estimate how many years it would take for your hypothetical cost of buying to equal your hypothetical cost of renting in your market. Generally, the longer you stay in your home, the more the balance swings toward owning.

Renters usually have more freedom to move

Renting comes with fewer strings attached. Whether it’s a different neighborhood or unit, you can usually move more easily to adapt your current lifestyle and needs, or to try out a different city altogether.

There’s usually no or low maintenance costs

“Homeownership can come with unexpected headaches — and sometimes expensive ones,’’ says Olsen. “Renters do not need to worry about the cost of maintenance or upgrades (outside of those built into next year’s lease), and in many cases don’t even need to mow the lawn.”

Data based on millions of home projects completed across the country show that home maintenance and upkeep runs about $6,413 annually, according to Thumbtack , a home management platform that enables people to fix, maintain and improve their homes.

You may need to make fewer financial compromises

Coming up with a down payment to buy a home requires building up significant savings, and higher home prices and interest rates have made home buying an expensive proposition that can require financial sacrifices.

Buying could require you to make sacrifices that you aren’t ready or able to make, such as settling for one less bedroom when you’re expecting a new member of your family or cutting back on entertainment or vacations.

The upfront costs are likely to be lower

“ There is a low, but not zero, financial barrier to entry for renting,’’ says Olsen, so you can invest what you would have spent on a down payment into the stock market or other type of investment.

You won’t have to worry about home values declining

Homes generally appreciate over time, but they can also lose value. Nationally, home values are expected to flatten this year, but in some markets home values dropped.

While this can be good news for affordability if you’re planning to buy right now, the flip side is that you’ll need to consider likely home value trends over the course of ownership.

For example, if home prices take a dip, and you made a small or zero down payment and haven't owned your home long enough to build much equity, this could cause you to be underwater or “ upside down ” if you need to sell. While there are options for underwater borrowers, this could be a reason to keep renting for now and save for a higher down payment.

You don't have to pay property tax and other costs

Aside from maintenance, other costs of ownership include property tax, homeowners insurance, and sometimes homeowner association fees.

Olsen says the financial decision to rent or buy is based on a long timeline, and is anchored on someone’s expectations. Depending on future home value appreciation and how effectively you invest savings if choosing to rent, you could break even from buying in as few as five years or as many as 18 or more. Where a household falls within that range depends on the cost of the home they’re considering purchasing or renting, how quickly rents and home values grow, the potential rate of return on stocks or other investments and whether mortgage rates fall enough to make refinancing a good option.

If you’re curious about how much rent you can afford, check out this rent affordability calculator . And this calculator can show you how much you can afford to spend on a home, given your income, assets and debts.

The bottom line: Deciding when to buy a home is a personal choice. There's no one "right" time for everyone. Only you can decide if now is the right time for you.

Need more help understanding when to buy a house? Try our decision tree .

Susan Kelleher

A local agent can help you stay competitive on a budget.

They’ll help you get an edge without stretching your finances.

They Didn't Plan To Have A Multigenerational Household. Here's What They Learned When They Embraced It.

How to Hire a Buyer’s Real Estate Agent

What to Expect in Your First Conversation With an Agent

University of Notre Dame

Notre Dame Magazine

12th Annual Young Alumni Essay Contest

Author: Notre Dame Magazine

Published: July 03, 2024

Notre Dame Magazine’ s 12th annual Young Alumni Essay Contest is accepting submissions.

The magazine’s editors, who will judge entries for the 2024 Schaal Prize — named in honor of the contest’s founder, retired managing editor Carol Schaal ’91M.A. — are looking for original creative nonfiction essays: evocative, first-person works that would appeal to a college-educated audience. For models, they suggest reading CrossCurrents essays, which can be found in each back issue and posted at magazine.nd.edu/issues.

The Schaal Prize winner will receive $1,000. Second-place winner(s) will receive $500 apiece. The first- and second-place winning essays will appear in the Winter 2024-25 issue of Notre Dame Magazine . Authors of any work receiving honorable mention will win $100 and publication at magazine.nd.edu in 2025.

Eligibility:

The contest is open to those alumni who received a University of Notre Dame bachelor’s degree in the years 2015 through 2024. Only one entry per eligible writer is allowed. Previous winners may enter.

Submission requirements:

Entries must be written in English, submitted in Word format and be the original, unpublished work of a sole author. They should range in length from 800 to 1,500 words. Essays longer than 1,500 words will be disqualified. Entries will be accepted now through midnight on Sunday, September 8, 2024.

Submission procedures:

Because the entries will be read blind, it is imperative that entrants follow these procedures:

Send an email to [email protected]. Include the author’s contact information in the body of the message: name; ND graduation year; postal address; email address; phone number. Make sure to include the title of the submission in this email.

Attach the manuscript of the entry to this email. The manuscript should include the title of the essay but no author-identifying information.

Judges’ decisions are final. Published essays will be subject to editing, and winners will be notified by email in October.

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The Olin MBA admissions essay: Focusing on what makes your experience and values unique

June 10, 2024
By WashU Olin Business School
3 minute read

Cut off shot of young woman at desk writing on a pad with a book in front of her.

Every student applying to an MBA program wants to be seen as exceptional in some way.

Without appearing as a vain Hercules on paper, there are methods to convey value as a prospective student without resorting to worn clichés or unsubstantiated claims.

Olin Business School places a high value on equity, diversity, and inclusion. They believe a diverse student body is beneficial to all MBA students. A student's life experiences can make them a valuable member of Olin's student body and the way they communicate their experience matters. Here are four MBA application essay tips that have helped prospective students get accepted into Olin Business School.

They don't use AI

It might sound tempting to use AI to make essays sound professional; however, let's discuss how AI operates. AI functions by mining the internet for content, which it then repurposes into (supposedly) new forms. If this seems a lot like plagiarism, that's because it's a legal gray area that has not yet been fully reconciled with existing legal definitions of plagiarism.

Since AI uses existing content as a model, the essay it produces may sound bland and uninspired. A student's voice and personality may not shine through as much. If a student wants to stand out in the MBA admission process, they will need to sound wholly original to themselves.

They show (rather than tell) their story

Besides ensuring the MBA admission essay communicates how a student prevents errors from slipping by undetected, this is an opportunity for them to narrate their life and be creative.

An essay prompt is presented in the online application, giving prospective students an opportunity to share their values, strengths and weaknesses. The essay is their time to provide the committee with a narrative and showcase their creativity and the impact they hope to have on those around them. They should use this opportunity to tell their story, allowing the committee to see the person they are and the person they hope to become. Students should demonstrate how they are living out their values with real-life examples. They must ask themselves, "What can I bring to Olin that no one else can?" and communicate this with confidence.

They demonstrate why they chose Olin

When a prospective student is writing, they should focus on why the MBA program at Olin can help them achieve their goals and how Olin Business School can help them make the impact they're aiming to make on the world. Every student should take time to reflect on what they hope to get out of an MBA degree and determine what factors are most important to the program they intend to pursue.

They don't use generic templates

No matter how many MBA programs a student may wish to apply to, they should write a new essay for each program from scratch. They shouldn't rely on a generic template and simply change a few words.

Students should slow down and spend ample time writing something unique—it makes a big difference. The evaluators of MBA admission essays can easily detect a generic essay, as it often lacks relevance and focus.

It's easy to discern whether prospective students have thoroughly contemplated their MBA admission essay or merely checked it off their to-do list. If they are unsure whether their essay reads well or aligns with the prompt, they should ask someone they trust to read their essay. Then, they should ask this person to tell them what they assumed the prompt was. Their response will help the student determine if their essay is aligned with the prompt or if adjustments are needed.

About the Author

WashU Olin Business School

Firmly established at the Gateway to the West, Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis stands as the gateway to something far grander in scale. The education we deliver prepares our students to thoughtfully make difficult decisions—the kind that can change the world.

For assistance in finding faculty experts, please contact Washington University Public Affairs.

Monday–Friday, 8:30 to 5 p.m.

Sara Savat, Senior News Director, Business and Social Sciences 314-935-9615 [email protected]

Kurt Greenbaum, Communications Director 314-935-7196 [email protected]

Twitter: WUSTLnews

As more Texans struggle with housing costs, homeownership becoming less attainable

A new housing report from Harvard University found that would-be homebuyers need to make more money than ever if they want to buy a home in Texas’ urban areas.

Construction workers build houses in the new Teravista neighborhood in Georgetown, TX on May 18, 2016.

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More Texas homeowners and renters than ever are struggling with high housing costs — and the state’s high home prices have potentially put the dream of owning a home out-of-reach for a growing number of families.

That’s according to a new report from Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies , which also found that home prices and rents remain well above where they stood before the COVID-19 pandemic. The Texas housing market has cooled amid high interest rates after steep increases brought on by the state’s recent red-hot economic growth. So would-be homebuyers now need to make more money than ever before in order to buy a home in Texas’ major urban areas. The number of Texas homeowners and renters who struggle to keep a roof over their head also now sits at an all-time high.

“The costs of buying a home have left homeownership out of reach to all but the most advantaged households,” said Daniel McCue, a senior research associate at the center.

The growth in Texas home prices has dramatically outpaced income growth, pricing many households out of the market and all but wiping away the state’s once-heralded housing affordability.

It’s now common for buyers to have to make at least six figures in order to purchase a home in major urban areas where the state’s job opportunities are largely concentrated. A family needs to make more than $100,000 if they want to buy a typical home in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth regions, according to the center . In the Austin area, a buyer needs to make more than $140,000 to afford a home at the median sales price.

Renters have increasingly little room to put money away for a future down payment and make the transition to homeownership. A record 2.1 million renter households — more than half of those in the state — are “cost-burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on rent and utilities . Of those, nearly 1.1 million put at least half of their income toward rent and utilities, which means they are “severely” cost-burdened.

Homeowners, too, have felt the pinch from rising homeowners insurance and high property taxes. Nearly a quarter of the state’s 6.9 million homeowner households spend too much on housing, according to Harvard’s analysis.

The state’s high housing costs and a shortage of housing affordable to the poorest Texans fueled a 12% increase in homelessness last year , according to federal estimates. More than 27,000 Texans did not have a permanent roof over their heads in 2023, according to an annual estimate of people experiencing homelessness. About 11,700 Texans experienced unsheltered homelessness — meaning they slept in their cars, under bridges or in other places not fit for human habitation.

Still, in some parts of the state, the cost of housing is on the decline.

Home prices in Austin, where the typical home fetched more than half a million dollars at the height of the state’s pandemic-era housing market, have fallen for 16 straight months, according to Zillow data. San Antonio has also seen months’ long decline in home prices.

High interest rates have dramatically slowed the pace of homebuying, contributing to lower home prices. That slowdown has allowed homes to sit on the market for longer periods of time than during the highly competitive days of the hot pandemic housing market and boosted the supply of homes available to prospective buyers. More supply means buyers have more leverage to negotiate lower prices with sellers.

“Buyers are still very much contending with elevated home prices, and of course, mortgage rates,” said Clare Knapp, housing economist for the Austin Board of Realtors. “But with that uptick in active listings, they do have more negotiating power. So it is certainly providing a boost to them amid a more challenging environment.”

At the same time, high interest rates and home prices have discouraged homeowners who otherwise may have put their homes on the market from giving up their low interest rates, according to the Harvard report — fueling the country’s shortage of available housing.

Steady job growth also has kept home prices elevated. In places like Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth that saw home prices decline last year, prices have begun to creep up again.

“It’s really difficult for you to see a significant correction in prices,” said Luis Torres, senior business economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.”

Soaring rents driven by the state’s robust economic growth put record pressure on tenants. But a boom in apartment building not seen since the 1980s has bought them at least some temporary relief from rising rents.

Asking rents have fallen over the last year in the Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston and San Antonio regions, figures from the firm MRI ApartmentData show , as new apartments open their doors and force existing landlords to compete to keep new tenants.

“For renters, it's a better situation,” said Bruce McClenny, industry principal at MRI ApartmentData. “It doesn't make up for all that crazy rent growth that we had in ‘21 and ‘22. But it's starting to make a difference.”

It’s only a matter of time before rents surge again, the Harvard report found. Builders have pulled back on new projects amid high borrowing costs and as property owners see lower revenue growth from rents and increased operating costs like property owners’ insurance, wages and property taxes. Meanwhile, the state’s steady economic growth coupled with growth in Generation Z households will ensure demand for apartments remains strong. McClenny said larger rent increases like those seen in 2022 could return by the end of next year after tens of thousands of apartments under construction in the state’s major metro areas come online.

Still at risk is the state’s supply of cheap housing stock, housing experts say. Texas has lost hundreds of thousands of low-cost rental units over the last decade, exacerbating an already dire shortage of housing affordable to lower-income families .

The state had about 753,000 housing units with rents below $600 near the start of the last decade. As the state’s economy boomed and demand for rental housing grew, that supply decreased as landlords simply raised rents or renovated their property to attract higher-income renters.

By 2022, the supply of cheap rental housing had shrunk to less than half a million units.

Housing experts expect more of those units to disappear in the coming years. Dallas has a shortage of about 33,000 units affordable to families making 50% or less of the area median income, according to an analysis by the Dallas-based Child Poverty Action Lab . That shortage is expected to balloon to more than 80,000 by the end of the decade, the organization projects.

The Dallas-Fort Worth region “has been and likely will continue to be a really hot housing market that makes [naturally occurring affordable housing] more vulnerable,” said Ashley Flores, the organization’s housing chief.

Local and state leaders are increasingly trying to solve the state’s housing affordability crisis.

Texas lawmakers, including some of the state’s top Republicans, have increasingly signaled that one way they will look at combating the crisis is by loosening city rules that determine what kind of housing can be built and where . Housing advocates have increasingly targeted city zoning restrictions, like how much land a single-family home must sit on and how many homes can be built on a given lot, as a root cause of the nation’s affordability woes. Those rules, they say, have limited how many homes can be built and led to higher housing costs as a result.

“In a lot of ways, the current zoning laws that we have don't reflect the wishes of the people,” McCue said. “So it's good to revisit those.”

Just in: Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney , R-Wyoming; U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pennsylvania ; and Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt will take the stage at The Texas Tribune Festival , Sept. 5–7 in downtown Austin. Buy tickets today!

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Information about the authors

Joshua Fechter

Urban affairs reporter.

[email protected]

@JoshuaFechter

Carla Astudillo

Senior data visuals developer.