When it comes to writing a college admissions essay, most people fall into one of two camps:
- The Most Interesting Man/Woman in the World: This applicant thinks he or she has seen and done it all. He or she spent a winter saving baby harp seals and a summer riding big waves on the North Shore. He or she tells jokes that could make Eminem laugh and is focused enough to impress a Jedi. This student has an impressive lifestyle, and wants to make sure the reader knows all of it.
- The Least Interesting Man/Woman in the World: This applicant thinks that he or she hasn’t done anything more interesting than watch reruns of Friends while listening to the grass grow. He or she often feels the need to fabricate details in an effort to sound more compelling.
Neither of these viewpoints is true, and behaving as if they are is dangerous. The first applicant is trying too hard and, despite solid credentials, might not fit well on campus. The second doesn’t necessarily sound uninteresting, only unconfident. Both sound unnatural.
The best way to sound natural is to write your essay about a specific moment in your life. The secret is that the moment need not be about something earth-shattering. Instead, you can follow the mantra: “write about something minor to show something major.”
So how to begin thinking about that subtle topic? I recommend a four-step process.
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Brainstorm
Give yourself ten minutes for this. Create two columns. The first should contain all of your interests, academic and otherwise. Write down everything you can think of. There’s no reason, after all, that a fine essay can’t be written about your desire to be Justin Bieber without the lame tattoos.
Second, give yourself ten minutes to fill another column with your strongest memories, good or bad. They should be about a moment: A bonfire at the beach, striking out to end the big game, and your side-gig as a disposable lighter repairperson all merit consideration. All should invoke emotions in some way; after all, if they don’t mean something special to you, how will they mean anything to your reader?
Afterward, consider talking to friends about the list. They may remind you of that time you saw (proper noun) and that (awesome/crazy/awful/borderline illegal) thing happened.
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If cliché topics are king, become an insurgent
The first step to narrowing down your list is to eliminate cliché topics. Put yourself in the mind of an admissions officer who reads fifty essays each day, and write what they don’t see. Did some great community service? Great, so did everyone else. Say to your team, “Hey guys, we can do it” before the big game that no one thought you could win, then your team did it? I’ve seen that movie too.
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From hook to the catch
While your essay might be about something ostensibly simple, it should make its way to something deeper: a lesson learned or a point made about your character. For example, if your passion is cooking, you might write a story based on the fact that cooking is, from a certain point of view, silly: you might slave for hours creating a dish that is consumed in five minutes. The essay’s point is that the result is not the important thing: the process is. The story is compelling because the reader wants to know where the author is going with an anecdote about a tomato soup covering the walls of a kitchen.
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A broad outline to narrow the field
Once you have narrowed your ideas to three finalists, outline the essays. Be as specific as you can, including purposes for each paragraph, transitions, hooks, and conclusions. Skipping this step makes the essay sound something like this:
Paragraph 1: I used to love climbing the oak tree in my backyard.
Paragraph 2: My mother was scared when I did this.
Paragraph 3: Your college campus has a lot of trees on it.
Paragraph 4: I like trees.
Paragraph 5: PLEASE LET ME IN!!!!!!
The next step is to write the hook, which I’ll cover in the next post. Until then, give some serious consideration of what kind of story you want to tell.