College admissions officers can tell a lot by reviewing an applicant’s transcript, but many of the intangibles that determine a student’s fit and future contributions to the campus are not as obvious. 

And that is where the college essay comes in.

Limited to 650 words, the essay included with the Common Application, used by over 900 colleges and universities across the country, as well as any long form application essay from an individual college, is the best, and sometimes only, way for students to demonstrate who they are behind the numbers.

This 5 part series provides an overview of the college essay writing process to share with your high school senior or junior. Here are the topics and schedule, and I’ll come back to link each subsequent article after publication. He/she/they and him/her/them are used interchangeably throughout the articles.

Part 3: Finding Your Voice, Telling Your Story

The idea of writing a 650 word essay to gain admission into a college spikes the anxiety level of most high school juniors and seniors. Most students, even good writers, feel like they have nothing interesting or compelling to say. They feel like the essay somehow needs to encapsulate their entire lives, or that they need to be funny, or make someone cry. None of these things are true.

Additionally, many students treat the college essay like an English assignment: five paragraphs, thesis statement, supporting details, beginning, middle, and end with a tidy conclusion, all completed the night before it’s due. No, no, and NO!

Consider the essay the final piece of the application puzzle. One that will take a specific situation, person, or event and tell a compelling story to show a college admissions officer the kind of person they are inviting to their campus for the next four years. Admissions representatives already have grades, test scores, courses, and recommendations; the essay should speak to the less measurable but equally important qualities of an applicant.

Yet it can be difficult for high school students to break free of a rote essay format, to think creatively, and to tell their story their way. 

Here are a few ways for your teen to develop helpful writing strategies and habits, plus exercises to get the creative juices flowing and figure out which stories might best represent personality and strengths to a college admissions officer. Show your teen this list, or discuss the items along with the importance of practicing good writing habits. While this is ultimately your kid’s essay, if you have always wanted to journal, or journal more often, work on these exercises at the same time. You can even discuss your responses after each session if both parties are comfortable. This is not a teacher-student situation, but a way for each of you to share experiences, thoughts, and feelings that the other might not realize, and ultimately a way for parents and teens to grow closer.

Strategies to Develop the Writing Habit and Your Story

• Put your butt in the seat at a certain time, for a certain length of time, or for a certain number of words. Set a timer. Work on consistency.
• Put your butt in the seat until a self-assigned task is complete.
• As you work on an exercise, write as if it were a letter or email to a friend, or if you were verbally telling the story.
• Pick an exercise, set a timer-- start with 3 minutes and gradually increase to 10-- and simply freewrite. Words, phrases, random junk related or unrelated are all good.
• Suspend judgment on the first draft of anything, just GET IT DONE.
• Start somewhere other than the beginning.
• Read other essays, MAYBE. If you do, read 3-5 essay samples one time through each to develop your internal word counter and flow meter. Do NOT try to analyze each in-depth, or worse, attempt to copy the style or voice of the author.
• Use post-it notes on a wall or whiteboard to brainstorm ideas to an essay response or other creative writing exercise. After brainstorming, see if a theme or themes emerge, then group or eliminate based on whatever is logical to your brain to tell the story you want. Once an outline and/or themes emerge, start writing a draft response.
• Record yourself answering one of the questions or telling a story in one writing session, then transcribe in another session. Either transcribe word-for-word the first time you listen back, or loosely edit while you transcribe, and voila, a second and no doubt improved draft will emerge.
• Save story or essay drafts as you go in case you arrive at draft 5 and realize you have carved it up too much and want to retreat to draft 2 or 3, or you simply want to take it in a different direction.
• Take time between drafts. The beauty and benefit of starting the essay writing process early is that you can take time to absorb, process, and mentally improve upon your writing without the last minute pressure of sitting 8-10 hours straight sitting in front of a screen.

Depending on how much time you have before the essay is due and your own “stuckness”, pick one per day until you’ve done 5, or pick one every 3 days, or pick one per week for several weeks. Work on the habit while you are finding your voice. SAVE all of your responses and drafts.

• What is your favorite object or item of clothing? Why?
• What is your favorite bumper sticker/billboard slogan, real or imagined? Why?
• What is your favorite commercial? Why?
• What Harry Potter (or Star Wars, or whatever well-known series you are familiar with) character are you most like? Why?
• Write about something that has gotten worse in your lifetime, or the reverse, better.
• If you have young siblings (age 3-6 or so), cousins, or neighbors, or perhaps you baby-sit or work in a daycare, ask them questions while you take notes on their responses. Questions to describe something or someone, tell you a story, tell you when they got in trouble, or (easier) when a brother or sister got into trouble. Don’t violate anyone’s privacy or pry too deeply, of course, but jot down some of the ideas and descriptors, allow yourself to be inspired by the creativity and imagination of the answers. 
• Describe the most disgusting pizza one could possibly build. What does it look like, smell like, taste like?
• Draw a table with three columns and label the columns People, Places, Objects. Brainstorm for 5 minutes (or whatever time you’d like) good or not-so-good memories over your lifetime for each of those categories. Overlap is fine-- don’t self-edit as you go or think about more details, just brain dump single words or short phrases under each. 
• Sit in your bedroom and describe in detail (in writing) as you move around the room-- furniture, objects on your desk, what is on your walls, what is on your floor, paint color or wallpaper pattern, what you see out the window, what is in your closet, what might be buried in your closet, what is on your bed, is your bed made, etc. Take at least 20 minutes with this exercise, which can be broken up into 2-4 sessions if needed.
• Close your eyes and think back as far as you can, then without writing anything yet, start slowly scanning up through the years remembering who you played with, where, and what with, places you lived, parents, siblings, your teachers, classmates, classrooms, and classes each year, best friends or moments/years of isolation, activities, games, teams, events, trips, vehicles, pets, any deaths or other losses, neighbors, neighborhood, extended relatives, and continue to scan your memory through to more recent high school years. Take at least 10 minutes with this exercise and longer is better; simply let your mind wander up through the years. Once you are back at the present day, write 1-10 on a new document or page and briefly list the memories that stood out the most or that you lingered on the longest, regardless how long ago they occurred. Don’t worry about filling in details, just a few words or a sentence or two is fine. This exercise is best complete in one sitting, but can be broken into two.

Questions Geared Towards College Essay Preparation

These questions are similar to the creative writing questions above, but more logically lead to a potential college essay response. Still, these are short responses. Do NOT worry about or try to write 650 words in response to any of these questions; you are still just flexing your writing muscle, developing a writing habit, and finding your voice and your story. Do try to extend your writing sessions so that by the time you are ready to tackle the first draft of your essay you can comfortably and productively write for 30-45 minutes at a time.

And like before, depending on how much time you have before the college essay is due, try one prompt per day for a week, or one prompt per week for a month, or 30 minutes per day/4 days per week. Do not feel like you have to respond to every prompt; pick the ones (3-5) that resonate with you. Work on digging deeper than just surface level emotions and descriptions; uncover layers to your response by asking why or how? And once again, SAVE all of your responses and drafts.

• If your life flashed before your eyes in the next five minutes, what 2-3 scenes would show?

• What do you think your friends/teachers say when you are not around?

• Describe 1 (or more) family tradition in as much detail as possible. Focus not only on the tradition itself, but the feelings it evokes, the sights, sounds, smells, texture, and the reason it is meaningful to you, or why it is not.

• Describe a family story in as much detail as possible. Focus not only on the story itself, but the feelings it evokes, the sights, sounds, smells, texture, and the reason it is meaningful to you, or why it is not.

• Who do you consider a mentor? Why?

• What utterly fascinates you?

• What is the funniest thing that ever happened to you?

• What fills you with pride, even if no one else knows about it?

• Describe an experience that really pulled you out of your comfort zone. Why and how? Did you know you were going outside your comfort zone at the time? 

• Do you have any quirks? Describe. When did you realize or define this as a quirk? Is it a gift or a curse? Why?

Take time with these exercises. Start wherever you’re at, even if that is putting your butt in the seat for 5 minutes at a time and jotting down bullet points. Develop the habit, be accountable, and commit to the process. The end result will be a much stronger essay than if you try to whip something together in a weekend.