OLO ma beans!! Welcome to another College Confidential. I'm currently editing college/scholarship essays and I have so so much to share... 

1. Start making senpai friends earlier: This means be friends with older people who are 1-2 years older. This will help you so so so much during the college application process since they are experienced with the application process. They will be the best people to calm you down, give you the most amazing advice, and is much much more helpful than 99% college counselors. Plus more opinions the better. It might seem intimidating but most of the time, they are pretty friendly if you just speak... They are people like you and being older a few years older doesn´t change that. 
   
2. Send All of Your Essays to your English Teacher: As much as we don't believe it, teachers are here to help students. If you are too scared to send it to them, realize that after this one year, you will never see them again but still be super super respectful and realize that they probably get essays from all their past students also. I have the honor of having a AP Literature teacher who´s child recently went to college and so she knows what is required for essays. BUT ALL English teachers are great people to look at your essays.
   
3. Know someone who applied to the same school: I have actually went on college class pages to see who I know goes there and I would kindly ask them what each college are looking for. This makes everything more straightforward. They will literally tell you exactly what you need without all the Google searches.
   
4. Start Early: I checked out all my applications during the summer and yes Common Apps will roll over even after last years' applications are deleted. I started my scholarship application in May and now I'm still editing my essays. You don't need to start as early as me, but start soon sweeties. 
5. Read Other Essays: I get inspired from reading other people's essays. Sometimes they remind me that I forgot to mention a point and they might even provide me some help with how to phrase something better.
6. Thesaurus is your BEST FRIEND: You don't want to repeat the same words and bore out everyone so you gotta use synonyms.