There's no end to the advice you can get when you're writing your college application essay. Yet students fall into the same trap over and over. Every year, college admissions officers are forced to slog through the same formulaic essays written on the same stale topics. In this book, you'll learn about the most common mistakes students make when writing their college application essays. You'll learn about topics and writing styles that seem alluring, or even expected, but will actually hurt your chances of acceptance. You'll learn how to use your essay to convey who you really are as a person. You'll learn how to set yourself apart in the eyes of college admission officers and show them why you belong at their school. Like most traps, the College Essay Trap is easy to avoid. You just have to know what to look for. "A remarkably useful short book to read and keep handy. The College Essay Trap offers as nifty and insightful a set of advice as I've come across. As someone who has read tens of thousands of such essays over the years, I found my self nodding in strong agreement with each "trap" Nichols] describes and how best to avoid it." - Fred Hargadon, Former Dean of Admissions at Princeton, Stanford and Swarthmore.