Select a theme for your admission essay. Check to see if the admission instructions specify a topic for the essay, and make sure that you understand what is required of your essay. If the choice is left to you, choose a topic related to the course work you are pursuing. It doesn't matter if other students write on the same topic if you are confident of providing new information or insights that will impress the person who reads the essay. Alternatively, select an area in which you have done research or possess practical work experience so that you can write with authority.
List the topics that you want to discuss and set out a sequence that links facts and thoughts to flow seamlessly from start to finish. Show a correlation between your qualifications, skills and experience and the degree program you wish to take up. Speak of your areas of research interest and your short- and long-term goals for building a career in the field. Collect information about the unique features of the university or the academic branch to which you are applying, and address the issue of why you have chosen this particular program.
Avoid making up information to appear impressive. Professors and administrators don't look for grand accomplishments, but for the meaning you have derived from simple incidents. Find relevant concrete examples to support your points. Write about events that helped you mature. Strike a balance between overall observations and going into detail. For instance, if you are describing a competition in which you participated, highlight what you learned during the preparation or how you felt about winning or losing; giving names of the people who judged the event is an unnecessary detail.
Use the right tone while writing the admission essay. Don't assume that the person reading your essay is some elderly professor; many universities use recent college graduates as assistants to do an initial screening of essays. This does not mean you should use slang or too informal a style, though. Use a style that is balanced, serious, and reasonably formal and that makes you sound focused, open-minded and confident. To make the essay sound personal, use the active voice and first person terms such as "I," "me," and "my."
Keep an eye on the words you use to construct your sentences. Don't try to impress the reader by using a vocabulary that does not come naturally. People who read and grade essays have years of experience and immediately recognize what is your contribution and what comes from a thesaurus.
Stick to the basics of good writing. Begin with an attention-grabbing point, warm up to your theme, provide specific examples, avoid generalization, and end by summarizing your essay and a clincher sentence. Check for spelling, grammar and sentence construction gaffes.