2 BIG Tips for an Irresistible Personal Statement

College Essays
1

Your Personal Essay is Your Story
So write it like one!

  1. START WITH AN IMAGE

Great application essays tend to have one thing in common. They’re cinematic. That means they have a heavy visual component.

Notice what’s different between these two application openings:

“My parents always told me to do my best”

and

"The bicycle wheel was still turning, though half of the bike was under a bush. My dadpulled the bike from the bush, wiped dirt from my knee, and set me back on the seat. ‘You’ve got to get back on the horse,’ he said. Though I had no idea what he meant then, this has become my guiding phrase in life.

The first example is telling. It’s uninspired, and it’s not that interesting. And, most importantly, it doesn’t really say anything about the student.

That second example, however, shows. It’s personal – a story that is unique to the student, and one that taught her an important lesson.

Brainstorm 5 memories and at least 3 values you learned from each.

Choose the moment in your life that seems the most compelling to you, the one that shows off the best values you learned.

Now, select one value to become the guiding beacon of your essay, your CORE value.

  1. INCLUDE AND EPIPHANY

An epiphany is your “aha” moment. That moment when you realized something significant, something that changed the way you think or act.

Attaching an epiphany to your vivid memory will tell the admissions officers what they really need to know about you: that you learn from experience, and that you know how to skillfully articulate what you’ve learned.

Think about it. The personal essay is an opportunity for the college to see what kind of student you will be. They’re hoping to rope in a freshman (or transfer) student that will thrive in their academic environment. Demonstrating how you learned an important quality is much more effective than simply stating your qualifications.

When you chose a vivid memory, you also wrote down 3 or more values associated with that memory.

Now, turn one of those values into your “aha” moment.

For example:

When I saw my baby brother in my mom’s arms for the first time I realized I was no longer the most important person to my mom and dad. But when I looked at my brother’s rumpled red face, I felt that realization wash out of me. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t the main focus of the family. We were all a family together, each piece as precious as the next.

The student here wrote a personal essay that focused on the value of community. She was able to connect the story of her brother’s birth to a greater theme of community value and talked about her high school experience in terms of community. The vivid memory and the epiphany guided her essay - she returned to the lessons she learned by having a baby in the house and linked those to experiences at school and her volunteer work.
Your epiphany could sound like:

I realized

I knew

I felt

I understood

I believed

2

Holy cow, this is an essay for college admissions, not meant to be flowery. More kids could learn from advice to make their essays relevant to an admit review, not go off on any old topic as if this were a hs asignment. And, “Show not just tell.”

3

@lookingforward I’m not sure whether you’re a student, parent, or educator, but in any regard you’d likely benefit from reading college essay examples.

The approach I laid out here has helped my students find a way into their story. Of course, in this approach the memory is connected to relevant high school and extra curricular activities and accomplishments.

On paper, most students look similar. GPA, test scores, volunteer work, high school activities. There’s a narrow range for setting yourself apart. Here you have the opportunity to make your path, your story, your experiences unique to you. If you relate your values to a key moment in your life, cool things can happen.

The college essay should communicate four essential things:

  1. What you’re passionate about
    2) Who you are
    3) What you hope to achieve
    4) How college will help you achieve #3

For more clarity on how to make the memory relevant:

The body of the essay should include particular life and school experiences relevant to your epiphany value. If your epiphany stressed community, choose extracurriculars and volunteer work that relate to the value of community. You want to present a cohesive, clear picture of yourself, and you can get scattered if you talk about too many disparate achievements.

Folding learning experiences and accomplishments into a story is an exceptionally effective way of garnering attention from admission officers.

Again, google “best college application essays.” You’ll see what I mean.

4

I’m an adult, work for a U, am familiar with what makes effective app/supp writing. Kids need to understand the purpose of the app essay and other writing. It needs to be relevant to an admit review, show the personal attributes the target level of colleges want to see. That’s is more than an arc or descriptive strengths. And show, not just tell.

5

Kids certainly do need to understand the purpose of the application essay. It’s actually been my job for the past six years to help students in that regard. I’ve actually tutored hundreds of students in essay writing, and every single student I’ve worked with on their application essay has landed their top-choice school. So, I know just how effective this method is. :slight_smile:

I’m curious again, since none of my students have had difficulty understanding this prompt, but it seems you find it hard to determine where the relevance to what the colleges want to know about a student comes from. This essay method introduces a significant learning experience for a student, and then uses that learning to explain how and why their academic path is shaped the way it is. It’s a great way to show the application readers the student’s personal attributes that are relevant to their college and life goals.

Maybe the problem is that I wasn’t clear enough in this post.

I’d love to hear what students here think, should I expand this prompt to be more helpful and clear?

I know I’ve received some PM’s saying that this helped, but I’d love to make this as effective and actionable as possible. So let me know!

6

Looking does college admissions btw…

I’m not sure I understand what you mean by “prompt”. If you mean this method could work for any prompt, that is probably true.

I would only caution that while “my parents always told me” may be uninspired, it is short. Reminder to kids not to waste too much on the language that they can’t find room for the whole massage.

7

I’d rather a kid get right to the point than get mired down in describing scenes and then explaining. This isn’t creative writing. Your benchmark isn’t whether high school students on CC find this advice helpful, but whether the end result is effective when the kid is reviewed for an admit. My perspective is top colleges. Anyone interested, kid, parent or advisor, really needs to know what the target colleges want to see, in terms of the attributes the colleges seek, not simply take this from a pure writing perspective. Reviews are brutally fast. Adcoms don’t need intense scene setting, the same level of detail we use in story telling with friends or for publication. They aren’t reading for pleasure. I agree with HRSMom, “My parents always told me” can be a swift and direct opener. The kid can then get right to the meat. (The ability to self edit is a plus.)

8

There are certainly many approaches to writing the admissions essay, and this is only one of them. My students have been highly successful with their admissions to top college like UC Berkeley, Columbia, and Stanford. This is a proven strategy, that, despite your reluctance to entertain its value, has proven to be highly effective.

:slight_smile:

9

Thank you for this. I’ll be coming back to this thread come summer/fall 2016. :smiley:

10

@lookingforward I have to agree with you on the overuse of flowery language. However, I completely agree with some of the OP’s statements, such as:

“You want to present a cohesive, clear picture of yourself, and you can get scattered if you talk about too many disparate achievements.”

and

“Demonstrating how you learned an important quality is much more effective than simply stating your qualifications.”

Otherwise, the best essays are effective not because they describe, in detail, the appearance of every single object (cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen this) but because they are genuinely interesting to read. Those “genuinely interesting to read” essays succeed more so due to topic selection than writing style.
I don’t know about you guys, but when I come across a flowery essay I tend to skim more than actually read. It’s usually impossible to tell what the author’s purpose is in describing the setting and events in such vivid detail.

11

Yes, you want cohesive. And effective. Demonstrating an evolution is good. What a kid describes needs to be relevant to an admit review, not simply that they pick an Aha! moment. I’ve read about too many 1st grade or middle school epiphanies. Or too many times, the kid simply “tells” how this now makes him ready to reach his own goals, not seeming to get what the college is looking for.

When I hit the flowery opener (or the thesis statement,) I quickly wonder if the kid understands the point of the personal statement. That can lead to wondering how the kid thinks and his overall judgment. We’re only skimming the topic here, but my standard advice is to know as much as you can about the colleges you want and what they look for. This isn’t writing for an essay contest.

Some of the most effective (and memorable) essays make small points, show flexibility, curiosity, willingness to stretch a bit. Adcoms can put two and two together, when it’s done well. You don’t have to knock them over the head with your own conclusions. That would be telling, more than showing.