Filling in the standard application questions is almost enjoyable compared with the angst many students feel when approaching the college essay.

Students struggle to write a unique essay. Most high school seniors are staring at cold, gray computer screens hoping to create their ticket to Perfect U.

College essay prompts vary from the typical:

“Evaluate an experience, achievement, or risk you have taken and describe its effect on you.”

To the more unusual:

Tufts University: “What is more interesting: Gorillas or guerrillas?”

Here are some ways parents can help their students:

¢ As always, the best advice is to be authentic. Students need to be true to themselves. The essay is an opportunity for students to get beyond their statistics, to show how they’ve spent their time outside high school and to share what is important to them. It is their time to put a human face on their application.

¢ Parents often can be very helpful in the brainstorming session. You know many of their outside interests, their activities and their experiences. Sometimes just asking a probing question such as, “How did it feel when you …?” will jog their memory and send them down a fruitful path.

¢ Essays with strong active verbs are more exciting to read, but don’t overuse the thesaurus.

¢ Begin with a bang. Think about the college admissions folks reading perhaps hundreds of essays each day. Don’t start the essay by repeating the entire essay prompt in the opening sentence. Draw the reader in with an enticing introduction.

¢ Proofread. Proofread again. Have a few people look over the essay. Make sure it sounds like it was written by your student and not a 45-year-old lawyer.