Comparing Essay Prompts: Coalition & Common App
As part of your college application process, many colleges will require an admissions essay. This...
Between grades, extracurriculars, and letters of recommendation, there are many aspects that build up your college applications and determine your general competitiveness in the selective admission process.
College essays, however, are arguably the most challenging—yet rewarding—assignments you will face during your senior year. In this blog, as a former Dean of Admission, I'll walk you through these highlights (click to jump to each section!):
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As the essay prompts seem to stare tauntingly from the pages of your applications, the growing anxiety can become stressful. Even the best writers struggle with the questions, “What do they want to see?”, “How can I set myself apart from the competition?” and these past few years in particular, “How do I explain the impact of COVID on my life?”
If you find yourself in this situation, you’re not alone. Writing a compelling essay is not an easy task given the high-stakes nature of college admission. That said, by writing a powerful essay that effectively complements your other credentials, you will introduce a potential “hook” into your applications. Let’s take a look at why colleges require essays in the first place.
Despite the potentially stressful nature of college essays for those who must write them, the essays do help admission officers learn more about you. For example, they want to see if you’re able to:
Your essay should reveal that you have good command of the language, understand the rules of grammar, and can convey ideas concisely.
Admission officers want to get past the facts of your application to discern your capacity for critical thinking. How do you process information about yourself and the world around you? What do you care about? Which experiences have defined you? Your essay should reveal how and why have they shaped you.
It is important to remember that your college essay is not work you are producing for a grade. Rather, you need to make an impression. Think of your college essays as artistic expression. Just as artists have an array of brushstrokes and a rich palette of color at their disposal, you can employ language, literary forms, and punctuation to convey important messages. As the artist, you are at liberty to create. So, what will your art say about you—how will it reveal the story you want to tell?
Risk-taking is an interesting element of creative writing. Done well, it can lift your presentation from the mundane and safe to the provocative and insightful. Moreover, your capacity for making yourself vulnerable reflects a level of self-confidence that can be reassuring to admission officers who want to discern your ability to perform on their highly competitive campuses.
So much of what you have accomplished in school and in life is data that will be found in the body of your application—it’s there for the world to see. The true evidence of your character, personality and sense of compassion, however, lies within you. The power of a good essay is often found in its ability to give the reader this insight. Go beyond your résumé to reveal your humanity.
Admissions officers are seeking students who are purposeful in their pursuits when choosing among highly talented students. They see a ton of candidates who are attracted by the fame or prestige of their institutions—who are simply applying to see if they can get in. Such candidates, regardless of their credentials, are not very compelling and are easily dismissed.
Selective institutions often employ supplemental essay prompts to sort the whimsically submitted applications from those that are more intentional. The applicants who get a longer “read” are those who can clearly express a sense of purpose—they know what they want to accomplish in college, how they can best accomplish it and have identified the instructional elements of the institution that speak to their objectives and learning styles. They can clearly demonstrate the synergy that exists between themselves and the institutions in question.
As you prepare your supplemental essays, focus on:
Why is college important to you? What are your objectives? If you have a specific academic/career interest, how can you prove it? What do you know about the discipline? If you are uncertain about your academic/career direction, do you recognize—and can you articulate—the value of a broadly-based educational experience?
We don’t all process the same information the same way—and colleges don’t all deliver it in the same manner! Know your learning style. This is especially true if you are an experiential, hands-on learner who values testing ideas. Be prepared to provide evidence of this learning style in your supplemental essays.
Selective colleges are most interested in students whose sense of purpose is illustrated in their recognition of compatible learning opportunities on their campuses. When they ask “Why do you want to come here,” they are not interested in knowing whether you can recite their institutional superlatives. Rather, they want to see if you have made the conscious connection between your sense of purpose and the opportunities that exist within their educational environment.
And, when given the opportunity, take advantage of supplemental essays to address any adversity you might have experienced, academic and otherwise, during your high school years. In particular, many institutions will want to know how you responded to the challenges of the COVID experience.
You need to craft a statement that speaks to who you are as a person. As you can see, the risk-reward element with the essay is very high, especially if you aspire to highly selective colleges and universities. While we can’t write your essay for you, the following tips should be helpful in developing a personal statement that becomes the glue for a thematically cohesive application.
Finally, when you think you are finished with your essay, dare to make it great! First, attempt to reduce your word count by 10%. Doing so will force you to examine every word, thought, and article of punctuation. Even if you are not able to reduce by 10%, making an honest attempt at it will make your essay better.
And then have someone read it out loud to you. When you proofread silently, your brain will play tricks on you (there is only one “and” in the sentence when, indeed, it reads “and and”). Hearing the words as written will force you to acknowledge the script as it is. Don’t be surprised if you need to ask the reader to pause while you make a change or two!
Good luck!
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