You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression or How I Continued Venting and Learned to Despise the College Essay
Admit It! You’ve sat down at your computer numerous times now with all good intentions of starting your college application essay. But darn it if you can’t come up with a good opening line. And without a starting point, you get frustrated and click the backspace button continually; the modern-day equivalent for scrunching up paper and throwing it in the trash can. Well this blog and next week’s blog, the follow-ups to last week’s Eeeek…It’s the Essay Blog, will hopefully give you some guidance on that front.
Let’s start with how not to start. Here are some first lines from Common Application essays submitted last year to W&M that didn’t grab the deans’ attentions (the opening lines are italicized).
My parents have by far been my biggest influence for working hard in school.
This essay certainly had an endearing sentiment, paying tribute to the parents who had pushed the applicant to achieve great things. But a) that’s a fairly common theme, b) most students in our applicant pool are high achievers so telling us about your work ethic and academic success doesn’t differentiate you, c) we already know about your academic success and work ethic from your transcript and recommendations and d) this essay could easily be more about your parents than about you.
Any minute now my mother will come into my room and read the next chapter of “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”.
Someone has to say it; enough with the Harry Potter essays! (The exclamation point provided for emphasis.) Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Harry Potter. I too have read the books, seen the movies…I’ve even been to the theme park. So I get it; Harry Potter is da bomb dot com. However, all Harry Potter essays sound exactly the same. They discuss how the books instilled in you a love of reading (and all love-of-reading essays tend to sound the same too). All students who are now college-age grew up with Harry Potter, so essays on that topic are fairly commonplace. Other works of literature that pop up far too frequently in essays: Pride and Prejudice, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, and Robert Frost’s epic poem, The Road Less Traveled By. Always avoid those topics that tend to be crowd pleasers because again, many people will attempt to write on that exact topic. Also, just a side note, many of my colleagues are not nearly as into Harry Potter as you and me so they may not be as excited or well-versed in your Hogwarts and muggle references as you are.
Suddenly the kid who couldn’t stop running had to stop.
I can tell you exactly how this essay ends from the first sentence. It will describe a sports injury that came at a crucial point in the student’s athletic career (maybe right before a big game/meet or just as the student was trying out for the varsity squad). The injury sidelined the student and the moral of the story is either a) they learned how valuable it is to be part of a team and a cheerleader even when they cannot physically participate or b) they found another extracurricular activity as a result of this career-ending ailment. Basically they were down and out but found a silver lining. You don’t want me to know how your essay ends from the first sentence. That doesn’t instill in me a lot of interest in your essay.
As the old adage goes, what doesn’t kill you…it was not until I underwent major reconstructive jaw surgery that I learned the truth behind these words. I was convinced the surgery would kill me, but, in the end, it showed me an inner strength I didn’t know I had.
See the previous example. In the first two sentences this essay not only provides a droll introduction but sums up the moral too. Usually there’s no new information in the forthcoming five paragraphs.
874 girls, snatched from their slumber, slipped into spandex and packed like cattle into designated portions of the starting line.
Granted, this is a more descriptive and captivating opening line than many who will write on the same subject but I can discern the topic from it and it’s a generic one; winning the big meet/game and doing so as a team. Do we value teamwork? Absolutely. Does it make for the most interesting or unique essay topic? Not so much. Think of how many other applicants can talk about a big sporting event or a big competition. Almost everyone right? The Common Application already provides you a forum in which to discuss this: the short-essay which asks you to discuss your most meaningful activity. Don’t use your essay to expand upon that. Pick a different and new topic; something that’s not discussed anywhere else. Even if your short essay discusses a different extracurricular activity we still know about your extracurricular involvements and accomplishments from your application. Finally, remember all of us reading your application went to high school too (some of us longer ago than others). We remember the big meets/matches/games and we had a fairly similar experience as you did. Pick something uniquely you; I cannot emphasize that enough.
Finally…
When I signed up for the Appalachian service project I had no idea I would fall in love with the work I did for others.
This might be the most cliché topic of them all. Studying abroad (where the underlying point of the essay is stepping outside your comfort zone, a point made by this essay also) and attending some kind of summer academic program (be it governor’s school, Boys’ or Girls’ State, a National Youth Leadership Conference or something similar) run a close second and third. Again I can dictate to you the rest of these essays from their opening lines. You’ll describe the deplorable conditions in which those you served lived or the place you traveled to or the program you attended. You’ll discuss how attached you became to the individuals you worked with and those you worked for (you’ll do this regardless of which of the three topics you’re addressing). You’ll be sure to tell us that you had no idea that those who are less fortunate can still be happy/loving/content with life or that you gained a new worldview based on interacting with those from different cultures. And you’ll be sure to let us know that you can wait to do it again. I know that all of that may sound a bit cynical; it’s not intended as such. It just underscores the point I’ve made multiple times that there’s really only one way to write these types of essays, and you will be far from the only person writing them (in fact I usually see at least 20-30 such essays each week). The point of the essay is to tell me something unique about you; something I don’t already know and something that helps distinguish you from the other highly-qualified applicants. This essay fails to accomplish any of these tasks. The lessons you learned from a service trip or studying abroad or a summer program are certainly valuable but they’re not the stuff college admission officers dream of reading.
Keep in mind that the decisions these applicants received are unknown to me. No doubt some of them were admitted because even though their essays didn’t move the committee, other aspects of their application did. No doubt some of these students were denied because their credentials weren’t overly competitive and the essay did not prove to be a positive tip factor. The purpose of this blog is not to correlate essays with admission decisions but to instead give the readers an idea of some cliche, unoriginal and predictable essay topics and styles to try and avoid.
Are you now hooked on the essay blogs? I hope so. The final one will come next week with the flip side to this blog. Until then…sit down at your desk, turn on your laptop, and type something. If you’re still experiencing backspace-itis, tune in next week.
Wendy Livingston ’03, M.Ed. ‘09
Senior Assistant Dean of Admission
Comments are closed on posts older than one year, but we still want to hear from you. If you have a comment or question for us, please email admission@wm.edu.
I’m glad this was said.
Oh, how bitter I was in high school because “Those kids got to go to that mission trip to South America and now they get to put it in their admissions essay and I don’t!” I always thought that applications committees loved all the essays you just described. I feel better now!
Laura, some committees might. It’s not that we automatically dislike these essays; they just aren’t unique or new or different. They’re over-used topics which we advise applicants to avoid. When you’re applying to a selective school where what matters is a lot more than just numbers, you need to distinguish yourself in the personal qualities arena and having a unique essay helps you to do just that.
Speaking as a rising senior with a huge case of backspace-itis, this set of blogs is really helpful. It has sure knocked out a handful of essays that I was dreading to write but i thought admissions loved to see. I cant wait till next weeks edition to get some essay writing juices flowing. Thanks for blogging this!
Chloe, our pleasure. Next week’s edition will likely come out late in the week but we hope it continues to be helpful.
While we cannot preview essays so to speak (simply because we do not have enough staff to do so), feel free to run a topic idea by us (vis-a-vis a comment in this blog) and we’ll provide some feedback
I’ll just hop in to confirm that really, these topics never change. I’m a W&M alumna, class of 1991, who interned in the admissions office and those topics all sound familiar, even 20 years later!
Elizabeth, wow. That only provides more evidence that these particular topics are a little too tried and true. At least when you interned I bet you didn’t get any Harry Potter essays (although I’m sure there was some other fad du jour).
That would be fantastic!
One essay that i have started on is the 150 word extra curricular essay. I started to write about breaking the language barrier in our Orchestra through music. We all understand the music, and there is a kinship that comes with that, even though we all speak different languages.
Critique would be welcome 🙂
Chloe, keep in mind it’s not easy to be unique in the extra curricular essay nor are we looking for someone to be overly unique there since every single applicant will write about an extracurricular activity (EC in admisson-ese) and there are only so many ECs to write about so write about whichever EC you’re most passionate about. Two tips with that essay.
1) Be sure the EC you mention is also listed first on your list of ECs given that the Common App asks you to list your ECs in order of importance
2) We generally recommend that the EC you write about and the one that is the most important or meaningful is one you’ve been involved with throughout high school. It strikes us as odd when someone’s most meaningful EC is one they participate in for only a few years
3) Do not take your 150-word EC essay and simply make a longer version for your personal statement or long essay. Make sure your long essay is on a totally new topic so we can learn something else about you.
Hope this helps!
Thank you so much!
And now I’m especially glad that my AP Comp teacher taught us all to avoid these when we wrote practice application essays. I was definitely contemplating an essay on my admiration of Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter.
Jen, at least admiring Luna is different that most essays who pay homage to Harry and Hermione but nevertheless, all odes to literature characters and/or books are good to avoid because they end up being a) more of a book/charcater summary than a personal statement and b) they tend to lean towards the cliche
Hey Admit it! staff. I’ve actually written several drafts of my Common App essay, and just finished a final copy I was quite happy with, but now your post has me worried. I didn’t write about Harry Potter per se, but my essay did discuss my love of reading fantasy stories. The actual topic of my essay was my passion for science and my experience shadowing a surgeon, but I compared the “magic” of science to the “magic” in storybooks. Is the allusion too strong? Will I be written off as cliche/drab, or do you think it’s okay?
I’d really appreciate your opinion on this.
Thanks!
Ashley, don’t let our blog frighten you. Remember, no essay or any one component of the application automatically makes the student an admit or deny. So even if an applicant writes the most cliche essay ever they could very well still be admitted. Conversely a student might write the most unique essay we’ve ever seen and not be admitted.
The only advice we can give on the topic you mentioned is to remember what we said in the blog that preceded this one; think of whether or not numerous other people can write on a similar topic (love of science). Chances are many students can but if you’re happy with your essay and you believe it a) stayed true to who you are and b) told us something about you we didn’t learn anything about through the rest of your app then keep it. You can always take advantage of our optional essay on the Supplement and write about something else to show another side of yourself.
Hope this is helpful.
Thank you so much for your input! I completely understand what you’re saying, that the essay doesn’t make or break an application, but if I can use it to my advantage, I should! Haha.
I’ll definitely think over what you said, and it was very helpful. I definitely feel that my essay shows a side of me that my transcripts don’t, but like you said: Will it just show a side of me that resembles everyone else?
Again, thank you. Hopefully I’ll be joining you next fall! 🙂
Ashley, exactly right. The essay is one part of many in our application and all of those many parts working together help lead us to a decision. Can any one part help or hurt an applicant? Absolutely. Can any one part be the decisionmaker on its own? No. But applicants should use every part they can to their advantage like you said…especially those parts that they have the most control over like the essay. Even ordinary topics can be treated in extraordinary way which can make for a great essay.
Hey Admit It! Staff. First of all, these essay tips are great. When I first started reading the blog, I had major writer’s block. After all of this information about what you’re looking for in an essay and what you’re not looking for, I finally have a few topics coming to my head. Granted, I still don’t know what the essay prompts will be for this year, but I’m sure, if nothing else, that those will spark some ideas, too. Secondly, how cliché would it be to write about an unusual skill? Have you seen any problems to avoid in essays that discuss that type of topic? I really appreciate any input.
Leah, we use the Common App and that goes live August 1 so the essay prompts will be available soon (you’re only required to write on one of them). One is always topic of your choice so you can write about whatever you want.
An unusual skill (assuming it truly is unusual like putting your legs behind your head for example) could in fact be a unique topic and a great way to show your quirky side.
Glad you like the blogs!
guys…I have looked everywhere:/ not sure what is being asked for supplemental essay. Is there a prompt…Is there a word limit…Love the btw..web site could be clearer on this topic
Larry
Larry, our Supplement will be posted in the weeks to come. It takes some additional time to get a supplement up online after the Common App goes live. The supplemental optional essay is what we call show and tell by proxy and with an attitude. It’s basically anything goes as long as you contain it to a piece of paper. There’s no specific word limit but like the Common Application essay it should be approximately 500 words.
Thank you so much for this post! I’ve been reading all of Admit It!’s posts, and they have been very helpful. I’ve written about five different college essays, and I don’t like any of them. One I wrote is about an experience where I was chosen to be a shepherd in a play instead of my dream role as an angel, and I made it somewhat humorous. However, I’m afraid it may be cliche. Also, I thought about doing a top 10 list for my supplemental essay (such as Top 10 Things That Make Me Laugh, Top 10 Dreams for My Life, Top 10 Favorite Quotes). I would appreciate any feedback!
Hi Rachel,
Glad you’ve found the posts helpful. We do receive lots of essays about people who made lemonade out of lemons. Not sure if your essay about getting a role you didn’t want is similar but if you feel it represents you well and you used your voice well that’s all we can ask of you.
As for the top 10 lists, those often turn out to be very surface-level. They can come across more as bullet points than new substantive information so if you do a top ten list, make sure it’s substantive and not just a numbered list.