It's The All About Me Show: How To Write A Great College Application Essay

You don’t want to sound smirky but you have to strut your stuff. You don’t want to sound too quirky, but you can’t be a cookie-cutter applicant either. Nothing is more of a turn-off for admissions officers than the “do-all-the-right-things” kid. Every kid volunteers for Habitat for Humanity; it’s like taking gym. Not that the ex-president and Mrs. Carter’s brainchild hasn’t done truly remarkable things, including jumping in after Katrina and providing enormous funds and physical labor and supplies after that disaster. Still, every college hopeful needs to do the Habitat and something else – community service is a major applicant must-do. But the pressure is so intense – to go to highly selective schools, you need pretty stellar SAT scores, impossibly high grades, AP courses in your sophomore through senior years and a well-crafted, engrossing essay. Something that reveals enough of your inner soul to make them hungry for your physical presence on their campus. Something Roger Rosenblatt might write. Or Roger Jr. But you get the point; the competition (as if you did not know this) has never been more fierce and college seniors have definitely got their work cut out for them. And I swear I thought this would get easier, that people would relax and see the whole process as the mean-spirited, totally unnecessary evil it is. But we all have to work within the system, the universe we inhabit and this means stepping out into the real world, as it were, while you’re still in high school. My friend, worrying about her son’s emotional health, suggested her kid relax a little, get a job, lose some stress (and gain some weight) by taking off the year following graduation and applying a mere year later. The young man flipped out and suggested his mother had lost her mind and became even more determined and frighteningly focused, feeling more isolated and less supported.

This morning at work, while reading my daughter’s individual essay (not the common app) for a conservatory to which she’s applying, my boss pointed out that he’d heard that NYU receives approximately 50,000 applications a year. For how many places, we wondered together? I shuddered at the possibility and refused to google New York University. It would be too daunting to know. My daughter wasn’t applying there anyway, but still…it was information that would simply…scare me. And like my kid, I am surrounded by college demons.

I hope NYU – and all the places to which my daughter is pitching herself – has a huge admissions staff. Otherwise after the 9,000th essay, wouldn’t every kid would begin to sound the same?

Try to get your kid NOT to apply to all the best-known schools in the country. There are lesser-known gems, with remarkable faculty from Gettysburg College in Pa. to Harvey Mudd in California. Get your hands on every single college book you can find and read as much as you can. Schedule as many college visits as you can afford. But then, don’t overload. You’ll know when you’ve hit critical mass.

Now about that essay….how can an essay stand out among 9000 others? Or even 2000 that make it into the “keeper” pile?

• Open with something provocative. Don’t ask a question and answer it (i.e. Who am I?) If you want to provide the answer to that question, do it another way. Try something that will keep the reader…reading! For example, instead of “who am I?” …go with something that will surprise the admissions director. “I can’t whistle, make a basket – I’m only 5’6”—or weave one. But I can paint. My favorite piece of clothing is the same one I wear everyday – overalls that are six years old and literally layered with paint. They may be my best piece of abstract expressionism yet.”
• If you’re not an art student, but a high-tech wonder, write a lab report, or create a new computer language in the essay.
• Be memorable, be honest, but brag. This is no time for modesty, false or otherwise.
• Jump-start each paragraph by hiding or burying the lead in one, changing the feel of another, but try to include some part of your resume in each part of the essay because you want to weave your life and infuse the essay with parts of your personality.
• Use humor if you can, briefly and cautiously, to illustrate the fact that you can manage not to “take yourself too seriously.” College admissions people know how seriously the application process is taken by juniors and seniors; they appreciate an applicant with “a sense of lightness” about him or herself.
• You want to establish an unforgettable image of yourself – reflect about what makes you happy, frustrated, motivated, what you really think you want your life to be and tell the truth. Honesty is key; a young girl whose life was changed wrote a spectacular essay that centered on a pivotal event in her life. She detailed how, after 10 years of being a beloved only child, her parents traveled to Siberia and brought home 3 year old twins and her life was never, ever the same. Her essay reflected her love for her brothers but also revealed the pain she felt because her new siblings required so much attention she had never had to share before. Part of her hated her parents for adopting her brothers and she said so in her essay—it was full of conflict and mood swings, it was bold and unafraid to tell the truth. And it got her into almost every school to which she applied. You don’t have to spill your guts. Just demonstrate your character – create a snapshot of yourself in words – as only YOU can do it.
• This should probably go without saying, but grammar and spell-check don’t catch everything so read it aloud to see if you’ve made any glaring mistakes the computer missed. And make sure the paper is crisp, the ink is bright from your printer and there are no pizza stains on any of the pages.

Now go out and change the world. But get into college first.