For the majority of students, writing the perfect college essay can be a grueling and stressful process. The pressure for it to be unique, coherent, comprehensive and overall, perfect is undeniable.
One of the biggest problems for most students is that they are not accustomed to writing about themselves. We learn at a young age that it’s not polite to talk too much about ourselves, lest we come off like a show off or a braggart. However, the college essay requires that students write about themselves in a way that is both positive and uplifting, but also honest and humble. It’s a hard balance.
But you can do it.
The perfect college essay is an opportunity to show the real you
While writing about ourselves is one of the most difficult tasks we are called upon to do, your personal statement is essentially an opportunity. College applications are very superficial. The blanks and spaces in the application require you to fill in basic data about yourself: parents’ names, grades in school, and extracurricular involvements. It’s all a bunch of facts–information devoid of spirit or humanity.
The essay is your chance to put who you really are in your application. It is your chance to tell the admissions officer something about yourself that will not be reflected anywhere else in your application. So how do you determine what you want to say?
However you decide to write your essay, one thing is certain. You must keep yourself at the center. You are the main character of the story. You are in the spotlight. Generally in our academic writing at school, we learn to take out the first-person pronoun “I” and make our analysis more impersonal. However, with the perfect college essay, you’ll be bringing that first-person pronoun back into your prose. You are the focus of your college essay.
Crafting the perfect college essay to match the Common App prompts
College essay prompts are often tricky to dissect. Sometimes they invite you to focus on things other than you. They ask you to write about another person in your life, or a historical character, or an issue you care about. They ask you to write about your conception of diversity. Or maybe they want to know about an activity you enjoy.
Beware! The problem with the prompts is that most students launch into a lengthy exegesis about that other person, or that issue, or that activity, without saying much of anything interesting about the real focus of a college essay: the applicant (that would be YOU!).
Fortunately the most recent Common Application prompts do a fairly good job of helping you to focus on yourself. For example, one prompt asks you to focus on a particular background, identity, interest or talent that is important to you. Another is about a time in which you experienced failure. In both of these cases (and with all the other Common App prompts), you have to zero in on something that is pretty personal.
You want to think about what your essay says about you. As you review the prompts, ask what you want the admissions officer to know about you. While most people rarely take the time to sit down and really think about who they are, when writing your college essay, it is essential to attempt to answer the insuperable question: “Who am I?”
When attempting to write the perfect college essay, consider the following
It is not about your resume
Some students erroneously believe that they should simply write about something on their resume since that is important to them. But your essay should be more than that. Your list of activities should be the place to brag about your accomplishments. The essay is where you put yourself, your personality, and your soul into the application. If you find yourself talking about one of your primary activities in the essay, don’t brag here. Talk about how the activity or accomplishment humbled you or changed you, or opened your eyes to something new and interesting. Once again, pay close attention to what each essay prompt is asking you.
Don’t overlap with the other essays you may have to write
Take some time to consider all of the essays you need to write before brainstorming ideas for your personal statement. You may have to write supplemental essays that are specific to each college. These essays may cover why you are interested in a particular college, what you want to major in and what your future goals are, so think of some other aspects of your personality, your values, or your priorities that you want to share with colleges. Other supplementals may ask about your academic interests or other accomplishments.
The point is that you do not want to waste precious space on your application by duplicating essays or saying the same thing twice. You want each essay to project a different facet of you as a human being. You want to use every opportunity on the application to give the reader as much information about yourself as possible.
Consider what you want your perfect college essay to say about you
Start with some hard thinking about what aspects of your personality, your values, and your personal priorities would be helpful in conveying a sense of who you are as a person. What would you tell an admissions officer about yourself if you had a chance to meet them in person?
Here are some questions to help you examine who you are:
Before you get started examining the specific prompts of the Common App, you might want to think more broadly about the messages you want to communicate on your college application.
To help you brainstorm, here are some questions that can get your juices flowing. Take the time to answer these questions fully. The better and more complete your answers, the more good fodder you’ll have for the perfect college essay.
- What aspects of your high school experience have you enjoyed the most?
- If you could live this period again, would you do anything differently?
- What values are most important to you?
- What do you care about most?
- What kind of person would you like to become?
- Of your unique gifts and strengths, which would you most like to develop?
- What would you most like to change about yourself?
- Is there anything you have ever secretly wanted to do or be?
- If you had a year to go anywhere and do whatever you wanted, how would you spend that year?
- What events or experiences have shaped your growth and way of thinking?
- How would you describe your family and hometown and how has your environment influenced your way of thinking?
- What has been the most controversial issue that concerns you? How does the issue concern you? What has been your reaction to the controversy? What is your opinion?
- Do you often encounter people who think or act differently from you? What viewpoints challenge you the most? How do you respond? From this, what have you learned about yourself and others?
- What are your finest qualities?
- What are your most conspicuous shortcomings?
- Which relationships are most important to you and why? Describe the people whom you consider your best friends, critics, and advocates?
- How do others who are important to you influence you? What pressures have you felt to conform? How important are approval and recognition to you?
Remember that YOU are the center of your college essay. No matter if you choose a topic of your choice or a predetermined prompt, you have to bring the essay back to you.
Need help to write the perfect college essay?
The expert college counselors at Great College Advice have years of experience helping students craft excellent college essays. We know how to help you choose topics, structure the prose, hone the messages, and edit the essay to perfection. The essays are an essential aspect of the college application process, and you want to make sure your essay represents you well. If you feel that it would be helpful to get some personalized guidance on how to write the essay, please give us a call or fill out our contact form. We’d be delighted to chat with you about how we can help.
