<p>I had thought my essays were pretty decent, with some even getting pretty good reviews from some of the editors here. Yet, I've been showing them to some of my classmates (at a good prep school, so they're pretty sophisticated in terms of college admissions) and they keep telling me that I should write more about myself.</p>
<p>My topics are definitely unique to me, so I figured that the choice of topics themselves would reveal enough about me, but it seems like a lot of my friends are writing explicitly (or very close to that) about themselves. What does CC think?</p>
<p>Although I’m not expert on College Essays myself, I think its important to reveal a bit about yourself in your college essay. This is the aspect of the application that you have the most control over, and in many ways, is the most accurate representation of who you are aside from grades and test scores.</p>
<p>This isn’t to say that you have to write a weepy, soul-searching, self-obsessed kind of thing, but I think it is important to show that admissions officer what makes you, well, you! Otherwise, you could just be writing an essay about the life cycle of frogs or differential calculus. If it doesn’t give the reader a clear sense of who <em>your name here</em> is, then it’s not doing its job!</p>
<p>The colleges are trying to learn something about you through the essays. So if you don’t reveal enough of yourself, you aren’t giving them what they want.</p>
<p>^^ About how much is “a bit about yourself”. </p>
<p>^ Similarly, what is “enough”?</p>
<p>I’ve read a lot of those “successful college essays” books and it seems like the writers’ characters are illustrated more by their writing style than the content.</p>
<p>Also, I forgot to mention that most of my essays are pretty funny/tongue-in-cheek/slightly irreverent/out there. It’s not like I wrote a dissertation on propulsion technology.</p>