Most of the calls into CPE over the past few weeks have been from increasingly anxious parents and students seeking guidance on college applicants’ personal essays. Am I available to help brainstorm or critique or overhaul or edit or polish? Yes, I am, for all of the above, as are a number of junior tutors/consultants at CPE. 🙂 But to help students get started right here, right now, here are five helpful hints to choosing a topic.
1. Think about your essay topic in the context of the forms leading up to the Writing section of the CommonApp (or any given school’s version of the CommonApp), especially your Activities list. This means you really SHOULD do your Activities list as thoroughly and carefully as possible BEFORE turning your attention to your personal essay. (See also Place the Big Pieces First.) Committee members read applications in the same order the questions are asked. They will first read about your background information, your school, your senior year classes, your test scores, any honors you may have won, and your most important activities outside of academics. THEN, they read your essay to gain greater depth, to color in the outlines. This explains why we attack applications in the order they’re written during our very successful CommonApp Boot Camps.
2. Don’t sweat the Writing prompts or the word limits (250-650). The prompts are designed to be wide enough to drive an 18-wheeler through. What matters is your STORY, not which question you’re answering. Write the essay first, and then figure out which question you best answered after you’re happy with it. As for the word limits, 250 is just a half a page, and 650 is a limit not a goal. EXCELLENT essays that result in acceptances have been written everywhere in between, and most students find the amount of writing very comfortable; so don’t sweat the length. Because I’m sure you’re curious, here are the current prompts from the CommonApp (note the last option is a topic of your choosing :-)):
4. Understand that how you treat your topic is much more important than the topic itself. That is, many students squander valuable time and energy fretting about whether they should choose to write about, say, a summer experience versus an extracurricular activity versus a volunteer job, etc. Part of the answer will depend on your Activities list (see #1 above!). But more importantly, like a good photograph, what makes a good essay is not necessarily the particular subject matter: there are great photos of sailboats and sunsets, flowers and fauna, sand dunes and starving children. What makes each one compelling is its clarity, composition, balance, vibrant colors, contrasts, etc. In other words, when it comes to your personal essay, it’s not so much WHAT you say as HOW you say it. Sometimes it makes sense to write up two or three different drafts on different topics and see which one is most compelling. Yes, it’s a little more work, but hey, you have all summer, and after all, this is your freakin’ college application essay—you want it to POP! Note that this also means—no matter what the fake news you may have heard from other advisors—THERE ARE NO BAD TOPICS—there are only bad TREATMENTS OF TOPICS! It’s simply NOT TRUE that you can’t write a good essay about camp or football or travel abroad: IT’S WHAT YOU HAVE TO SAY AND SHOW ABOUT YOUR TOPIC that will capture heads and hearts.
5. Consider “retro-engineering” your topic from the take-away message(s) with which you intend to leave the admissions committee. Figure out what it is about yourself you want to communicate to committee members first, and then think about a story, or personal anecdote, that embodies that message. Too many times, students leap to a “great story” from their personal histories, only to find out after it’s written that it doesn’t communicate their most salient and attractive qualities. Admission committee members tend to like essays that reveal genuine intellectual curiosity, genuine passion for an activity, and leadership and initiative (see, for example, Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst?).
For more help brainstorming your personal essay topic, check out CollegePrepExpress’s BlogTalk Radio show, “Prep Talk” with CollegePrepExpress, “Application Essays and the Common App: What You Need to Know”, For more personal attention with your main essay and all the other elements involved in application packaging, including the rest of the CommonApp, Supplements, interview preparation, letters of recommendation, and maximizing your chances of GETTING IN, check out our CommonApp Boot Camps.
Related Links:
“Prep Talk” with CollegePrepExpress: Application Essays and the Common App: What You Need to Know
Four Things You Must Know about The Common Application
Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst?