1. Claim your greatest assets
What are your best qualities? This is a difficult question but an important one. Your best personality traits are your greatest assets.
I know you play different roles. Some play many, some play few, but everyone plays something. So whether you’re a centerfielder, sales associate, captain, treasurer, libero, president, power forward, waiter, wicketkeeper, whatever, these roles are a kind of home to you. I get that. Still, when you leave this home, you’ll carry with you warm memories and lessons learned, but you won't carry the title.
When you really leave home, your personality is going with you. So ask yourself what’s sticking? Are you kind? Observant? Persistent? Flexible? Fun-loving? Curious? (I have a thousand words for you.)
Sift through the qualities, not the roles (at least at first), that make you you and decide which ones you want to highlight in your college essay. Then consider the roles you’ve played and the events of your life that capture those traits.
2. Tell your stories
Imagine your life stories as data points on an arc. Picture it like a string of lights swinging above a patio or a beaded necklace flung atop a dresser. These little life coordinates are how we construct ourselves.
The stories we tell create our life's narrative. They create the life, not the other way around. Sadly, people aren’t often asked to share their stories, so we don’t get practice unpacking these points.
Find someone who will listen to your stories. Talk about experiences that left an impression on you. Talk about people who made a difference in your life. Talk about your failures and triumphs. Work through your stories aloud and see which ones excite you. Then begin to play with a few on paper.
3. Plan your journey
I’m talking about your writing here. Yes, plan your journey to college and beyond, but for now plan your college essay.
The best organization is the one that calls zero attention to itself. The reader doesn’t even notice your moves. And what a joy for the reader — to relax into an applicant’s college essay, trusting that an experienced writer is at the wheel. Give your reader that relief.
Remember, an outline helps the writer know when to say what. The reader doesn’t care what your outline looks like, or if you even wrote one: they’re never going to see it. What they’ll sense, however, is their comfort and their confidence in you.
So start loose and stay nimble but, yes, make a plan. Beginning, middle, and end. I’m not going to insist on more than that. If your college essay turns into a tangled mess, then tighten your plan. That’s it.
4. Talk to your reader
If you cannot imagine using the words in person, then don’t use them on the page. That doesn’t mean skip the thesaurus. I love the thesaurus. I use it all the time — not because I’m looking for a fancy word but because I’m looking for the right one.
College counselors and essay advisors often say don't use a thesaurus. That's because they're concerned the synonym will be puffed up and out of place. But what if that synonym is exactly the word you would have used, if only you'd remembered it? Thesauruses (and dictionaries) are a writer's tools. You wouldn't ask your carpenter to skip the drill, would you? So go ahead and bookmark thesaurus.com.
Pro tip: your admissions reader wants a conversation, not a lecture. Talk to the person, tell them your stories, find your voice and use it. The college essay is not a literary analysis or a DBQ or an abstract or any of the academic writing you’ve practiced. It’s a personal statement, and that’s a conversation.
5. Realize you’re not extraordinary
Relish in that realization. Really enjoy it. What a relief to discover that you don’t need to be incredible. The Latin root “cred” means “believe.” Do you want to be someone not to be believed? I doubt it. Be credible, not incredible, and be glad for it.
Write from an ordinary place. Write with humility and gratitude and honesty. Be likable, never phony, always self-aware. Know who you are — one swimming in a sea of seven billion. That doesn’t make you unique. It makes you human.
6. Notice when you’re bored
If you’re bored, your reader is too.
7. Make the prose move
Vary sentence length and structure. Short, long, short, somewhat long, short, still kind of short, medium, short again.
Hmmm, but how do I describe varying sentence structure without you retreating? I can’t say, "phrase, clause, dependent, independent, dependent again, complex, compound, compound-complex, and, most important, simple," or you'll go running.
Let me try it this way.
There’s a reason you love the music you love. It moves up and down, and with it, you move. More often than not, the catchiest parts are the simplest. When writing, use simple riffs that lilt. Listen to the writing. Does it move you? Does it make your ear happy?
And if my music metaphor isn’t working, think of a roller coaster for toddlers (and people like me). Gentle turns, easy lifts, simple sentences, and pleasant surprises.
8. Change your mind
Don’t be afraid to start over. I know it hurts. Even if you’ve spent hours on a college essay, you might need to table it and start fresh. It's not going to kill you, I promise, and the parts you discard into a scrap folder might come in handy when writing your supplemental essays.
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Photo credit: Townsend Walton
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