It depends . If you have a high GPA, competitive test scores, and stand-out extracurricular activities, acceptance is less likely to hinge on your essay. If you’re on the borderline, an essay can’t make up for inadequate scores or stats, but a good essay might give you the edge over another student.
Don’t write a sob story. Students often write about unusual challenges. Stories about adversity have built-in drama and evoke sympathy. But sympathy alone won’t get you admitted. Don’t rely too heavily on emotions
For more ideas about writing a college essay, check out these articles in the CollegeVine blog:
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Questions to Answer
Don’t list characteristics
A cardinal rule of good writing is: Show, don’t tell. Don’t tell colleges how important something is— show them what you’ve done. Describe times when you’ve taken action. Write about instances when discipline and persistence helped you. Show evidence of initiative and determination. Describe examples of self-starting behavior so readers imagine you in action.
Don’t just describe what happened—reflect on it. Just telling a story isn’t the point. Giving a glimpse into how you think is more important. Show what insights you’ve gained from experiences.
At 826LA, Urrutia Gedney and volunteer coaches help students identify essay topics by asking questions like the following:
In fact, the purpose of the college essay is to give college admissions officers a glimpse of a student that they can’t glean from their high school transcript or other questions on their application. “We tell students, ‘Colleges really want to get to know you,” says Urrutia Gedney. “It isn’t just about GPAs and test scores. They want students who are well-rounded, who show character and resilience in difficult circumstances. We tell them, ‘Colleges aren’t looking for superheroes. You’ve accomplished a lot. You don’t have to make things up.'”
“We listen to their experiences and give them feedback,” says Urrutia Gedney. “Like, ‘I learned x, y, and z about you. These are the kinds of things colleges want to know,'” says Urrutia Gedney.
Ye Luo had a compelling story to tell. As a Chinese person in Panama, he never felt that he fit in. But in the US, he felt just as out of place. “Kids made fun of me because I was a Chinese kid who could only speak Spanish,” he says. His family was very poor and lived in a cramped, one-room apartment. They shared a bathroom and kitchen with other tenants. Ye Luo became withdrawn and discouraged, and he was failing in school.
What colleges want to know
These experiences might include taking care of younger siblings every day after school, for example, or picking up groceries for a grandparent, or working an after-school job to help the family cover rent. In rapidly gentrifying urban areas across the country, low-income families are often displaced, which means that students must leave neighborhoods they’ve known all their lives and start over at a new school or endure a long commute. Such experiences demonstrate qualities that colleges are looking for, including courage, grit, responsibility, leadership, and resilience.
Ye Luo wasn’t accepted at Middlebury and he was devastated. Looking back, he thinks he may have been rejected, at least in part, because his essay was so scattered. He went back to ScholarMatch, and this time he wrote about his family’s move from Panama, and the challenges he faced starting over in a new country where he didn’t speak the language.
- What responsibilities do you have at home and in your family?
- What do you enjoy doing that makes you feel happy?
- What do you consider your greatest joy?
- What are you proud of?
- Do you have a greatest accomplishment?
- What do you do when you don’t have enough (money, time, help, etc.) to do the things you have to do/wish to do/dream of doing?
For Ernesto Ye Luo, it took many drafts and a college rejection to help him get there. Ye Luo lived in Panama until the age of 10, when his family moved to San Francisco. He says his original essay, which he submitted to Middlebury College in his early decision application, covered too many topics. “I talked about moving from Panama to San Francisco,” he recalls. “I talked about my life in Panama. I talked about summer programs I’d done. Nick and the other writing coaches at ScholarMatch told me to focus on just one topic, but I guess I didn’t understand what they meant. My essay was all over the place.”
If you’re really stumped, consider asking your friends and family what they think could be good topics. They may help you figure out something memorable and interesting. But also, don’t feel like you have to write about a topic just because someone else thinks it would be great. You need to be genuinely interested in what you’re writing about to write an engaging essay!
One of my biggest accomplishments in life was teaching my little brother to ride a bicycle. I encouraged him to keep going when he fell down. Now he’s a great cyclist!
This means you shouldn’t try to write about things where it’s too painful to be honest. So if your parents got a divorce last year, it may be too raw to write about, which is perfectly fine. If, however, they got divorced when you were 5 and you can honestly reflect on how it changed your life, go for it.
With all this information gathered, you’ll be able to make a plan of attack for your essays and make sure nothing gets lost in the application shuffle. (In fact, I actually advise keeping track of all necessary components of your application in a spreadsheet for the same reason).
#4: Decide on Your Approach
Which essay you should write first: You’ll probably want to start first on the essay with the earliest application deadline. Alternatively, if you have plenty of time or the deadlines are close together, you could start with the longest essay (which will take the most time) or the essay that will be used for the most schools (like a Common Application essay). Do what you feel most comfortable with.
The more details you use, the more your writing will come alive. Try to use words that are vivid and specific, instead of ones that are vague like “nice,” “good,” and so on. This will really flesh out the scene and help the reader picture what’s going on.
Of course, you want to be honest in a reasonable and appropriate way. If you overshare, it will make it seem like you have bad judgment or don’t understand social norms—not good impressions to give the admissions committee. So probably don’t write about how much you despise your mother and think she is evil since she had an affair with your school librarian. It’s fine to feel how you feel, but there are some things that are a little too charged to write in your college essay.
- Emotions you felt at the time
- Names, places, and/or numbers
- Dialogue, or what you or someone else said
- A specific anecdote, example, or experience
- Descriptions of how things looked, felt, or seemed
Remember that specificity in your topic is what will make your essay unique and memorable. It truly is the key to making a strong statement (pun intended)!
For example, an OK topic would be your experience volunteering at a cat shelter over the summer. But a better, more specific college essay topic would be how you deeply connected with an elderly cat there named Marty, and how your bond with him made you realize that you want to work with animals in the future.
You can also check out this huge list of college essay prompts to get a feel for what types of questions you'll be expected to answer on your applications.
Overcoming a Challenge
Therefore, make sure you take the time to come up with an essay topic that is in direct response to every question in the prompt.
For this prompt, you’d need to answer all three questions (though it’s totally fine to focus more on one or two of them) to write a compelling and appropriate essay.
- They’re specific
- They show who you are
- They’re meaningful to you
- They’re unique
- They clearly answer the question
And with that, I wish you the best of luck on your college essays!
You’re not alone if you feel that the events in your everyday life are too boring or clichéd to be fodder for a really good essay. College applicants are told that, in order to be attractive to admissions committees, they need to stand out — but how can you stand out when you live a pretty ordinary life?
While writing your essay on an unusual topic may make you stand out to some extent in the applicant pool, college admissions isn’t simply a contest where the person who has had the most exciting experiences wins. In fact, even if you have had an extraordinary experience, you may not want to make it the topic of your college essay if it doesn’t fit the prompt or reveal much of significance about you.
Here are some questions you might consider while you’re brainstorming:
In some sense, it’s easier to say which topics you shouldn’t use for your college application essay. Obviously, you should avoid any statements that could be construed as being racist, sexist, classist, or otherwise prejudiced toward any group of people. Not only will statements like these reflect poorly on your character, but you also never know who will end up reading your application — they could be a member of the very group you’re speaking against.
Does your Common App essay actually stand out?
Your essay can be the difference between an acceptance and rejection — it allows you to stand out from the rest of applicants with similar profiles. Get a free peer review or review other students’ essays right now to understand the strength of your essay.
Colleges also understand that not everyone has access to the same set of opportunities. Your geographic location, your socioeconomic status, your family connections, and many other factors have an impact on what you can do during your high school years. Admissions officers certainly aren’t going to penalize you if, for instance, you haven’t had the chance to travel the world, or you couldn’t afford to take part in certain activities.
Beyond these boundaries, however, the range of possible topics on which you could potentially write a great essay is extremely broad. Obviously, we at CollegeVine can’t describe every single possible topic