RETURN TO STAGE HOMEPAGE
STAGE 5: Polished Draft
IN THIS STAGE YOU WILL:
Review your revised essay draft with an essay coach
Finalize your essay by smoothing transitions and refining word choice and sentence structure so the final polished draft truly sounds like you
After four STAGEs of brainstorming, writing, and revising, you’re probably more than ready to finish your essay. We get it! And we promise that you’re almost there! There are just a few important details left to polish.
Just like you’ve done with previous drafts, you’ll meet with your essay coach and look over the revised draft together. Even though it might feel awkward, you’ll read the essay aloud. Why? Well, hearing your essay out loud helps you catch anything that sounds awkward, unclear, or not quite you. We’ll return to the feedback you received earlier in the Intermission Feedback draft and take a close look at how you addressed those suggestions.
At this STAGE, many essays only need small adjustments. Others may require a bit more reshaping. Both are completely normal! Every essay develops at its own pace, and your coach will continue to guide you through the revision process until you have a final polished draft that feels confident, clear and complete.
HOW STAGE 5 IS DIFFERENT FROM OTHER DRAFTS
In earlier STAGEs, you wrote each draft with a “fresh start” approach. You were still shaping your story, figuring out what mattered most, and making big decisions about content and structure. The Stage 5: Polished Draft is different, though. Now you’re focusing on the smaller details – the ones that may seem annoying or silly but can really make a difference in the overall style and personality of your essay.
You’ll be working directly in your Revised Draft document to make changes instead of starting over. This allows you to focus on refining what’s already working rather than rewriting entire sections. Once revisions are complete and you and your essay coach both agree that the essay is “ready to go,” you’ll copy and paste your updated work into the STAGE 5: Polished Draft document (see below for more specific instructions).
WHAT “POLISH” ACTUALLY MEANS
Final polishing looks different for every writer. For some students, STAGE 5 involves a few surface-level changes, such as tightening sentences or adjusting word choice. For others, it could include refining ideas or strengthening a particular paragraph.
That said, there are three main areas you and your essay coach will focus on:
Conciseness: We’ll look for places where sentences can be trimmed without losing meaning. College admissions essays have limited space, and every word counts!
Word Choice: We’ll replace vague, repetitive, or overly formal language with words that sound natural to you and paint a vivid picture of your experiences and feelings.
Personality: This is the most important area of polishing. Personality means that your essay sounds like you – not like a thesaurus or a robot. As we revise, we’ll ask questions like these:
Would I actually say it this way if I were telling my story aloud instead of writing it?
Does this sound like my voice or someone else’s?
Can the reader hear how I actually think and speak, not just what I’m saying?
SUBMITTING YOUR STAGE 5 POLISHED DRAFT
Please also note that you will NOT submit STAGE 5 on your own. Instead, you’ll submit it together with a coach during a meeting. This helps make sure that both you and your coach feel that the essay is ready for final review, and it also prevents last-minute panic edits at home that can undo really good work.
You will NOT submit your STAGE 5: Polished Draft until it feels truly finished. That means it’s at or under 650 words, all revision notes have been addressed, and this feels like something you’d be confident submitting to an admissions committee. For some students, this happens in one essay coaching meeting. For others, it takes a little more time.
If you need additional revisions, don’t worry at all! Writing a strong college admissions essay is a process, not a race. Your essay coach will guide you through the next steps and let you know what to work on, and you’ll book another meeting when you’re reading.
THE CURTAIN CALL
Once you submit your STAGE 5: Polished draft with your coach, you can sit back and relax while our DCCC performs a “Curtain Call.” This means that our team will take about 1-2 weeks to review your essay closely and make any last- minute editing suggestions. When our team has completed the review, we’ll notify you and your family. Then you’ll be asked to look over your essay, make small adjustments if necessary, and then give it your final stamp of approval.
Your Assignment to be completed with a coach during a meeting:
When you and your coach have finished revising your STAGE 4 Revised Essay draft document during your meeting, copy and paste your essay into your STAGE 5: Polished Draft document.
You or your coach will submit your work together using our Multi-Purpose Submission Form, making sure to copy and paste the Google Doc link from the STAGE 5: Polished Draft document into the Asana form. Be sure to click ‘SUBMIT’ at the bottom of the form.
After submission, please do not make any changes to the essay!
The STAGE Program
RETURN TO STAGE HOMEPAGE