<p>The December 30 issue of the LOS ANGELES TIMES had an article on writing college application essays buried in the "Calendar" (Mostly entertainment, plus comics, crossword, bridge problem, etc.) section. I guess because it was writtne partially with an eye to essays with names blacked out being used in a University of Virginia theater program.</p>
<p>There's probably a link somewhere but I read it in hardcopy. A few snippets:</p>
<p>"But they [admissions officers] say many essays are grammatically perfect, structurally sound and painfully earnest. But not usually anything that would grab a reader from the first line."</p>
<p>"The best essays read like vivid, entertaining dramas led by a compelling main character. More script than resume, and not a complicated life story--just a sketch."</p>
<p>"...laughed about the repetition. Lots of sob stories, lots of big, obscure words, lots of 'Here I sit, musing about how difficult it is to write my essay.'"</p>
<p>"...advice is succinct: Be true to yourself. Take some risks.... The corollary advice: Take a chance, but a calculated one. It's a good way to stand out, but not in a way that makes admissions staff members recoil (counterpoint to some profanity-laced essays)."</p>
<p>"The best essays read like vivid, entertaining dramas led by a compelling main character. More script than resume, and not a complicated life story--just a sketch."</p>
<p>So they want our 17 year-olds to be playwrights now along with everything else. Structurally sound and earnest isn't good enough.
Yet they say be true to yourself. Hmm. </p>
<p>Some kids are natural writers, and can spin off vivid, entertaining dramas, and it's truely themselves. My oldest could do it, but she's a writer. What about those with talents in other areas? Are they allowed to be themselves, or do they have to to be "entertaining" now as well?
I can imagine that after reading hundreds of essays from 17 year olds, an entertaining dramatic essay from a gifted writer is a treat and stands out, but I hope such writing doesn't become the new expected standard.
If it is, the essay services will be doing a good business for a long time.</p>
<p>ASAP, it think the are talking about the insipid repetition of the essays like reading about overcoming the death of a favorite grandparent for the umteenth time.</p>
<p>My DS wrote a humerous essay about his less than perfect teeth which he has because he did not want any orthidonture(?). He compared them to an old picket fence in need of repair vs those new shiney plastic ones, the wavy lines of his marching band vs the perfection of the goosestepping NKorean Red Army, etc. The point being his desire to be genuine and enjoying the persuit of perfection rather than conforming to a percieved ideal and viewing perfection as an end unto itself.</p>
<p>Adcoms seem to enjoy it because he got a nice mention of it in one of this acceptance letters.</p>
<p>I think one problem is in the back of your mind you're really trying to second guess what the adcoms want to hear, so you play it safe. </p>
<p>Since so many have the same over-the-top stats the kids and their parents know the essay is often the tie breaker. That's a lot of pressure...they don't know just how off the track is acceptable. Sadly that inhibits creativity if you aren't a risk taker, and how do you know how much risk is OK, and for which school?</p>
<p>Plus there is no way to police how much "outside" help is given.</p>
<p>"So they want our 17 year-olds to be playwrights now along with everything else. Structurally sound and earnest isn't good enough.
Yet they say be true to yourself. Hmm. </p>
<p>I can imagine that after reading hundreds of essays from 17 year olds, an entertaining dramatic essay from a gifted writer is a treat and stands out, but I hope such writing doesn't become the new expected standard.
If it is, the essay services will be doing a good business for a long time."</p>
<p>This is a recurrent misconception. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>From the examples that have been posted on CC -and other spaces- the essays from essay services fail to portray a gifted writer. They are typically structurally sound but vapid. They may not hurt a student, but will fail to help either. In another words, such essay constitute a waste of the opportunity for a stduent to present a true pricture of him- or herself. </p></li>
<li><p>The essay does NOT have to portray a gifted writer, at leat not the gifted writer some of us imply to be needed. The reality is that the application essay is not really a place for arcane metaphors or other esoteric literary devices. If the student happens to be a "gifted" writer -in the typical HS context- he or she might actually be better off dumbing it down a notch, and make the style decidely pedestrian. The reason: knowing your audience is key. Expecting a Perelmanesque "universal audience" might be a tad optimistic, as the essay will be glanced at for a precious number of ... seconds. It will not be dissected and scrutinized as much as quickly appraised. That is why simplicity and liveliness reign supreme. The key words are full of life and energy, vigorous, full of spirit, animated, invigorating, refreshing, effervescent, or sparkling - all words aptly borrowed from the definition of liveliness at dictionary.com! </p></li>
</ol>
<p>When reading essays, the difference between good and poor essy is not that subtle. After a few words, it becomes clear in which category the essay will fall. The largest category of poor and mediocre essays is also full of essays that are trying to be too profound, too complicated, too adult-sounding, too sanitized, or too complex. </p>
<p>All is needed is a heartfelt little slice of ... life. Real life, if possible.</p>
<p>Let's not forget that the "main essay" that this article seems to be referring to is not by any means the only essay that many students write. The little box essays on "your favorite books" or "Why Cucamonga College?" are often very revealing of the applicant's interests. Unlike the "main essay" which may often appear to have been written by a committee or a Madison Ave. advertising firm, the little box essays are often more authentic.</p>
<p>I think another good piece of advice is to think small. By that, I mean, exploring something specific in great detail, giving the reader a real sense of what is being related, can be much more interesting than a broad essay covering a lot of ground. Originaloog's son's essay mentioned above is a great example of exploring something personal that's specific and interesting.</p>
<p>including essays as part of what is evaluated for admissions is a joke. a good number of essays are written by professionals rather than being written by the applicant and even when the essays are written by the applicant the evaluation of anything like an essay is purely subjective.</p>
<p>Ursdad, I used to think like you. Six month before I started writing essays, I read a few statements by adcoms about this subject. At that time, I also posted how I felt the essay requirements were prone to cheating or at best quite subjective. </p>
<p>Later in the process, it became quite apparent that the essay are the ONLY place where an applicant can make his own voice heard. What I considered as an abject chore became one of the best opportunities to display a different angle of my applications. I no longer think that people who are using a professional service are getting an advantage as much as they are being taken advantage of. A good essay should be one that you are the ONLY person who could write it. I do not know of any service -or even ghost writer- who could deliver such an essay. </p>
<p>As far as the essay helping your admission, it does require sensible prompts by the schools. After a few years on CC, I noticed that one pattern emerged quite often in admissions' results: students who were "reaching" for a particular school and poured their heart and sould in writing meaningful essays seemed to fare better than their stats may have indicated. On the other hand, students who admitted to start too late and produced half-baked essays rarely reported much success. Anecdotal has my recollection might be, I would rather err on the side of respecting the essays too much than fail to recognize their importance.</p>
<p>I'm agree with you, Xiggi. The number one goal of the essay(s) (I'm referring to all the long and short essays in a given application) is to tell the adcom something about the applicant that cannot be gleaned from the stats. What motivates, interests, excites, disgusts the applicant. What experiences have shaped the applicant's goals for college or life. How the applicant might flourish at the given college, and how she would contribute to the student body or the life of the college.</p>
<p>In looking over my own kids' essays, what I found most important was that they were "authentic." They said something about those kids, and their experiences and interests. In my daughter's case, there were even a couple of flaws in the writing that I didn't comment on (not grammatical errors) because I thought the essay truly had her voice in it and I didn't want to mess that up in any way.</p>
<p>Call me a Pollyanna, but after my (I admit, limited) observations of my D and her fellow seniors this fall, I really don't think the issue/problem of ghost-writing essays is as prevalent as the cynics on these boards do. All the kids I know sweated, screamed, wrote, decompensated, introspected, wrote some more, gnashed teeth, red-lined papers, and wrote some more. Her classmates are, in general, kids of dual-income, dual-professional families who certainly could afford to pay to have their kids essays written for them. Some of them paid for the summer writing program offered at their school (we didn't), at the end of which they had at least one essay to submit. But the kids wrote these and self-edited (and peer-edited) these with the guidance of the English teacher. The English teacher didn't write them. And all were satisfied with what they wrote.</p>
<p>The most important lesson for all of us was that this was the one and only place she could show her dual interests and what made her special. She did not choose far flung, risky, or even unique topics. But what she wrote showed her inner self and her values. And I frankly think that these weird (OK, Uncommon App-like) essay prompts are more likely to obscure a student's identity than to reveal something otherwise un-revealed. As one adcom put it at an info session we attended last summer, the topics really ought to be "Tell me something about yourself" and "Tell me something else (more) about yourself".</p>
<p>"When reading essays, the difference between a good and poor essay is not that subtle. "</p>
<p>I agree with Xiggi on this one. However, unless the essay is over-sanitized, the seeds of a good essay are often buried in a poor one. The trick, of course, is finding the seed, applying blood, sweat, tears, and logical structure - and verifying that the prompt has, in fact, been answered. The sad thing is that the 5 paragraph essay - beloved of AP English classes and the SAT writing test - is poorly suited to convince anybody to do anything.</p>
<p>"In my daughter's case, there were even a couple of flaws in the writing that I didn't comment on (not grammatical errors) because I thought the essay truly had her voice in it and I didn't want to mess that up in any way."</p>
<p>
[quote]
As one adcom put it at an info session we attended last summer, the topics really ought to be "Tell me something about yourself" and "Tell me something else (more) about yourself".
[/quote]
I totally agree. Our D titled her essay "Tell Us Something That Very Few People Know About You". She proceeded to tell a story about one single event (from 5th grade) that resulted in the practice of a personal habit to this day of which we had absolutely no knowledge! I'm sure it had the adrep describing her as "the girl who...".</p>
<p>A piece of advice I read in a CC post over two years ago was to have someone who does not know your child read the essay to gauge how admissions might "see" your child through the essay. Interesteddad (I think?)has also suggested the benefits of an essay that results in a nickname (assuming it's a positive one!). This will happen when the real experience and voice of the appicant comes through, flaws and all.</p>
<p>I agree that the essay makes a big difference. My son got into a very good school as "early action", and from what I can tell from other cc posters who got deferred or rejected, his stats were definitely hum-drum. But his essays were dynamite. I had read one of those "How to write a college essay" books and it said not to write about religion, sickness or death of a loved one, or a sports event. Well, he wrote about religion and his sister's sickness, damn the stupid book. The trick, as a parent, is to read the essay and ask questions about anything you don't like or why did they say such and such. Don't try telling them what to do unless you like fighting and losing. After the first round of questions they'll write something just to get you out of the way because they're "tired of the stupid essay". Just keep asking questions. You will be amazed at the insights they come up with after the second round of questions. I saw my nephew do the same thing, and his essay topics were a wrestling match and a funeral. The point is that the topic is not as important as how the student treats it. All students have a killer essay in them waiting to come out, you just have to facilitate it by prodding them with questions. And trust me, when you love the essay, chances are other readers will also like it.</p>