The Personal and College Application Essays

1. Choosing your topic

Question #1: Who has influenced you the most in your life?

This is one of the two most common college essay questions. Click here for number two.

Try writing the first 5 answers/subjects that come to your head.

Chances are, you have some pretty obvious items on that list. Maybe you wrote ‘Mom, dad, sister, grandpa, teacher.’ Maybe you had a football coach on there, or a historical figure like Martin Luther King or Gandhi. Those are all good people, but know that many many others have already written essays on them.

Whatever your topic, the point is the same. There are obvious answers that anyone could come up with, and it can be hard to find an original take on a familiar subject. As much as we may admire Abraham Lincoln, did he really influence you in a personal way? If he did, fine – use him, but if not, better to come up with a more novel response in the first place.

2. Make Your Essay Fit Your Overall Application

Try to match your career goals and academic interests with a common essay topic. Some of the best college applications are those that show a common interest running throughout the application, an interest reflected in one’s choice of classes, extracurricular activities, teacher recommendations, summer jobs/internships, and stated future plans for college and beyond.

First, complete the following sentences with your ideas of a perfect career:

Twenty years from now I see myself _________________________________________.

(Try a few different answers for a few different long-term career goals.)

Ten years from now I see myself ____________________________________________.

(This is the job that’s going to launch you into that perfect job you wrote above. Again, try several different versions).

Four years from now I see myself ___________________________________________.

(Here you’re imagining yourself as a college senior. How do you imagine your college life has gone? Stick with academic ideas here, or with extracurricular activities connected to some career-oriented or academic interest. This is not the place to talk about parties, sports, etc.)

Now that you have given some thought to these goals, you’re ready to brainstorm some topics for the second of the two most common college application questions.

Question #2: Why is College X the right place for you?

(When colleges ask this, they want to hear why their school is the right one for you given your academic interests, their strengths—do your homework on every school!—and your career goals. Give 10 reasons why College X is the best place for you:

3. Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Colleges love it. Students hate it. If you apply to one or several schools, odds are pretty good they’re going to ask you this one. Even if they don’t, this is going to come up in interviews, so it’s good to think in advance about what you would say.

My Strengths: Let’s start with the positive. List10 strengths. Try to think of all different kinds of strengths. If you’re good at math, put that down. But don’t limit yourself to that. Maybe you’re also good at helping others understand math; maybe you tutor your friends or work well in groups. Outside of school, think about your extracurriculars. Think about personal qualities, too. Most of all, don’t be modest! You’re using these essays to sell yourself to some people who have never met you!

Weaknesses: Now for the hard part. When an essay (or an interviewer) asks about your weaknesses, they want you to be candid and honest. But remember that you are trying to be positive, so any time you write about a weakness, you should be able to also say what you are doing about it. Don’t make excuses for a weakness. Instead, tell the reader about what you’re doing to fix it.

Some Notes as You Get Started

The scary part is that it’s important. A strong essay can set you apart from other candidates whose raw numbers may look a lot like yours. No matter how good (or not so good) your grades and scores are, there are going to be hundreds or even thousands of other candidates who have similar numbers.

What’s going to make you stand out? Your essay, for one. The essay proves your ability to express yourself clearly and confidently—one of the most important skills for college. A good essay demands that you grab the attention of a total stranger (a total stranger who has read a few hundred of these essays already) and convince him or her that you are the most interesting person with a 3.4 GPA and 1150 on the SAT they have seen.

You know yourself. Your admissions officer does not know you, so as long as you give your point of view and tell your story, it won’t be something he or she has read a dozen times already. This presentation is going to get you writing college admissions essays and help you turn a single idea into the unique and personal statement only you can write.

5 Myths about the Admissions Essay

You have to convince them that you’re really smart.-- The admissions essay is not the place for you to prove how much you know about math, science, or some other subject. Instead, write about something important to you and do it in a way that engages your reader’s attention and (ideally) emotions.

Big words = good writer-- Good writers use the best words, not the biggest words. Read an article in Newsweek or the New York Times, and you will not find an unreadable clutter of 5-syllable words. Write in correct, but conversational, English. You might find just the right word in the thesaurus, but for the most part, an essay filled with 10-dollar words sounds like you’re trying too hard. Keep it simple.

The admissions officer is looking for reasons not to accept me!-- You may have a picture of the admissions officer as some crusty old professor-type in a tweed coat, grumbling over misplaced commas and complaining that the essay sounds like it was ‘written by a high school student.’ Most admissions officers are young, fairly recent graduates from college themselves. In a typical year, they will read hundreds of these, so your job is to do anything you can to keep them interested. Make them laugh, cry, and say, “Look what this girl wrote!”

Nobody’s going to read this anyway.-- No matter what, an admissions officer is going to read your essay. It’s true that some schools put extra weight on the essays, but every school that asks for an essay will read it. The simple truth is do a good job, and it will set you apart from the rest and improve your chances of admissions. Do a sloppy job or write a dull essay, and it won’t help.

I’m not a good writer! -- There is nobody more qualified to a write an essay about you than you. There is only one reason why the admissions officer is reading your essay. It’s not because they’re bored and have nothing better to do. And it’s certainly not because they don’t have anything else to read. They are reading your essay because they are looking to create a diverse class of interesting people, and they don’t have a ‘you’ yet.

Litter Makes the World Go Round

After living in Madrid for several months, I concluded that the Spanish don’t care about their environment. They carelessly litter the sidewalks, streets, and stores with their garbage. I watch helplessly as they toss cigarette butts, gum wrappers, potato chip bags, and just about anything else they’re carrying on the street. A telltale sign of the environmental breakdown occurred one day in a local restaurant.

I sat perusing the menu when I noticed two men at the bar having a heated conversation (all conversations in Spain are heated). The larger of the two stuffed some type of meat appetizer into his mouth then flipped the toothpick to the floor. At first I merely groaned my usual groan—such sights being common—then the truth struck me. I followed the toothpick to the ground where it joined the numerous napkins, peanuts, and potato chips from previous customers. Ironically, the waste piled between two unused garbage cans. In fact, a little red waste basket could be found every six feet along the bar—all equally ignored by the customers. This made me consider the street, for garbage cans line the streets of Madrid. The government makes a considerable effort to supply convenient waste receptacles, but why didn’t the people use them? Didn’t they care about the condition of their city? But walking around Madrid, I find it one of the cleanest cities I ever visited. So what gives?

At last, I saw someone who could answer my questions. I approached a woman in her late twenties smoking a cigarette (everyone smokes in Spain—it’s the law). Dressed in florescent green, she was either a street sweeper or a fashion designer. Before I could get close enough to talk to her, she flipped her cigarette butt on the sidewalk. Of all people in the city to litter, I thought she’d be the last. As usual in Spain, I was wrong. Then it hit me: she littered to make her job vital. Without trash, her work had no meaning. When you think about it, all the people collectively were helping to keep this woman’s job and hundreds like her. Then I began to see things clearly. There was a plan.

The people litter so the street sweepers have work. Likewise, Spanish washing machines slowly destroy clothing forcing people to buy new clothes thus fueling the clothing industry. The boon to textiles trickles down to the store level, which can employ clerks, cashiers, stock boys, and managers to meet this new clothing need.

New clothes mean new fashions. This employs designers, seamstresses, models, as well as the entire marketing side of the fashion world. Then, people need a place to show off their new clothes. What good is buying them if you’re not seen in them? This creates the need for the passeo, the Spanish walk. All Spaniards are required by law to go for a walk of no less than one hour each evening regardless of the weather—of course littering along the way.

Feeling I had uncovered a top government secret, I began applying my theory to other elements of Spanish life. Since most crime occurs while unsuspecting people are sleeping, the Spanish don’t sleep, no sleep--no crime. They live in the streets. This forces establishments to provide some type of entertainment to keep the masses from rioting. What other reason can there be for discos that don’t close till 6AM? But the plan works, for at 6AM, other establishments open: cafes, restaurants, and the aptly named after-hours clubs provide entertainment for some and employment for others.

Finally, I realized the error in my thinking. I looked at the Spanish way as wrong. It isn’t wrong, it’s just different than the way I look at things. Sure littering repulses me, but unemployment bothers me too. How shortsighted I have been. Imagine, two evils like unemployment and littering joining forces to cancel each other out. That’s progress.

Oh, back to the after-hours club-goers…what do you think all these people do on their weary trek home? Their civic duty, litter, of course. Someone has to keep that street sweeper employed.