<p>D has just started to think about the all important essay. Writer's block - she said she's getting stuck at the opening sentence !! Don't believe she has a "topic" chosen.</p>
<p>Most stuff I've read/heard says to write an essay that will tell the adcoms about you. Something that will make you stand out amongst the crowd. One interesting tip I read somewhere says that if you drop your essay in the cafeteria and someone else picks it up and reads it, they should be able to identify it as your essay.</p>
<p>What did your senior write about? Especially if they chose the "choose your own topic" question. Any tips on getting started, narrowing down the focus of the essay?</p>
<p>Any books that are helpful? I did get her the Bauld book and both of us read the first few chapters which helped a bit. But understanding how the adcoms read these essays is also nerve-wracking - how do you ensure that your opening sentence/paragraph is captivating enough for the adcom to read further?</p>
<p>D1 wrote about a terrible haircut she got the summer before 4th grade (she was mistaken for a little boy all summer long). D2 wrote about the indignities of working at the local movieplex. D3 wrote about standing to watch a Shakespearean production at the Globe Theatre.</p>
<p>By focusing on issues or events very specific to themselves, my kids were able to show who they are, instead of telling who they are. They also showed that they could put words together properly and use humor effectively.</p>
<p>The guideline about dropping the essay in the cafeteria is a good one! I’d never read that before, but it’s a great way to express how specific the essay should be.</p>
<p>During second semester of junior year, our high school’s English teachers assign personal statements, then work with the kids to refine them for possible use as college essays. My kids received some excellent guidance this way, though 2 of my 3 wound up writing about a new topic over the summer. Most hs English teachers are very willing to help with this.</p>
<p>My son wrote a little story called “Procrastination.” He wrote it in the third person, with dialog, and himself as the main character (duh). It was all about how “essay deadline day” had arrived, yet he still used every chance he had to procrastinate. It was pretty engaging and witty.</p>
<p>The week before I wrote my essays, I had been disowned and thrown out of my house. When I left, I was allowed to take one small bag with me. Since I didn’t want that entire sob story to be the first thing adcoms knew about me, I chose one aspect of the story: “If you could only take one small bag with you to start your life over again, what would you bring?” I pretty much went through what I had packed with me – a rather odd assortment of things – and described how each represented me. At least for me, what worked best was finding one moment that affected your life and breaking it down to its most personal parts.</p>
<p>Here are the basics I came away with from watching one son go through the process last year:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Make sure the essay offers new insight into something about your daughter that isn’t covered elsewhere - letters of recommendation, newspaper clipping, etc. Don’t miss this opportunity to ADD something to the application.</p></li>
<li><p>About getting started - I usually tell my kids not to worry about starting at the beginning - just start throwing words onto the paper (computer) and let your thoughts flow onto the page. Don’t worry if it’s too short, too long, unfocused, rambling, or changes directions to a brand new subject at the 3rd paragraph. Get something written down and then go back and turn it into a good essay by adding an opening sentence or paragraph, taking something out, etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Same with choosing a topic - encourage her to make a list of ideas - don’t worry about them sounding lame. Just jot down 3-10 ideas in list form. Then look at each one and just think about what you can say about it and what it will show about you.</p></li>
<li><p>it may also help to jot down 2 or 3 things you want the reader to walk away knowing about you - persevered through failure, loves working with children, able to work through a challenge, not shy about seeking help, learning how to not be shy about seeking help, excited about trying new things, has stuck with one activity for a long time. If you can identify a trait or characteristic that you want to be sure to show them, it will help you to pick a topics from your list of ideas - which one gives you an opportunity to really drive this point home.
Good luck!</p></li>
</ol>
<p>My younger son had several different essays. For the Common App his main essay was about folding origami. He started describing an experience when he was young in Japan and very, very bored at a museum devoted to papermaking in Japan. That first sentence is the hardest. He ended up touching on the various things he’s learned from and done with origami and then ended it with a bit of humor about how annoying it still is going to museums with his parents. I actually thought his essay about an EC was stronger - he had originally tried to use it as a main essay and felt it didn’t seem personal enough. He wrote about a volunteer job archiving papers for our neighborhood association. He described how we seem incapable of learning from our history (we’ve kept it, but we don’t read it!). I thought it ended up doing a very good job of showing him thinking like a historian, even though he didn’t feel it was personal enough for a main essay. It was very funny.</p>
<p>I thought both of these essays really showed his personality and his intellect. Since he never went anywhere without little boxes of origami paper I think anyone would have known it was him!</p>
<p>His second main essay was in answer to a Georgetown U. question about talking about what you thought was the most important issue facing the world. Most kids write policy wonk type essays for this question. He felt his application was dubious enough he needed to take more of a risk and he wrote this really weird description of himself as a green building developer and described all the features of his green building. Georgetown didn’t accept him, but I suspect his GPA was the issue as much as the essay.</p>
<p>Then for U. of Chicago he answered the “How did you get caught?” prompt by reusing the Georgetown essay almost word for word and ending it “Did you catch me?” He got into Chicago. Which we all thought was quite amusing.</p>
<p>My older son agonized and agonized about the essay. He just hates being personal. Finally he started playing around with a computer program he wrote that takes on line texts and using some algorithm combines pieces of them to make something that sounds almost like English. He used sample essays posted on line for the text. He started the essay with the gibberish the program produced. His next sentence was “Or maybe not.” Then he described his program and what it did. Then he went on to answer the prompt more directly which was something about how your family and environment influenced you. So he talked about how we gave him the tools to teach himself computer programming. It wasn’t a great essay, but I thought it was pretty good for a reluctant writer and engineer. It didn’t get him into MIT, but did get him into Harvard and Carnegie Mellon’s Computer Science School. It just barely showed his sense of humor and did show that he was the sort of kid who can be very self-directed and will teach himself what he wants to know until he’s able to do it at a professional level.</p>
<p>DougBetsy years and years ago my youngest brother wrote an essay about procrastination that he sent off to Stanford one day after their deadline. He got in.</p>
<p>Both kids had numerous false starts before they finally found an approach that let them get into the essay. For my older son writing the program enabled him to get past the how to start this question. For my younger son he tried several different subjects before finding a way to approach the essay. In the end even the rejected essay got used.</p>
<p>For my younger son the applications with the most success were those that showed different aspects of himself, but also gave the big picture of I’m a nice somewhat quirky guy with a good sense of humor who could think like an historian and could teach himself a somewhat unusual activity. </p>
<p>My older son’s essay said “I’m a computer nerd!”</p>
<p>A couple of mine cannot sit down and do a linear writing piece. They use a scatter to start. Kind of a brainstorm in bubbles all over the page. Slowly the theme emerges and essay evolves. </p>
<p>DD’s main essay was how music and the performance of one particular song affected her life over several years, providing a unifying thread from triumph, through to spirituality and rescue in the depth of grief. Brought tears to eyes of HS English teacher and comments during an interview. </p>
<p>Something must be unique to her. What she falls back on. What she turns to in alone time to do. What speaks to her, intrigues her, strikes her funny bone. The key is it should speak of her, not some canned response she thinks adcoms want to read.</p>
<p>I don’t remember what the oldest wrote about but he was doing conservatory admissions so it wasn’t critical for him. </p>
<p>Son #2 wrote about an experience backpacking when they were caught in a hailstorm at 12’000 feet. He used the example to talk about what he learned about dealing with adversity.</p>
<p>Son #3 wrote about being involved in a controversial play at high school and how it allowed him to interact with students he never had been involved with before.</p>
<p>I feel that is hel;ps to look at your application as a whole and try to find several “thread” you want to emphasize and reinforce, a particular EC, a character trait, anything…</p>
<p>I just picked topics that were integral to who I was, it’s a lot easier to write about yourself than you’d expect :)</p>
<p>My d wanted to write something that would be “unexpected” - that is, something most people would not know just by looking at her (a tall, ballerina “Barbie” type from TX). So she wrote about her dad taking her on a weekend dogsled trip in Canada. She had to drive the sled, pitch camp, split wood, feed the dogs, etc. Ended up with frost-bite on her toes, which might have compromised her dance career (fortunately didn’t lose any). Basically, a “don’t judge a book by its cover” essay. Got her into SMU, TCU, Boston U, American U and a whole host of LACs. (Along with good grades and talent auditions).</p>
<p>I would suggest sitting around the kitchen table with a yellow legal pad and making a list of all the activities, interests, and other “things” that your son or daughter wants to present to colleges on the application. These may be academic interests, extracurricualar activities, hobbies, whatever. Don’t limit the list. If the kid is crazy for unicyles, put it on the list. Colleges are looking for kids who stand out from the pack because somebody thinks, “Woah, that’s interesting…”</p>
<p>Now that you’ve got that list, see if you can prioritize it. For example, if you are applying to a school where civic engagement and service is a big deal and you’ve got an extracurricular activity that fits that profile, then you want to make sure that you emphasize that on the application. Is there a way to group some activities together into a broader “bullet point”, providing a cohesive theme through the application?</p>
<p>Now, list the available opportunites available on the application. You’ve got the transcript and the EC lists and the short answers and the main essay and the most-meaningful activity essay and maybe a Why Podunk U? essay. The essays are where you have the opportunity to bring your A-level “bullet points” from the yellow legal pad to life. A chance to describe an event or person or experience in a way that allows the adcom to visualize a real live teenager engaging in something interesting. Nothing emphasizes a “bullet point” on the application as well as good essay on that topic. Forget the essay prompts. Decide what you want to present in the essays and there will always be someway to hang an essay on one of the available prompts. It’s like decorating a Christmas tree. You want to put your prettiest ornaments on the big branches in the front. If you have three things you want to emphasize, then decide which makes sense as the topic for the main essay and two of the short answer essays. Exactly how to do that will be driven by the list on the yellow legal pad. Each student will require a little different approach.</p>
<p>Let me give an example. My daughter had a significant community service experience. This was something that had nothing to do with her high school and really wouldn’t have shown up anywhere on her college application except under a laundry list of volunteer activities. It could have been something that an application reader could miss altogether on a list of community service hours (even though it subseequently got her recognition for our state in a national award program and something that tied into her academic strength). The only way to highlight this experience was to use the essay. It would have been crazy for her to write the main essay about anything else. I see it here all the time where kids don’t even see the potential interest in something on their EC laundry list and fail to bring it to life with something other than five words on the resume. Start at the kitchen table with the yellow legal pad and don’t miss opportunities to use the essays effectively.</p>
<p>I love the Stanford link - I’ve always wanted to know what the kid who changes his name every time he goes to Starbucks went on to say!</p>
<p>I agree with interesteddad that there is a lot to be said to writing the essay you want to write and then worry about the prompts. Since one of the essay prompts on the Common App. is to write your own prompt it’s rare that this is a problem. In fact one admissions officer admitted they get so bored with the usual topics that they are happy to get essays that don’t answer one of the suggested prompts.</p>
<p>For the Common App you can usually write about anything you want (Open Topic). I agree with those who have suggested that a topic about something meaningful to the student is usually the best choice, especially if that topic is about something related to the application. My son chose to write about why he wanted to pursue his probable major (linguistics) by linking Pig Latin, Dwarvish and Celtic Irish. There really was nothing on his school report, or even his list of ECs, which would have explained his stated interest in the subject. His essay explained the depths to which he had taken the interest. I can’t recall the opening line, but the title of the essay was written, in part, using the International Phoentic Alphabet (IPA).</p>
<p>For the Supplemental essay required/optional on some applications, he focused on one of his principal ECs, singing. It was about how much he liked to sing and how important it was to him to be able to sing. He talked about the Fall when he would spend half his time in school singing - from 6:30 a.m. sectionals to 8:30 p.m. musical theater rehearsals. Because he seldom saw the light of day during this period, he started the essay with a line about “being a vampire” (this was pre-Twilight, at least the movie). I think most of his friends could have identified him from the second essay, but not from the first.</p>
<p>There was a clever book on writing essays. It was either written by Harvard students or Harvard was in the name of the title. It really helped to explain how to identify a good subject matter for your essay and how to work it into a great essay. It also included a wonderful chapter on the “worst” essay types, such as the “Miss America” (I want to save the world) or the “Thesaurus” (“To recapitualate myself…”).</p>
<p>My advice to the young person with writer’s block:
Skip the first line. Skip the first paragraph. Start writing in the middle to see what it is you really want to say. Then do it again. Once you know what you mean to say, you can figure out how to take the reader there. That is what the opening of the essay will do.</p>
<p>My D wrote a slice of life essay about her commute to a fairly prestigious internship. It was funny, humble, and unexpected. Several of her colleges told her that it was one of the best essays of the year. I thought the best things about it were the flow and wit. She was looking at a fairly ordinary event and writing about what was in her mind and the cast of characters along the way.</p>
<p>My D actually started with the first line. When she came home from that day I asked her how it was and she made an astonished statement about a small thing that had totally taken her off guard. That astonished, self-deprecating exclamation was the first line and it drew in the reader to figure out what the heck she was talking about.</p>
<p>My daughter wrote five or six different essays. The essay she used in the end was about how her brother had always been her closest ally in life. It was well-written and quite moving. She ended up at Reed. My son’s essay was a very slightly rewritten piece (he changed ONE sentence) he’d written in 8th grade about his first ride in a race car (driven by a race car driver–and not on the track) and how it inspired him to build his own car. He got into MIT and was waitlisted at CalTech (for entry at the end of his junior year in HS).</p>
<p>All I know was that my son wrote with true passion for his essay about a life setback and how it effected him and what he would you do differently…brought tears to my eyes and still does when I read it to a class of education major college students when I speak about my daughter, his sister, that has developmental disabilities. It was raw and extremely honest…not sappy or sugar coated in the least…He also was extremely creative with his diversity essay…he got into his top tier choice U. Tips I remember reading were: do not write about a sports injury or communtiy service experience in a far away land…they get too many of those and want to be enlightened to something new and unique. So if it makes someone objective tear up or laugh out loud…you are go to go. Also best advice of all…take the mom and dad out of the editing /advice process…find someone else that is qualified and totally objective. We had my High School English teacher sister-in law with kids that wrote essays for highly competitive colleges and my niece that writes for a newspaper and magazine. He sent his drafts to them directly for editing and constructive comments. They did not write a thing for him but were able to help with the English mechanics, tone, organizaion. It can be a very stressful process…so you will need a 3rd party mediator to help with your cause. Good luck!</p>
<p>I think it’s hard for us to tell you HOW she should write the essay (start at the beginning, in one sitting, etc) because in my experience most students write college essays the same way they write other essays. I got my inspiration for my CommonApp essay in the shower, as I always do, and I sat down and wrote it in one sitting, as I always do, and then didn’t rewrite it besides changing basic grammar errors. Other people have very different experiences. If she’s the sort who needs a deadline, make sure she has one. If she likes the system of taking lots of notes and systematically choosing a topic, let her do that.</p>
<p>The best essays I’ve read (and I edited a bunch of my friends’ essays) are those that take a small, common occurence and demonstrate either how the author thinks about his/her life, or even that one little part of his/her life, or demonstrate some qualities or characteristics about the author (humor, generosity) that aren’t clear in any other part of the application. The essay shouldn’t be about you as a student; it should be about you as a person, imo. Paint a picture of a part of you the application doesn’t already talk about. Yes, you’re smart and have great scores, etc - but you’re 17 years old. You have a LIFE. You listen to music and ride the bus to school and once died your hair pink just to make your mother angry. Write about that.</p>
Way</a> cool! My son’s wasn’t nearly that interesting, though (nor was it even very well-written). He’s geek through and through, so he wrote about his work in the tutoring center, proving that he could indeed communicate with humans as well as computers.</p>
<p>I read in one getting-into-college book that the important thing was to figure out what “type” you are and the perceived weaknesses of that “type”. Ex: jocks are dumb, geeks can’t communicate; rich people are spoiled. Then use your essay or ECs to show that although you have the advantage of being athletic or smart or rich, you don’t bring the stereotypical weaknesses as well. That made a lot of sense, and was the focus of his main essay. His supplements to Caltech and Harvey Mudd reveled in his geekiness, though.</p>