Fresh from high school and you are excited for the college life. Sooner or later, apart from the partying, relationships and the newfound independence, you will realize that college life is also about three things: essays, essays and more essays. In just a few months upon stepping a foot inside the hallowed grounds of your college or university, it will hit you: how on earth can there be so many types of college essays? And the scarier realization will sink in: chances are, you will be required to produce each type of college essay all throughout your university years.

What differentiates college essays from research papers, theses and dissertations is that the former allow for more creativity on the part of the writer. In this way, creative writers already have an advantage over the others in getting that A+ grade. However, for those not confident in their literary creativity, there is still hope.

The college essay writing process can be summed up in three basic steps: pre-write, write the draft and finally, edit. Sounds easy? Well, think again.

The first basic question is what to write about. Remember that an essay must prove one basic point. Organize your ideas in order to come up with an essay focus. You could either brainstorm with yourself or even with your classmates. Do a bit of research in order to get fresh ideas and to collect evidence to support your point. This could mean passages from a book or quotes from the movie when doing a book or movie review. This could also mean assessing your own strengths and personality when doing an application essay or autobiographical essay. Jot down all your ideas and thoughts and organize them.

The next step is the actual writing of the college essay draft. The college essay is basically broken down into three main parts: the introduction, the body and the conclusion. The introduction will give the reader an idea as to the content of the college essay and the point of the writer. The body will present the evidence to support the point. This part is the longest part of the college essay. The conclusion is the last part which is a brief discussion or analysis of the evidence stated in the body and which stresses the point of the writer.

After completing the draft, make sure to edit it. You could do it yourself or you can ask somebody else to check for typographical, spelling and grammatical errors. Do not rely solely on your computer's grammar and spelling check as these programs are not infallible to mistakes. Also, there are cases wherein you can ask your professor to edit your college essay or the essay outline and solicit for critiques. Take these constructive criticisms into consideration when writing the final draft of your college essay.

You are now ready to write your final draft. But if you have time to spare, it is advisable to leave it for a few days and read it again before submitting. This will allow you to constructively criticize your own paper. Should you come up with better ideas or wanted to make a few revisions, you could do so.

A lot of students and writing professors swear by the effectiveness of this mantra in improving the college essay writing skills of students: practice, practice and practice. Let out your creative juices and sharpen your critical thinking. Write, write and write some more.