I’ve been going through the college process for a couple of months now, and I’ve written countless drafts of my college essay. I got one approved by my teacher about managing stress while saving a life. However, I later wrote another one about struggling with my faith that I’ve become very fond of. My teachers all think that I should continue to write the first essay and forget about the second one, but I feel that the first essay isn’t genuine enough to send to schools. Please help! Any advice is highly appreciated!
Essays are supposed to show traits that make you a good fit for a particular school. The essay you use for one school may not be the best option for others on your list. Think about the traits you’d like to show each school on your list. If I recall correctly, there are some highly competitive named on it. Does either essay show that you match what they want?
What do you mean that it isn’t genuine enough? Do you mean it contains lies? That isn’t good. But if you just mean that it isn’t as introspective, I think you are missing the point of the essay. The essay isn’t meant to be a confessional. It is a marketing tool. It is a way to showcase some aspect of yourself so that the person reading it wants you to attend the school. The goal is for the reader to come away thinking that they want you on campus.
I believe ‘not genuine enough’ doen’t mean you made up things in your essay, but you just polished it abit. That’s acceptable.
Statistically, compared to the stress essay, which is like “overcome difficuly”, the ‘Faith’ topic is less seen for the AO, so it could be more attractive. The faith essay might need you to write more about your reflection while the stress one would be easier to show traits.
You are more marketable with your first topic.
I like it better, too. So do your teachers. I would go with that.
It is also important that your essay is an interesting read. Think about how many boring essays they sift through. probably many essays on overcoming hardships, dealing with stress…and. other cliche topics etc.
I took the opposite approach. I talked about something important in my life (music) but gave it fun human personality/characteristics …I had fun with it. I tied it into all aspects of my life from social abilities to solving math problems and showed. how music is the ultimate unifier.
On a few of my acceptance letters, admissions commented on my essay.
Again, no. The How I Overcame Adversity theme is NOT more marketable - it is so overdone that it is now almost a cliche.
@Nswimmer Personally, I think that you are right, and that your teachers are wrong. Remember the cardinal rule of “show, don’t tell”. When a person talks about things that they have done, they find it extremely difficult to show this, and almost always narrate it is a factual manner, i.e., telling. When a person is focused on what is or was going on inside them, showing this comes much more naturally then when writing about topics which are related to events and physical actions.
I like the faith idea. Great opportunity to reveal who you really are and that you’re thinking about that. The essay is the one part of your application that allows the AO to see you as a person yhe way you’d like to be seen.
If someone read each of these, would one definitely evoke “This is SO NSwimmer”?
The way I like to approach college essays is to think through what is everything I want the admissions officers to know about me?
-
You may be involved in several different extracurriculars and putting that in the Activities List is probably good enough for that.
-
You’ll have a personal statement and that’s the main essay that admissions folks will evaluate your personal qualities and that’s often characterized by traits such as drive, intellectual curiosity, diverse lived experiences, etc.
-
You’ll likely have to write supplemental essays. The most common ones are Why Us or Why Major.
-
And finally, there are the other optional essays. The Additional Information section is often under-utilized but it really presents an opportunity to add context about special circumstances that you might’ve had to live with. With the Common App, there’s also a COVID essay to talk about how the pandemic has impacted you specifically.
If both of these essays are important to you, then I would try to incorporate them both in your application. Out of all of these possible opportunities for your writing in the application, I would think through how to distribute different parts of you that you definitely want the admissions readers to know. Depending on the school that you’re applying to and their respective values, I would prioritize and allocate your content to your essays. Are you choosing between the two topics?