There are endless things you can worry about when it comes to your college applications, but for some reason it is the college essay that always seems to cause the most anxiety among the students we work with. This is definitely not surprising.
The essay is, without a doubt, the most subjective part of your application. You can understand what a 760 means on the writing section of the SAT and you have some sense of what your GPA means. But the difference between a good essay and a bad essay can be much harder to define and different people may even have starkly different opinions about whether your essay is effective.
No matter what topic you choose or how many people you ask to look over your essay, there is some element of insecurity many students feel about their essays when they hit the submit button.
You will hear a lot of advice from the “experts” when it comes to the admissions essay. Some people will tell you that the best essays vividly tell a story, while others will tell you that you need to have a clear opening point and multiple supporting examples, and some say the only effective essays are the ones that showcase a hook.
We don’t believe there is one right formula for the essay. For us, The most effective essays are the ones that elevate the application by bringing it to life.
How do you do that?
The key is to read your application as a stranger.
Pretend You Aren’t You
The first thing you should do is fill out everything on the application except for your essays. Fill in your awards, extracurricular activities, grades, test scores, and biographical information. This part of the application is relatively easy – this is the stuff you already know.
Once you’ve filled all of this out, read through everything you’ve written down, pretending you are an admissions officer who knows nothing else about you. Ask yourself the following questions:
What are my initial impressions of this person?
What is this person passionate about?
Will this person take advantage of the opportunities available at my college or university?
How does this person stand out?
What are my concerns about this applicant?
As you answer these questions, remember the only information you have about this person is what you see in front of you.
Just because a student is the captain of the tennis team in high school doesn’t tell you anything about whether he or she intends on continuing this pursuit in college.
Just because a student volunteered at a hospital doesn’t reveal anything about his or her ambitions to become an oncologist.
Just because a student attended school in three different countries doesn’t reveal the unique perspective on the world he or she developed from living in such varied environments.
Write down only what you can definitely surmise from the factual information you’ve written down.
Now stop pretending you are an admissions officer and read through the answers to these questions as yourself. You have full knowledge of your passions, goals, and ambitions so as you read through, ask yourself: What is missing from this picture?
You know yourself better than anyone else so you probably know that this list of facts is missing some sort of spirit. It doesn’t fully reveal the extent of your passion for a particular field, the hard work you put into obtaining a position of leadership, the complex relationship you have with your family, the reason your grades dipped during your junior year or other key facets of your personality and life.
When you completely eliminate the backstory in your head and judge yourself only from this list of facts, you may react by saying “This doesn’t tell the whole story!”
You will never be able to tell the whole story in the limited space provided, but you need to figure out which parts of the story are more important to tell. When you read through the answers you wrote down, you’ll likely know which parts of your application are missing the depth you feel you need to reveal.
Reveal the Right Qualities
Now that you’ve identified key parts of yourself that you feel are missing from your application, you’ll have an idea of where to begin your search for the ideal essay content.
Write down a list of the missing components and their associated stories such as:
- Reasons why I’m interested in studying biology/interest in rare plants and medicinal usage/summer biology camp story
- Why I decided to start the Sailing Team at my school/story about competition in Providence
- Story behind how I got into the AP Literature class when the school initially rejected me
- Why I believe excelling in debate will help me as a future doctor/how this perspective makes me stand out
Now compare your list of missing components to a list of qualities most colleges are looking for in applicants. These qualities include, but are not limited to the following:
- Hard-working
- Ambitious
- Passionate
- Motivated
- Self-starting
- Broad-minded
- Entrepreneurial
- Community-oriented
- Creative
- Curious
- Motivational
- Inspired
- Intellectual
- Resilient
- Courageous
- Generous
- Thoughtful
- Conscientious
- Patient
- Energetic
- Unique
- Interdisciplinary
- Liberal arts oriented
Determine which components best showcase the qualities you hope to reveal.
In most cases, you are going to have the opportunity to write several essays so you may choose to write an essay about several of these components. Your essay about why you are interested in studying biology may reveal how you are passionate, curious, and a self-starter.
Your second essay about how you believe debating skills may help in effectively practicing medicine may reveal different qualities such as that you are creative, interdisciplinary, and unique.
Together, these essays round out the picture of who you are in a much more vivid way than was possible from your original list of facts.
An Example of this Method
Let’s go through a full example of how this works. We’ll take a look at the application of a boy named Philip. Here is what he writes on his application:
Name: Philip
GPA: 3.8
SAT Scores: 690M, 750CR, 780W
Awards:
District Debate Champion (1st Place)
Extracurricular Activities:
President of the Literature Club
Vice-President of the Student Government Association
Volleyball Team
Desired Major:
Economics
Obviously, a full application would have more information than listed above, but this gives you an idea. He would read through everything above and pretending to be the admissions officer, he would answer the following questions.
What are my initial impressions of this person?
He seems to be a talented English student.
What is this person passionate about?
It looks like he is likely passionate about English since he leads the Literature Club and has won a debate award.
Will this person take advantage of the opportunities available at my college or university?
It looks like he will be focused on English, where he clearly excels.
How does this person stand out?
He stands out from his peers in his English skills and has some leadership experience from his positions in the Literature Club and student government.
What are my concerns about this applicant?
His math score is on the lower side for our university, and I’m not sure if he will fully take advantage of the Economics curriculum our university offers if his main/only focus is English.
Now that he rereads these reactions from his own perspective, he’ll need to think about whether this is an impression he is comfortable with. Chances are, he will realize that this portrait of himself is incomplete.
He’ll make a list of missing components of himself from this original analysis:
- Passionate about not just English but also Economics/ my initiative as the vice-president of the SGA to bring multivariable calculus to my school/ want to volunteer at schools in college to improve math education/interest in how economics affect the future of this country.
- I strive to be well-rounded/ I am not naturally good at math, but I have worked very hard to improve my skills/ read various Math books over the summer and practiced solving different types of problems/ delivered speech for SGA in front of hundreds of people to convince them of the importance of multivariable calculus and got standing ovation/ analyzed and blogged about latest economic updates from the news/ continue to be interested in the art of logic and reasoning and hope to continue to work on these skills in college.
- Fascination with Legos and my story about how I’ve been building a giant Lego castle in my basement for the past ten years.
- Challenges having a deaf grandmother and how it taught me the value of nonverbal communication.
He looks at this list and compares it to the list of qualities he wants to reveal in his application. All of these missing components are important to him, but he doesn’t have the space to write about all of them. Ultimately, he decides that he will write his main Common Application essay on his struggle to improve his math skills.
He knows that his lower SAT scores in math might be seen as problematic, and he also wants to make sure colleges have no doubt that he is a good fit for an Economics degree study. Furthermore, he is proud of the fact that he worked extremely hard to overcome a natural obstacle and was able to achieve a certain level of success.
He will be able to use this same essay to elaborate on the nature of the success he has been able to achieve. He will describe how he was able to use the opportunity to be elected to student government to improve math education, something he continues to be passionate about. He can conclude that this experience taught him that he was capable of anything, that interdisciplinary skills can lead to greatness, and that he is therefore a good fit for the Economics course.
In just one essay, he has now been able to address many of the issues he thought were missing from the admissions officer’s original analysis, and he was able to reveal a lot of positive characteristics about himself including the fact that he is:
- Ambitious
- Hard-working
- Passionate
- Broad-minded
- Goal-oriented
- Resilient
- Likely to pursue community service or politically-oriented activities in college
- Interested in an Economics education
These characteristics would appeal to all of the colleges on Philip’s list which is why this is an ideal essay for the Common Application.
For his supplemental essay, he will write about his fascination with Legos and his Lego castle. He believes that this essay will reveal different qualities that he also feels are important, including the fact that he is:
- Unique
- Self-starting
- Creative
With these essays included, he comes across as a much more well-rounded and distinctive applicant. He feels that he has translated the core aspects of his personality into the application and feels ready to send the application off.
You Don’t Need a Masterpiece
Writing a good essay isn’t about composing a literary masterpiece, contrary to what some of your English teachers might lead you to believe. A good essay rounds out your application, revealing who you are in a more personal and deep way than is conveyed elsewhere on the application.
In order to figure out how to do this, you need to read your application with fresh eyes. You need to see yourself as a stranger would, and figure out what is missing. Dig down and figure out what drives you to succeed, what makes you passionate, and how you would contribute to your college community. Look for your weaknesses and address those head on. Choose an essay that makes all of the facts scattered about your application come to life, revealing the core part of who you are.
When an admissions officer reads your essay and sees you as a multidimensional person with complex thoughts and clear ambitions, your application comes alive.
