I originally posted this on the Essays forum. Hope it’s useful here:
Last night, I gave my annual information session for my HYP alma mater for my local HS district. I’m an alumni recruiter/interviewer and I’ve been giving these sessions for about 20 years. I invite any and all questions and as we wound down, one student asked me about my essays – which I wrote more that 25 years ago. Here’s some of what I told her:
I wasn’t nearly as informed about the college process as she (and all CC visitors) was. I didn’t read any “how to write knock out college essays” books or sit in on any college application prep seminars. I just looked at the essay prompts and settled in on what I thought was the most important things to me at that moment.
Admittedly, the first one (discuss an EC) was rather bland and not memorable, in my honest opinion. I wrote about how much I enjoyed the work and reward of being part of a wind ensemble. Ok fine. But for the second essay, which was completely open-ended – I wrote about how I had betrayed the trust of a longtime friend. Years prior, he had told me that he was gay – which was fine, he was my close friend and it didn’t affect how I saw him. But later in HS, I stupidly let that hidden fact out to others. As you can imagine, it crushed our friendship and I saw firsthand, the consequences of my actions. I wrote about this situation and the steps I took to restore my friendship and trust with my old friend.
Why did I choose to write about that? What did that say about me to the eventual readers of the essay?
I chose the topic because it was a very meaningful statement of how I saw myself at that moment, at that stage in my life, because it was a crossing point in my morality and how I saw myself as a friend, as a person. I didn’t choose it because of what I thought an Ivy admissions officer would look for in a candidate. Frankly, I didn’t know what they were looking for. I wrote about one of the most important things about me at that time and if I was off base, then so be it. This was my statement and if I wasn’t “Ivy material”, so what? I was confident in my success in my collegiate career (I had several offers from great schools already) and knew that the eventual institution that conferred a diploma to me wouldn’t be the apex of my life.
I came across a copy of my essay a few years back going through my college papers. Reading it, I could envision how I was as a HS student, but with over two decades more of perspective in order to evaluate it. I imagine that for the admissions officers who read my complete file, it gave this impression of me: 1) I was clearly an agressive scholar – not 4.0GPA but very accomplished and I pursued academics way beyond what my school offered. 2) SATs were OK but not stellar (I’m chinese too!) 3) Immigrant kid who attended a mostly African American HS but grew to be a student leader-- this showed leadership in an unusual context. 4) my 2nd essay showed that I really could be self-reflective and considerate of the intents, desires and welfare of those around me – and could recognize my own failings.
Eventually, I was accepted all schools applied: two Ivies, UMich and several other top engineering schools. I matriculated at my 1st choice, an HYP college.
Looking back, the advice I gave to the student last night was this: your goal in selective college admissions is to make your file stand out as much as possible. The fact is that very few people in an HYP applicant pool have the ability to stand out in that context – that’s just the fact of the sample pool. Whether you stand out or not has mostly already been determined and there’s not much, other than putting your honest best efforts ahead, that can alter that. Do your best, hope for the best, but go to bed at night at ease and enjoy the rest of your HS career. You’ve obviously achieved a lot already and most likely will have a wonderful collegiate career. To obsess or worry over things not in your control (especially the serendipitous world of selective college admissions) is counter-productive and wasteful. Enjoy your final HS months!
Hopefully this perspective can be of use to some of you as well. Best of luck to you, congrats on yoru achievements to date, enjoy your last months with your HS friends.