Right about now, thousands--okay, TENS of THOUSANDS--of high school seniors are stressing out about their essays, so I thought it would be a good idea to revisit that topic.  And so I asked one of the experts to write about essay writing. 

Ralph Figueroa is the Director of College Counseling at Albuquerque Academy in New Mexico.  Before that,  Ralph worked in admissions at Occidental College in California and Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and he figures he’s read around 8,000 college essays in his career. He’s a great guy who shares some very practical wisdom here.  Take a look:

Believe it or not, after 20 years—ten years as an admission officer, and ten as a college counselor—I still really enjoy reading college application essays. I know that writing essays is incredibly stressful for students, I know it feels like a modern form of some medieval torture or a new take on some primitive rite of passage, and… I’m OK with that. Facing this kind of stress “builds character.” Which really is just a way of saying old people like me find it fun to watch you suffer.

No, really, the whole point of this column is that I don’t think you should stress out about your college essay at all. And colleges don’t want you to stress, either. They honestly don’t. They want you to be thoughtful. They want you to be deliberate in what you write. They want you to take time to do a good job. And some of them actually want you to have fun. Is that even possible?

Colleges that require essays want to learn more about you as a person. They have a lot of data about you when you apply: grades, test scores, activities and work experience, counselor and teacher recommendations. But your essay is a good way for colleges to hear your voice, to understand what is important to you.

Admission officers are trying to build a strong community on their campuses, and your essay can help them understand what you would add to that community. A former boss of mine used to ask during committee discussions, “Would you want to be this kid’s roommate?” College admission offices think about these issues seriously.

Colleges also want to see how strong a writer you are. Writing is a critical skill. Whether you want to become an actor, a poet, a doctor, or a musician, you need to have the ability to communicate effectively with the written word. Your writing will get better in college, but colleges want to know how well you can write now.

Of course, you can be totally despicable and cheat this process by having someone else write the essay for you. Don’t. Getting help from others is fine, in fact, it is a very good idea, but don’t let them write for you. Trust yourself and the process.

So what should you write about? This is the question that my students struggle with. Let me offer you some suggestions. These are not rules, mind you, just guidelines. Kind of like the Pirate Code.

Write what you know. If you have never thought about a subject, don’t write your college essay about it unless a college specifically asks you to do so. Your topic must be meaningful to you—something you are passionate about. Your essay topic need not be unique. In my admission officer days, I would have happily read a hundred essays about students’ mothers—as long as they were done well.

Sometimes your essay will be read by someone who doesn’t care about your topic. So what? You can still write exceptionally well on a subject about which they would otherwise not be interested. Your passion and knowledge and genuine enthusiasm can make any topic interesting to a reader.

Write about you. This can be very hard for some of you to do, but you need to focus on yourself. This isn’t selfish, this isn’t egotistical. This is an important part of this process. It is your job here.

How personal do you need to be? That is a hard question. The answer is as personal as you are comfortable being. You may have serious issues that you want to discuss. Serious hardships, serious pain. That is fine. But don’t feel that you MUST talk about the most traumatic thing that has happened to you. Some topics are too much to cover in a brief, 500-word essay. (Keep it brief, by the way.)

Don’t get TOO personal—some things I don’t wanna know. I have read essays about student’s romantic conquests, bodily functions, and tattoos on various body parts. No thanks.

Don’t try to write what you think the college wants to hear. You might ask instead, “What is it about me that I want to be sure colleges know?"

Don’t write your college essay about writing your college essay. That’s a really old idea, and it was never a really good one.

Don’t try to be funny if you aren’t funny.

Don’t use different colored fonts, don’t draw pictures.

Do not write about Unicorns. Do not write about the prom. Ever.

Don’t try to use bigger words in an essay just to show off, that’s not helpful. Complex writing doesn’t equal good writing.

Be thoughtful Take time to prepare your essay. That means not waiting until the last minute. That means working on several drafts and getting feedback from teachers and counselors.

   

Answer the question. This is one of the most important points to remember. So many students write strong essays that don’t answer the question. The most common essay topic is “Tell about someone who has had an influence on you and describe that influence.” So many students spend time describing their coach, or their mother, or their uncle, or their cousin. But they forget the second part of the question. What is their influence on YOU, the student? How are you different? What have you changed in your life, what is better or worse from having known this person?

Read your essay aloud. Or maybe read it into a voice recorder and listen to it. Hearing it is a good way of judging whether it conveys the message you want it to convey.

Proofread. Spell Czech is knot yore friend. It will betray ewe. If you remember nothing else from this blog, remember this. No program is a substitute for your human eyes and brain. Nothing is more annoying than obvious mistakes that could have been caught with one careful reading.

That’s all there is to it, folks. Really, this is not that hard. Take a deep breath, and write. I tell my students to never forget that they have the ability to ASTOUND me with their essays, even after thousands of others have tried.

Good luck to you and to them.