The College Essay

The college application essay is unsettling to a lot of young people. To help ease the stress we asked veteran high school teacher Chris Riley to share some of the tips he gave his own students.

The college application essay is unsettling to a lot of young people, precisely because it is, fundamentally, a personal essay. A student is being asked to write about an experience that has helped to shape, even define, her – or, perhaps, to write about a person who has had the same kind of impact. Essentially, then, your son or daughter must – in a short paper, usually only 500 or 600 words (that’s about a page and a half of double-spaced type) – identify that experience or influential person, and explore its meaning. In other words, the application essay needs to explain how and why a particular moment in that young person’s life – or a particular individual who has touched that life – has had that impact. That’s a lot to ask for in such a short essay, but here are some tips to make it all possible:

Understand the requirement. The whole idea of the application essay is to give the student an opportunity to shed light on herself – to illuminate some aspect of her life that may well not appear in the transcripts or test scores. In almost all cases, then, colleges expect applicants to write personal essays (sometimes called personal statements). The writer thus really needs to dig into her own life and explore, on paper, what makes her tick. If the requirement is for a personal piece of writing, and the student instead writes an analytical paper about something not directly connected to her life, then the odds are that – regardless of how well-written it may be – that essay will not strengthen the application like it should.

Understand the angles. Most colleges structure their essay requirements along the lines of three or four questions or prompts – from which the student then selects (usually) one about which to write. Although the exact phrasings of these prompts will vary from school to school, it’s safe to say that the majority of them fall into three relatively broad categories:

· Discuss a defining experience in your life. (Not to belabor the obvious, but this really ought to be an experience that has directly impacted the student.)

· Discuss an influential person in your life. (In general, this should be someone whom your son or daughter personally knows – rather than a public figure or historical figure known only from afar.)

· Think about a particular “quotable quote” (which the college will provide as part of its prompt) and talk on paper about how that quotation has influenced your own life. This topic is really a variation of the “defining experience” prompt. The designated quotation usually encourages the student writer to think about some value or belief that has operated in or on her own life.

Understand what this essay should not be. More than anything else, it should not be a narrative version of the student’s academic resume. That is, an application essay should never sound like this: “In my freshman year I played JV soccer and had a supporting role in the school play. For my sophomore year I moved up to varsity soccer and also picked up tennis for the first time, winning a spot on the JV team. I worked very hard on my acting lessons and was rewarded with a featured role in the play. In my junior year . . .” Sigh. This sort of thing is, as I said, a narrative. It simply verbalizes events and achievements without offering any indication that the student has reflected upon their significance. And reflection – mature, sober reflection – is what personal essays are all about.

Keep it bite-size. College essays are read by admissions officers. These are intelligent people who really believe in what they are doing, and who are often deeply committed to the goal of finding the best – and the right – kids for their schools. Admissions officers are also heavily overworked, so pay attention to the mandated word count or page length, and do not overdo it. Can you go a little bit over? – Yes, a little bit. My rule of thumb is that 10% over will not be a problem. In other words, if the college specifies a 600-word limit for its application essay, and if your child’s effort comes in at, say, 658 words, that is fine. But 6000 words is not.

Write about what you know about. This may or may not be good advice for fiction writers, but it definitely holds true for students producing their college essays. The cold brutal truth is that an application essay that deals strictly or primarily in abstract generalizations, or that tries to pass off hypothetical or – worse yet – made-up experiences as if they were the student’s own . . . well, such an essay will stick out for all the wrong reasons. In most cases the pupil’s writing style, the writing voice even, will reflect the lack of authenticity of its subject matter – a dead giveaway to a trained, perhaps skeptical, reader. Remember, your child is exploring her experience, her life . . . and the objective is to find – or explain – the meaning in that experience, in a way that favorably catches an admissions officer’s eye. Which brings us to . . .

Make a mountain out of a molehill. Colleges have been requiring applications essays long enough now that – try as they may to deny it – their attitudes toward what they are reading have become just a little . . . jaded. There is just not a lot out there that they haven’t read by now. The large schools trudge through thousands of community-service-based essays each year; they have seen many courageous papers about death and divorce and other life-altering situations. I’m not trying to sound callous about any of this, and I am certainly not suggesting that young people avoid treating such topics. The trick, though, is to treat the topic – whatever it may be – in a new and unusual way. One way to do so is by recalling, and re-creating, the seemingly inconsequential moment that, in retrospect, pointed the way to a significant shift in that young person’s world view. With such an approach, an essay can thus deal with a “mainstream” topic like community service and still be very successful – so long as it explores that familiar topic in different, even unexpected, ways. A good way to highlight the unexpected is by remembering to . . .

Make it real. Find the details – the revealing details – that illuminate the larger issues. You can help your child in this regard. Talk about the shifts and changes in your lives; pull out old photo albums and knickknacks and talk together about the stories behind those images and relics. If your child should go on an extended trip – a mission trip or even just a vacation – encourage her to keep a journal to record vivid impressions right as, or after, they’ve made themselves felt. Treat community service efforts the same way – have your child jot down some notes right after he has come home. Talk about the people who have touched your teen’s life, for better or for worse – relatives, coaches, friends, members of the clergy – and try to connect those faces with particular events.

Think about structure. Like every other piece of written work, a college essay ought to try to grab the reader from its first sentence. Effective openings tend to be those that put the reader in the middle of a situation, in the middle of some of those striking details that I just talked about. Save the philosophizing (“Here’s what it all means”; “I realize now that . . .”) for later in the paper – such summing-up often works best at or near the end, as the moral of the story. At all times, remember that the application essay can really bring a young person – and her application packet – to clear and vivid and exciting life for an admissions committee. And maybe, just maybe, in the course of exploring his life in this way, your child may understand himself (and the people around him) just a little bit better. Not a bad thing to have happen before setting off to college.

As a high school English teacher Chris Riley has assisted hundreds of students with college essay writing. Chris lives in Overland Park with his wife and daughter.