College Essay Prep Posts

Part 1: What Admissions Officers are Looking for in a College Essay

Part 2: 10 Rules for a Great College Essay

Part 3: Finding Your Voice, Telling Your Story

Part 4: First Draft of Your College Essay

Part 5: Finalizing Your College Essay in a 4 Step Process

1

Service and Contribution- How have you made the world a better place? Larger contributions in fewer activities will weigh more heavily than a long checklist of every club imaginable. And the contributions don’t need to come through school-- maybe you needed to work to help pay for your family’s needs, or you regularly volunteered at your church or other community organization. A single week-long mission trip the summer before your sophomore year is probably not as impressive as your four year membership in a school service group where you went from a contributing member during freshman year to an officer position, e.g., president, treasurer, etc., during your junior and/or senior years.

2

Maturity and Self-Awareness- Are you serious when the situation warrants or crack a joke whenever a conversation gets uncomfortable? Do you exhibit a growth mindset by seeking self-improvement and accepting feedback or have you received detentions (or worse) for talking back to teachers or fooling around with buddies by taking down or defacing posters around the school? Have you demonstrated accountability for mistakes and not repeated them? Admissions boards are willing to accept a behavioral hiccup, even suspension, as an underclassman (9th or 10th grade) more readily than a pattern of misbehavior or a major hiccup as a junior or senior.

3

Worldview and Perspective- Have you traveled extensively or had other experiences to broaden your horizons and get outside your comfort zone? Not every student will have the means to travel, let alone extensively, but colleges will look for demonstrated interest and engagement in a broader world than your neighborhood, school, and community. If you don’t already, read a variety of fiction and non-fiction along with at least the occasional reputable news feed or newspaper.

4

Challenge- How have you demonstrated seeking and meeting or exceeding a challenge? This trait should show itself academically for a college-bound student, but what other times, places, or situations have you risen to the occasion whether thrust upon you or in something you pursued intentionally?

5

Intellectual curiosity and Quality of thinking- Do you care about the world around you and your role in it, and can you communicate that in a non-superficial way? Do you tend to over-generalize and over-simplify complex problems and issues or do you think through and recognize different points of view, historical context, and other layers? And are you willing to dig deeper into relevant and authoritative resources and your own potential paradigms and biases?

6

Leadership- Do you have experience leading others in academic projects, clubs, or sports? If not, have you demonstrated leadership in other ways, such as volunteering to fix a broken process at your part time job or tutoring a struggling peer? As always, an ongoing commitment or significant contribution is more meaningful than a single instance.

7

Diversity- Almost all colleges seek diversity on their campus, and that diversity can come in the form of a different race, culture, sexual orientation, disability status and many other categories and labels. Don’t discount geography, which can work for or against you. In other words, if your profile (academics, test scores, essay, etc.) is a solid fit for a school in Kentucky and you are one of the only students from Idaho applying, you may have a leg up on a student with a similar profile from neighboring Tennessee. If you are that kid from Tennessee, you might need to broaden your search and have a back-up plan, because college admissions are fickle, and you may not be accepted to your Kentucky dream school for something completely out of your control.

8

Openness- Are you willing to try new things and be open to new ideas? Meet new people? Be engaged in campus life in a variety of positive ways? Openness goes hand-in-hand with intellectual curiosity and contribution, but also stands on its own, particularly in the 2020s with the current political polarization in the U.S. Though many colleges are not as diverse and open as they claim to be, most are sincerely seeking students who will add to the important conversations happening on campuses and society as a whole.

9

Passion or Special interest- Do you juggle? Did you help a friend of your Grandpa’s write his life story and became passionate about genealogy? Did you live in Morocco for a year when you were a toddler and have taken Arabic classes at the local community college so you can better communicate when you return on your dream trip? The possibilities are endless, and it’s these great stories and slices of life that college admissions officers want to read about in your essay. What is your story?

10

Good fit- Big picture, based solely on your essay, are you college material? Even if your grades and test scores are top notch, if your essay comes across as thrown together on the due date or conveys values which don’t align to the college you are applying to, you are likely to go quickly to the reject pile. Does your essay demonstrate the qualities and behavior colleges want? If you hate the cold you probably don’t want to write about that in your essay for the University of Minnesota, for example. If you have strong political leanings, first, you should almost always leave that out of an essay, but second, know your audience, and if your audience leans the other way, skip the political references.

11

Life-changing moment- Admissions officers are looking for the hero’s journey without the cliche. In other words, and this is one version of the hero's journey simplified, our hero (that’s you) is happily existing in the ordinary world, heeds a call to a challenge or adventure, runs into problems, finds a mentor or makes a huge mistake, learns from one or the other, solves the problem and completes the adventure a wiser and braver person. Think Luke Skywalker or Harry Potter, but maybe not as dramatic. Many students have had life-changing moments or major epiphanies, but don’t feel like you need to tie the story up in a neat little bow or otherwise have a happy ending if that's not the way your story ended. Life doesn’t always work that way so your essay doesn’t need to either.

12

An essay only you can write- What kind of person are you? What do you want the college admissions officer to know about you? The essay is a place to expand upon a seemingly small moment in time or situation, not to regurgitate your high school transcript or other information readily available in other sections of an application.