No Dead Grandmas
Note: This was originally published in Oct 2022, on Open Water
I remember staring at a blank notebook page as I tapped my pencil against my forehead as though I was trying to knock loose an original thought. I was 17 years old and had decided to spend a weekend writing all of my college admissions and scholarship essays. This was in the pre-Common App era, so every one of my schools had a different set of essays topics. I'd knocked out the one about talking about a challenge I'd overcome and was stuck on the essay, for a Christian college, that asked me to describe my personal relationship with Jesus Christ in 300 words or less. I felt certain there was a right answer to that question. I was also aware that there might be quite a bit of day light between the right answer and the honest answer.
I'm pretty sure I just ended up quoting the Nicene Creed and hoping for the best.
While I can't remember what I wrote about for the "challenge I've overcome" question (though I am QUITE CONFIDENT that I would cringe deeply to read it now), I can remember the sense of pressure that came with writing the essays. While the process of writing college essays got easier with the introduction and expansion of the Common App, I know many prospective college students still find the essay part of the application process to be the most intimidating.
Part of what makes writing a college admissions essay intimidating is that it feels so high stakes, because most students don't have an accurate sense of how heavily it will weight into the admissions process. If their essay sucks, will it cancel out their great GPA? Will it save them if their ACT/SAT scores are average or lower than average? I think students are also sometimes uncertain about what admissions officers are really looking for in the admissions essay. Is it a test of their grammar and writing skills? Is it supposed to make them sound perfect? Who is going to read this thing anyways?
For the record, the answers to those questions are: unlikely, maybe, kind of, no, and it depends.
I realize that last sentence may not be the most helpful thing I've ever written.
Before we dig into some actual practical writing strategies, a few bits of context that might be helpful to know:
It is entirely possible to get into college without having to do any essays. Community colleges, technical colleges, and many open access 4-year colleges and universities don't require essays. Some larger land grant universities (schools like the University of Minnesota, the University of Arizona, University of Kansas, for example) also don't require essays. This is driven in at least in part by the sheer volume of applications they get every year, with a school like the University of Arizona which got over 52,000 applications for fall 2022 (and admitted 87% of them)
Colleges that do require essays may vary in how heavily weighted the essays are in the admission decision. For schools that are in the moderately selective category (which I describe as the schools that admit 75% or more of their applicants, a category that includes everything from big public universities to small private colleges), a truly horrific essay might be a deal breaker, but fine but forgettable essay probably isn't going to be a deal breaker for a student with a GPA north of 3.0.
Yes: there are some truly horrific essays. Pro-tip: an essay describing how a student admired Hitler for his "sense of purpose and drive" even though "I don't agree with what he did" FOR SURE got the admission office's attention, but not in a good way.
It is a little simplistic but still true: the more selective the institution, the higher stakes the essay becomes. But, for the most selective schools, an amazing essay is still unlikely to make a student with average grades/test scores a viable candidate for admissions. It's a both/and situation: the grades and the essay both need to be pretty flawless when a school is only admitting 5-10% of it's applicants.
While many colleges now rely on the essay prompts found on the Common App (more on this later). some colleges still have unique essays prompts that change on a yearly basis. The University of Chicago is famous for this and their essay choices this year include "What advice would a wisdom tooth have?" and "Genghis Khan with an F1 racecar. George Washington with a SuperSoaker. Emperor Nero with a toaster. Leonardo da Vinci with a Furby. If you could give any historical figure any piece of technology, who and what would it be, and why do you think they’d work so well together?" A college that creates new questions every year cares a lot about the essay, so respond accordingly.
Depending on the college, a student's admissions essay may be read by one person (often the admissions counselor assigned to that student's school or state), by two to three readers who score independently, by a committee, or by a short-term contractor, hired by the school solely to read and score applications. Most students won't know for sure who will read their essay, so they should assume their audience is someone who reads a lot of essays and who doesn't know more about the student than what is in their admissions file.
When it comes to an admissions essay, the truth is that the biggest sin is that they can be rather repetitive for the reader. When I was in a role when I read essays regularly, there were a few topics that were so overdone that when one encountered them in their stack of files to read it was sometimes difficult not to audibly groan. The two largest categories of groaners were jokingly called "DGs" (short hand for "my inspirational dead grandma" stories) and "TBPs" ("Thanks brown people!", the tedious and usually a least a little racist essays on short terms missions or service trips where the white student learned a valuable life lesson from "helping" brown people).
Please do your part to stop the flow of DG and TBP essays. Admissions people everywhere will be so grateful.
Beyond not expressing admiration for either Hitler or a beloved dead relative, there are a few other things students should do to write an admissions essay that an admissions counselor or application reader will want to read:
Remember that the fundamental goal with the essay is to help the read feel like they have a sense of the student is and what the student will bring to the campus. Students should aim to write something that feels like they are telling a story to a friend, not giving a book report to a teacher. Often, it can be helpful for a student to talk through their topic out loud with someone before they write it. In the past, I've encouraged students to record themselves talking through their topic with a trusted person in their life and then to listen back to it, keying in on the moments when the listener had the biggest reactions. When did they laugh, or ask a question, or make a comment? That's where the good stuff in the essay is.
Consider which Common App prompt to use carefully. Every year the Common App offers 6-7 prompts a student can choose from. Every year, there are some prompts that are far more popular than others. Two of the of the most frequently selected prompts in the last few years are #2 (The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?) and #5 (Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.)
Both of these are prompts that are very, very easy to write boring essays in response to. Part of this because, well, a lot of 17 year olds have faced the same kind of challenges to overcome or faced the same kinds of moments of realization – which makes sense! Developmental theory is based on the idea that cohorts of people figure out some of the same stuff at the same time, so of course a lot of teenagers are making sense of the same kinds of big feelings around similar life events. But while an individual kid may learn a lot from the first time they lost a grandparent or won a game or figured out that they were gay … their experience is probably pretty similar to the other 500 students who also experienced that same thing and wrote 600 words about it.
To be clear: these life experiences are beautiful and meaningful. But they aren't unusual, so if a student chooses one of the these prompts they should really, really work hard to bring in original examples.
Choosing a Common App prompt that is less popular (like #6 " Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?") increases the odds that it will feel like a fresher topic to the person who is reading it.
Take advantage of the word count. The Common App lists the word count range as 250-650 words. That is not a lot of words! An effective essay will likely be on the long side of that range. If you can only think of 250 words to say on a topic… you probably don't have enough to say on that topic to make it interesting or to help the reader "see" you in the response.
Don't be afraid to tell a small story. A lot of students feel like they have to figure out how to tell their whole life story or some big or major life moment, but life is really a collection of smaller moments for a lot of us. One essay that I still think about was a story about a girl's driving lessons with her mom and how she started to see her mother differently during their drives. It ended up being a secret love letter to her mother (that her mom would likely never read) that was tender and thoughtful. Nothing dramatic happened but the student was able to show how she finds meaning in the routine parts of her life, which was an interesting perspective from an 18-year-old.
The non-negotiables: NEVER, EVER plagiarize in an essay. It may or may not get caught but if it does an offer of admissions can be rescinded in a heartbeat. Have at least three sets of eyes review the essay for typos and grammar issues, especially things that spell check won't catch.
DO NOT USE CHAT GPT OR OTHER AI TO WRITE YOUR ESSAY
Read the essay out loud to see if it has a flow or gets clunky in any places. As someone who constantly struggles with, and loses my battles with, writing overly long sentence, take it from me: if you are out of breath by the end of reading a sentence out loud, it's probably too long. (And no, I'm not taking my own advice here).
If the colleges asks students to write a supplemental essay about why there are interested in that school or how they plan to get involved on campus, get specific! Spend some time on the website to find out about interesting events, clubs, or classes. An answer that includes something like "I love the idea of taking a class on zombies during the January term and I'm intrigued by the Argentinian dancing club" is a much better answer than "I love warm weather and can't wait to go to a basketball game". And, if student can't find specific things on campus that intrigue them… perhaps that might not be the right college for them?
Finally, my biggest piece of advice is to not procrastinate. A good essay needs some time to breathe between first draft and second revision, so getting started at least a few weeks before the application deadline is really helpful.
And, if it comforting, it is really hard to be the WORST essay an admissions counselor has ever read. Trust me. They've seen it all!
Feel free to drop a question in the chat if there is anything else about essays you've always wondered!
(Please note that I’m not speaking for any current or former employers here and there are always exceptions to every admissions rule)