How to edit your own essay

First drafts are supposed to be bad. Editing while drafting is why students stare at the first paragraph for three hours. Write a whole ugly draft first, then close the document for at least a day.

Coming back after a day is the single biggest edit you'll make. Sentences that felt clever will read as tryhard. Sentences you almost cut will read as the ones worth keeping.

Read the whole essay out loud. Where do you get bored? Where do you get confused? Mark those spots. Don't fix them yet.

Ask: does this essay answer the prompt in the first paragraph? Does each paragraph do one clear job? Could I move paragraphs around and it would still make sense? If yes, the structure isn't tight enough.

Cut every instance of 'I believe,' 'I feel,' 'I think,' 'very,' 'really,' 'truly,' 'in order to,' 'the fact that.' Cut every sentence that could be replaced by 'I am passionate about X.'

Try to cut 15% of your total word count without losing meaning. This is almost always possible and almost always improves the essay.

Read it out loud again. Any sentence that doesn't sound like you talking to a friend, rewrite. If you'd never say 'quintessential' out loud, don't write it.

Give the essay to one person who knows you — not to critique the writing, just to answer: 'Does this sound like me?' If they hesitate, you have more voice work to do.

One person who does not know you well. Ask them two questions only: 'What do you now know about me that you didn't before?' and 'Where did you get lost or bored?'

Their first answer tells you what actually landed. Their second answer tells you what to cut. Ignore any other advice on this pass.