How to Write a Great College Application Essay Title

How to Write a Great College Application Essay Title Your application essays title is the first thing the admissions folks will read. Although there are many ways to approach the title, youll want those words at the top of the page to make the proper impression. Why a Title? Lets start with the  basics: Is your essay about something? Do you want your reader to know what its about? If so, your essay needs a title. Ask yourself which work youd be more excited to read: The Casque of Amontillado or Some Random Story by Edgar Allan Poe Thats About Something that Youll Figure Out After You Read It. If you dont provide a title, you dont give your reader any reason to be interested in beginning your essay other than a sense of duty. Make sure the college admissions folks are motivated to read your essay by curiosity, not by the necessity of their assigned drudge work. Picture a newspaper in which every article lacks a title. What article do you want to read? Which ones sound interesting? Clearly a newspaper without titles would be ridiculous. Application essays arent that different. Your reader wants to know what it is that he or she is going to read. The Purpose of an Application Essay Title Weve established that you need a title. But what makes a title effective? First off, think about the purpose of a title: A good title should grab your readers attention.Related to #1, a title should make your reader want to read your essay.The title should provide a sense of what your essay is about. When it comes to #3, realize that you dont need to be too detailed. Academic essays often have titles that look like this: Julia Camerons Photography: A Study of the Use of Long Shutter Speeds to Create Spiritual Effects. For an application essay, such a title would come across as over-written, pompous, and ridiculous. Consider how a reader would react to an essay with the title,  The Authors Trip to Costa Rica and How It Changed His Attitude Towards Biodiversity and Sustainability. After reading such a long and belabored title, the admissions folks wouldnt feel like they need to read the actual essay. Sample Good Essay Titles In general, there are no concrete rules for titles. Good titles can take a variety of forms: A good title can be clever or play with words. See, for example, Porkopolis  by Felicity or Buck Up  by Jill. Porkopolis is a nonsense word, but it works well for an essay on becoming a vegetarian in a meat-centric world, and Buck Up employs both a literal and figurative meaning of the phrase. As youll read below, however, you dont necessarily want to try to be too clever. Such efforts can backfire.A title can be provocative. As an example, a student who wrote about encountering new foods while abroad titled her essay Eating Eyeballs. If your essay focuses on a humorous, shocking or embarrassing moment in your life, its often easy to write an attention-grabbing title. Titles such as Puking on the President, Romeos Ripped Tights, and The Wrong Goal are sure to peek your readers interest.An essay title can be concise and straight-forward. Dont feel that you need great wit and alliteration in your title. Simple and direct language can be quite effective. Consider, for example, The J ob I Should Have Quit  by Drew,  Wallflower  by Eileen, and Striking Out  by Richard. These titles dont play with words or reveal great wit, but they accomplish their purpose perfectly well. In all of these cases, the title has provided at least a partial sense of the essays subject matter, and each has motivated the reader to continue reading. What the heck does Porkopolis mean? Why did you eat eyeballs? Why should you have quit your job? Avoid These Title Mistakes There are some common missteps that applicants make when it comes to titles. Be aware of these pitfalls: Vague language. Youll be off to a remarkably bland start if your essay is titled Three Things That Matter to Me or A Bad Experience. Bad (or good or evil or nice) is a painfully subjective and meaningless word, and the word things might have worked well in Tim OBriens The Things They Carried, but it rarely adds anything of value to your essay. Be precise, not vague.Broad, overly general language. This is a continuation of the vague language problem. Some titles try to cover far too much. You dont want to call your essay My Life Story or My Personal Growth or An Eventful Upbringing. Such titles suggest that you are going to attempt to narrate years of your life in a few hundred words. Any such effort is doomed to failure, and your reader will be doubting your essay before beginning the first paragraph.Overblown vocabulary. The best essays use clear and accessible language. When a writer attempts to sound intelligent by adding unnecessary syllables to every word, the reading experience is often torturous. When an essays title is My Utilization of Erroneous Rationalizations During My Pupilage, the readers immediate response is going to be pure dread. No one wants to read 600 words of that garbage. Strained cleverness. Be careful if youre relying on wordplay in your title. Not all readers are fans of puns, and a title may sound ridiculous if the reader doesnt understand a supposedly clever allusion. Cleverness is a good thing, but test out your title on your acquaintances to make sure it works.Clichà ©s. If your title relies on a clichà ©, youre suggesting that the experience that you are narrating is unremarkable and commonplace. You dont want the first impression of your essay to be that you have nothing original to say. So if you find yourself writing When the Cat Got My Tongue or Burning the Midnight Oil, stop yourself and reevaluate your title.Misspellings. Finally, nothing is more embarrassing than a misspelled title. There, at the top of the page in bold letters, youve used the word its instead of its, or you wrote about patients instead of patience. We all make these mistakes, but take extra care with your application essay. An error in the title is a sure way to elim inate any confidence your reader has in your writing ability. A Final Word About Application Essay Titles Many writers- both novices and experts- have a difficult time coming up with a title that works well. Dont hesitate to write your essay first and then, once your ideas have truly taken shape, go back and craft the title. Also, dont hesitate to seek help with your title. A brainstorming session with friends can often generate far better titles than a solitary session of pounding your head on your keyboard. You do want to get your title right- its going to make an immediate impression on the admissions folks who read your essay, and you clearly want them to enter your essay in a curious and eager state of mind. Finally, if youre writing your essay for the Common Application, keep in mind that your title will go in the text box with the rest of the essay, and the title will count toward your essays overall word count.