Words and Phrases to Avoid in Your College Essays

Admissions readers spot weak word choices instantly. After reading 50 essays a day, they notice the same generic phrases repeatedly. Cutting these twenty words and phrases from your essay can raise its quality by a full grade without changing a single idea.

Empty intensifiers

• "Very": "very important" → "essential"
• "Really": "really excited" → "thrilled"
• "Just": almost always deletable
• "Quite": hedges your claim

Lazy openers

• "I have always been passionate about…" — generic and overused
• "Since the beginning of time…" — instantly signals a weak essay
• "In today's society…" — empty throat-clearing
• "Webster's defines X as…" — universally despised by admissions readers

Generic life lessons

• "I learned that hard work pays off." Everyone learned that.
• "I realized the value of teamwork." Everyone realized that.
• "It taught me to never give up." Cliché.

If your reflection paragraph could appear in any other student's essay, it is not specific enough.

Padding phrases

• "Due to the fact that" → "because"
• "At this point in time" → "now"
• "In order to" → "to"
• "For the purpose of" → "for" or "to"

Words that announce instead of show

• "Obviously" — if it is obvious, you do not need to say so
• "Clearly" — same problem
• "As I will discuss" — just discuss it

Watch your own tics

Every writer has a personal short-list of overused words. Use the keyword frequency tool in the Free Word Counter to find your own — if a word appears more than five times in 650 words, you are leaning on it.

The strongest revision move

After your final draft, do one pass with Ctrl+F. Search "very," "really," "just," "that," "in order to," "due to the fact that," and your own tic words. Read each instance and ask: "Does this word earn its place?" Delete or replace 80% of them.