Hi,
My D’s essay starts with the word “damn” and over the course of the essay, she calls herself a badass. She’s going to be applying to top 10 lacs and universities.
should she change the language?
tia,
In my opinion, yes. If you have to resort to swearing to express yourself, you’ve already put yourself behind all the kids who can do that essay without obscenity.
Very, very few authors can use vulgarity effectively. Your kid is not one, yet.
Well … if the initial “damn” is part of a quote – e.g., “Damn! I …” – I wouldn’t necessarily rule it out. Frankly, I don’t even view that as an obscenity, but opinions can and will obviously vary on that point. I’m ambivalent about “badass” since I doubt it adds much of value that could not be communicated with a different term: rebel? rabble rouser?
I’m OK with it in the course of normal speech, although maybe not with the Pope. However, in a college app essay, there is, IMO, always a synonym that will convey the message as effectively. So, yes, I would suggest she change it.
thanks for the feedback. “damn” is easy, she’s using it to express surprise, so something like “dang” or even “gosh” will work. “badass” is much tougher. First, I’m not sure it’s a curse. Second, IMO, it’s one of the highlights of the essay: a smart, white girl from westchester calling herself a badass.
thoughts about badass?
Don’t love it.
It would turn me off.
No. Just no.
Surely she can come up a better description for herself.
Remember, the purpose of these essays is to show applicants in the best light possible. If I were an Adcom, I would not want admit a self-described “badass,” given that - apart from whatever vulgarity may or may not be associated with the word – it smacks of attitude and pretentiousness.
It’s okay for someone to refer to someone else – colloquially, but not in the context of a college essay – as a badass, but not as a way of describing oneself.
I guess I didn’t describe it well. She’s talking about fixing an iphone, so she’s not being pretentious, she’s being self-deprecating. In any case, I asked for opinions, I got them and I’ll let her know to chose another phrase.
thanks for everyone’s help!
If it were me I’d probably keep “badass” – no other word comes close to expressing that exact meaning, imo.
But that’s why I’m good at creative writing and not personal narratives. 
Imo, if that’s one of the highlights of the essay your daughter has bigger problems than using damn & badass.
(as for the word itself, perhaps it comes across differently in the essay, but the table of high school & college students (a multiracial group, btw) to whom I read your post fell about the place at the idea that there was something good about “a smart white girl from westchester calling herself a badass”)
^well, that’s precisely the point, isn’t it? it’s the funniest part of the essay: she’s writing about a nerdy topic (the 15 hours she spent fixing her iphone), she know’s she’s not a badass and she knows the reader knows she’s not a badass.
The funniest part needs to be something different that a single word.
What I do take issue with is critiquing the effectiveness of an essay none of us have read. Nobody knows how it actually comes across. You’re relying on the description of someone who didn’t write it to convey it accurately enough for you to criticize.
Since you do not know how the reader will take it why leave it up to chance. If you need to ask the question then you know the answer. Since the exact context is not known could you change the phrase to use either dirty harryish
or macgyver like
just a thought
hard to advise without entire essay
Instead of saying “I fixed that phone like a badass”, I’d say “I fixed that phone like John MacLain jumped off the top of the Nakatomi building tied to a fire hose.”
But no kid could do that unless their knowledge of 80’s movies was deep enough to reference it properly AND write about it in an engaging way. That’s sort of my point. And don’t plagiarize my words-just have your kid find something that illustrates badassery in a way that’s relevant to them and use that instead.
Take my opinion with a huge grain of salt. I haven't written an essay in decades and my kids haven't gotten there yet. My opinion is mostly based on what I've read about the purpose of essays and what I would say to my own daughters.
If the essay written as it is truly reflects your daughter and her personality, if changing those words would make it less "her", if she really wants to find a college that wants her as she really is, then she doesn't need to change it and probably shouldn't. The essay should be her voice, not the voice of who she thinks college ad coms want on their campuses.
Motherof Dragons, that was my feeling as well
I’m pretty sure kids don’t say “gosh” these days. The essay must come from a teen voice and not like a parent over-edited the word choice. Ask child to remove or change jarring words or phrases, but let her do her own rewrites.
@MotherOfDragons Fantastic example of how to raise the bar on describing a badass.