Writing the College Admissions Essay

By Dr. David Klooster, director of the Writing Center at DePauw University, 1986.

Applying to a college involves assembling a wealth of information about yourself - transcripts, recommendations, lists of jobs held, honors won, and organizations joined.  But after you've filled in all the blanks and distributed all the forms to the appropriate people, you still face the hard part - writing the essay.

Colleges ask you for an essay for two reasons: they want to see how well you write, and, more importantly, they want to see you.  Transcripts, test scores, and recommendations all give the college a profile of your abilities and your accomplishments.  But colleges ask you for an essay because they want to know the person behind the numbers, the lists, and the scores.  So when the college asks for a personal statement, you must aim to write about yourself as clearly, as interestingly, and as honestly as you can.

Think of Your Audience

It's always hard to write to people you don't know, but it's especially tough when your future hangs in the balance.  Putting yourself in your readers' place for a few minutes can help you write a better essay. You can expect that your essay will be read by several people - some junior members of the admissions committee who may be just a year or two out of college, some senior members of the staff who have read thousands of these essays before, and perhaps a faculty member or two.  Your essay will be one of hundreds, perhaps thousands that this committee will read.  As you can imagine, these readers may be somewhat jaded; they'll feel they've read it all before, and they'll think that most of the essays sound pretty much the same.

But at the same time, these readers will take genuine pleasure in an especially well-written essay.  They are always on the lookout for that special student who has something different to say or a different way of saying it, that student who writes an essay that makes the reader want to meet the writer - and admit him or her to next year's freshman class.  Your task is to write that kind of essay.  Here's how.

Choosing Your Topic

Most colleges suggest two or three topics for the essay.  The topics usually center on a significant experience in your life - a book that changed the way you think, a teacher who redirected your interest in education, a notable success or failure.  The topics on the Common Application form used by 118 colleges nationwide are these:  "Evaluate a significant experience or achievement that has special meaning to you."  "Discuss some issue of personal, local, or national concern and its importance to you."  "Indicate a person who has had a significant influence on you, and describe that influence."  What would you write about these topics?

First of all, notice the common word: YOU.  No matter what you choose to write about, the essay should reveal something about who you are, what you value, how you think, what you hope to accomplish.  As you search for a suitable topic, be sure to consider what the relationship is between the experience, the issue, or the person and YOU.

But you also have to consider the second important word in these topics:  SIGNIFICANT.  Some topics are so overworked that few admissions officers find much significance left in them.  How many essays do you think they read each year on "The Teacher Who Changed My Life" or "The Dangers of Drunk Driving"?  Your topic needs to reveal who you are, but it also needs to be important enough to make a tired, overworked admissions officer sit up and take notice.

Don't make the mistake of adding one more routine essay to the pile.  Remember that the topics that jump to your mind will probably also jump to the minds of thousands of other bright high school seniors applying to college this year.  Instead, explore a new angle, explain how you are different than everybody else, or investigate an unusual opinion.

Don't be afraid of being controversial, either.  If you have strong opinions about your topic, let them be known.  It's probably a mistake to try to tell your readers what you think they want to hear so that you don't offend them.  Instead, write what you believe.  The admissions officers will welcome strong opinions, especially if the controversial ideas are backed up with convincing facts, examples, and arguments.

Remember all the times your English teachers have said, "You write best about what you're most interested in"?  Take their advice.  Find a topic that excites you, an idea that makes you outraged or jubilant; if you bring genuine interest to your writing, your readers will find it interesting as well.

Composing the Essay

Your English teachers have given you other good pieces of advice to remember too.  Show your topic, don't just tell about it.  Use vivid examples; describe the scene or the person with sharp nouns and active verbs; use details that will invoke the senses.  How did it look?  Feel?  Smell?  Sound?  What, exactly, did the person say?

Don't just tell your reader that "Uncle Henry was odd"; show us his collection of second hand staples, and his pet slug, Seymour.  Don't just say you've been involved "in leadership positions"; show us how you talked the school board into changing the study hall policy and how you turned the annual youth group chicken BBQ at church from a poorly attended, money-losing embarrassment into a standing-room only, budget-busting, finger-licking success.

One of your hardest tasks will be controlling tone.  You need to come across as confident but not boastful, self-assured but not aggressive, accomplished but not a Superhero.  Try to avoid claiming that everything you've done has been unbelievably great.  Don't use endless strings of superlatives (biggest, best, newest, fastest).  Don't be afraid to admit that you are human.  Colleges don't want Saturday-morning-cartoon Supermen and Superwomen; they want interesting people who will bring variety and commitment to their campuses.

Because it's so hard to control the tone of an essay about yourself, you will want to ask several people—teachers, friends, parents - to read and respond to your essay.  Get a variety of reactions, and then decide how you want to revise the essay.

Revising the Essay

After you've finished a draft, take a break - a couple of days if you can - before you begin to revise.  You need to take a fresh look at the essay.  Does it reveal who you are?  Does it represent your best academic ability?  Does it sound like you?

Be sure to examine the overall structure of the essay.  Does it make a stunning point at the beginning and then fizzle, or does it steadily build in interest and intensity?  Have you made clear the relationship between your ideas: Is the essay well organized?

The essay needs to read smoothly.  As you revise and refine the piece, be sure that it has an attractive introduction, carefully crafted body paragraphs, and a confident conclusion.  Look for clear transitions between paragraphs and within paragraphs try to vary sentence length and structure.

Pay careful attention to the verbs of each sentence.  They should be active, not passive (not "A decision was made," but "I decided.") and they should give your reader a clear picture of you in action.

Although the essay needs to be personal, you shouldn't overuse the pronoun "I".  Use it, of course, but don't start every sentence of the essay with it.  Sometimes putting another word in the subject position of the sentence will help.  (Compare: "I cut lawns every summer during high school, and I learned a lot."  "My lawn care business taught me to work hard, to manage my time and my money, and to communicate well with my customers.")

Target:  Perfection

If you ever write an error-free essay, this needs to be it.  Grammatical and mechanical errors may ruin the entire application.  Ask a knowledgeable person to help you proofread, and be sure that you type it carefully or - if the application insists - write it neatly by hand.  Don't let careless last-minute flaws keep you out of the college you want to attend.