Overheard in Committee: The College Essay

We Admit It! After a nice and relaxing weekend, we are back at it this week as we continue to place the finishing touches on this year’s freshman class. Committee proceedings are wrapping up, final decisions are being entered, those decisions are being double and triple checked, letters are being printed, signed and prepped for mailing, notification emails are being finalized—the list goes on. Suffice it to say that we are hard at work to release admission decisions as soon as we are able.

For today’s Overheard post, we turn to one of my personal favorite parts of the college application.

Overheard in Committee: “This essay was absolutely beautiful.”

There are a select number of times in an application when an applicant’s own voice and personality have the opportunity to shine through. One such opportunity is in the actual essays that you, the applicant, write to us.

Different parts of an application tell us different, and very important, things about an applicant. Can this individual be academically successful here? Your transcript can go a long way in answering this question. How does this individual interact with others in and out of the classroom? Your letter(s) of recommendation can give us great insight here. What might this individual contribute to our campus community outside of the classroom? Your extracurricular activities can give us a glimpse as to what you might get involved with as a member of the Tribe.

How does this individual articulate themselves? What is this individual genuinely passionate about? What motivates this individual. These, and countless other questions, can be answered by your essays. They provide us with meaningful insight into your personality, and give you a chance to “speak” directly to the admission committee. We see essays that cover a wide array of topics and which employ many different tones and styles. Some are funny, some are serious, some are quirky, and all of them provide for engaging and enjoyable reads as we review our many impressive applicants.

The applicant mentioned above wrote their essay on a personal topic. Their parents had recently gotten divorced, and they elected to write about their emotional journey throughout this process. The maturity and thoughtfulness this applicant showed in their writing was beyond impressive, and provided for a wonderful discussion in committee. Another one of our applicants chose to tackle a much different topic, and decided to write their essay on their love of the Cleveland Browns. This essay was unique simply because there aren’t that many Browns fans out there (sorry to all Browns fans who may be reading this…), but went on to say how being a fan of this team has helped them learn to persevere through low times and develop mental toughness. Needless to say, the writing made me laugh, and the essay was well executed.

No matter what approach you take, just be sure that your essay covers something that excites you, and that it adds a new dimension to your application. If you write genuinely, enthusiastically and carefully, no matter what the subject, then I can pretty much guarantee that we will very much enjoy reading your work.

Thus concludes this year’s Overheard in Committee series. The next time you will be hearing from us is after admission decisions have been launched (by April 1), at which point we will post our Decisions, Decisions blogs. Please let us know if you have any questions below. Thank you to all of our applicants this year. It has been a joy reviewing your applications and learning more about you.

Brad Harlan
Assistant Dean of Admission