Perhaps it’s hard to believe, but alas, it’s true; there does come a time when you near the end of the essay writing process. What is the next step? To finalize and then, at long last, submit.

You’re stressed, that’s a given. But, make sure your stress doesn’t get the best of you in the final stretch. What this means, is don’t suddenly jump the boat and decide to submit something before it’s really ready, just because you want to get it over with.

In general, I would recommend that you go at least a couple days without reading your essay, after which you sit down for a final round of edits. Little things that you might have missed before might come into play, or you might have a new perspective you want to acknowledge.

That’s not to say you are seriously changing your essay, not in the slightest. But giving your mind a real break of a couple days creates a buffer of time and quality when doing final revisions.

Next, I would suggest that you wait a couple days of no editing, again, before your next read. And if after that read, there are still no changes, THEN you’re ready to submit.

You’re in the final stages, so be excited, but don’t rush it. You’ve come this far, so finish strong. Take the lenience to be at-ease when wrapping up the essay process and prior to submission to be confident that you are submitting the work you are confident with. The last thing you want is to submit the application a few days early to ‘get it over with’ even though it’s not rolling admission, only to realize there was some change you should have made to your essay- don’t let that happen! When you submit, be confident, proud, and excited- you’ve done it!