<p>3</a> reasons why you're waitlisted at Princeton | College admissions advice</p>
<p>He says that "You have to advertise yourself if you want to attend the best colleges. Now is not the time to be modest."</p>
<p>I always assumed that the essay was NOT where you wanted to boast about accomplishments, where you don't want to sound pretentious. Am I right in thinking this?</p>
<p>It’s great that you’re taking what you read with a grain of salt and processing it with your own judgment, because I’m starting to think here that the advice given in that articles are full iffy presumptions. It’s like a simplified tidbit of all the issues. </p>
<p>Like this argument he’s making:
</p>
<p>Isn’t it quite normal for a high school to have only half of the students heading off to 4-year college?
What the article is saying is true, but not the whole story. A student with “nationally recognized prizes” from a totally unknown high school in rural Oklahoma, where no one has ever even ventured to apply out of state, will easily stand out in a different way than those from well known feeder school.</p>
<p>On the essay:
</p>
<p>Well, if I’m ever writing an admission essay again, it’s exactly going to be about something like my cat or when I first get my own car. Well written essays on quirky topics leave an impression on the reader precisely because you can reveal so many about your personality, values, interests, and character through something so seemingly trivial, don’t you agree?</p>
<p>The important part is to advertise your strength without adopting a tone that makes it seem like you’re boasting. You don’t directly state/list your strength- rather, you build up tension by portraying the oppositions and difficulties and let your strengths shine through the narrative. Hence, “show, don’t tell”. Your strengths are not the awards that you won, but what you, as a person, did to get there.</p>
<p>The essay is about striking a balance, much like the quality of ego in our daily lives. If we act too modest, we don’t come off as a great person to be around, and some can even take that as you fishing for compliments; on the other hand, too much of it comes off as arrogant, and is very unappealing to people. </p>
<p>Forgive the cheesy, cliche post here, but the essay is about who you are as a person. The idea is to brag about yourself, but without actual bragging, or showing as opposed to telling them what’s so great about you.</p>
<p>Like you said, don’t boast about accomplishments and “tell” them why you’re great, but instead, maybe write about something in your life, or something you have a genuine interest and “show” them who you are.</p>
<p>What you’re “showing off” in a college essay is your ability to recognize the significance of things in your life and the way you think about things as you go along, not necessarily a particular quality. If you’re focusing on the accomplishment, it probably is going to be a bad, unattractive essay. You could write about winning a competition - but if the central idea of the essay is about the winning, then there is nothing to it.</p>
<p>Topics are just springboards to show your thoughts and person… the topic itself can be of a victory or a defeat or a moral grey. You shouldn’t sell yourself short in the essay, certainly, but use common sense: would someone who has just looked at my transcript and list of ECs find what I’m writing to be attractive and useful?</p>
<p>I like what notanengineer wrote (and the other responses, too) - just be honest and straightforward <em>without</em> being a jerk. The idea is to describe your accomplishments while still being attractive and useful. I thought this had some pretty good tips on how to do this: </p>
<p>[Personal</a> statement tips. The Advanced Edit](<a href=“http://theadvancededit.com/2011/08/08/personal-statement-tips/]Personal”>http://theadvancededit.com/2011/08/08/personal-statement-tips/)</p>
<p>“Essay topics are worth a whole series of posts, but let me say this: no one gets into top schools by writing about their cat, Woodrow Wilson, or when they got their first car.”</p>
<p>Total nonsense. Any of these topics could make for great personal statement topics if done right. In fact, any general topic can work well - the question is HOW you write about it.</p>