College Essay Builder

The stakes of getting accepted to BYU are getting higher and higher. It is estimated that over 12,000 students will apply to BYU — Provo this fall. And using last year’s acceptance rates, over 4,000 won’t make the cut.

"Is there anything a parent can do to improve their child's chances for acceptance?"

Yes!

When your child begins their application to BYU, nearly all of the criteria is fixed and can’t be influenced or changed — except one: the essays.

At this point, the essays are the only controllable factor your child has to hurt or help their chances. 

The wrong way to write application essays.

Just sitting down to “knock out” the essays without understanding what BYU is looking for is a huge mistake. Successful essays require deep introspection, multiple drafts and a good deal of pre-work. Students who don’t allow time for these crucial activities end up writing sub-par essays that suffer from being too generic, too wordy or full of structural errors. 

The right way to write application essays.

Susie Boyce, founder of College Essay Builder, has been helping students write application essays for BYU since 2007. She has discovered three fundamental questions that all successful essays must effectively address:

1) Do my child’s essays show that they value the Aims of a BYU education?

Each essay should correlate directly to one or more of the Aims of a BYU Education.  It is critical that the stories and examples your child uses in their essays make the connection clear and personal.  A close look at the BYU admissions website emphasizes that BYU uses the Aims to evaluate all areas of the application — especially the essays.

2) Do my child’s essays help them stand out from thousands of other applicants?

This fall, BYU will receive over 70,000 essays.  How will you ensure your child’s essays stand out and are memorable for all the right reasons?

The key to this question is helping your child identify events, people and stories from their life that highlight their genuine and unique experiences. This requires vulnerability; the essays should tell compelling stories showing your child’s journey, growth and transformation. These personal stories can become the heart of each essay, connecting the reader to your child in an unforgettable way. 

3) Do my child’s essays demonstrate their character, values, testimony and potential as a BYU student?

From BYU Admissions: 

“...make sure you read the prompt and answer what's being asked. If there’s something about you we should know, make sure to include it in your essay responses!

Why does BYU want your child to share so much?  Because the essays are the best chance admissions counselors have to understand and evaluate your child’s character, values, testimony and potential as a BYU student.

To effectively do this, your child must address each prompt completely and deeply. Take time to identify stories and examples that showcase how they have grown and developed in these four areas and write conclusions that make a powerful connection to what BYU is looking for.

The Bottom Line

You CAN do something to improve your child’s chances for acceptance to BYU.

Helping your child write their best application essays is the most important way you can accomplish this goal.

But you don’t have to do this alone.

College Essay Builder has created a comprehensive application essay course that leads your child step-by-step through the process of writing all the BYU application essays. With the help of videos, downloads, templates and examples, your child will be writing their best BYU essays faster and more effectively than any other method.

The stakes are too high not to do EVERYTHING you can to help your child get accepted.

And the MOST controllable thing you can do right now is help them write their BEST BYU essays by enrolling them in the "The Complete Guide to Writing the BYU Application Essays" Pro Course today.