Some help with "Why This School"

College Essays
1

<p>I posted this advice about three years ago, but thought I'd update it because so many students are asking how to answer that question.</p>

<p>Many of the supplemental essay prompts are some variety of this 'Why Us?' question. And it seems so hard to write. What do you say? What do you really know about the school? Unfortunately, so many times the final essay will go on about how awesome the school is, how great the faculty is, and how unbelievable certain programs are.</p>

<p>And that's so wrong.</p>

<p>Tip #1: The essay needs to be about YOU. The schools don't want to hear about themselves. They want to know why their school would be a good fit for YOU. What are YOU interested in and why would their school provide that for you?</p>

<p>Tip #2: You don't want to come across as blindly in love with the school. Never say things like "I've wanted to go the Great State since I was two years old." Or "Going to Great State would be the culmination of a lifetime dream." As a matter of fact, you want to be just a little aloof. You want to come across as: "I wondered if Great State would be a fit, so I investigated..."</p>

<p>**Tip #3:<a href="Pardon%20this%20crude%20analogy,%20but%20it%20really%20works%20here">/b</a>. Imagine that the school is a classmate that you really would like to hang out with. How would you approach that person? Would you walk up and say "You've been my dream since I started thinking about girls/guys"....? Of course not. It would be a turn-off and you would come across as a little nutty and desperate. And you know desperate does not work. What would work is... "Hey, I love sci fi movies and I heard that you might also." A little cool and casual might win the day.</p>

<p>Tip #4: Don't laugh at Tip #3. It works.</p>

<p>Let's look at the following essay on "Why Stanford?" and analyze it:</p>

<p>
[quote]

Stanford was probably the sixth or seventh campus we visited. Each of the previous ones left me with the thought of, "Well, perhaps I could learn to love the place... maybe (gulp)." But when we visited Stanford and first left the car, I knew something was different. I found myself listening a little more closely and paying more attention to the tour. My parents even said that my body language seemed more relaxed when I was there. When I returned home, I immediately started my research to see if Stanford was indeed a fit.</p>

<p>I had an idea about my major. I have been interested in Earth Sciences since a 9th grade field trip we did to a prototype geothermal power plant. We learned how this power could be tapped for pollution-free production of electricity. I was hooked.</p>

<p>So I investigated the Earth Sciences program at Stanford and found that they nourished that wonder and awe about the earth and its systems. I watched several videos of guest speakers on climate change and renewable energy resources. I dipped into the websites for some of the research centers. I devoured the information about the various departments within the schools.</p>

<p>It all reaffirmed the belief that I may have found my home for the next four years.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Nowhere does it rave about how great Stanford is in general. Nowhere does it talk about prestige. The general tone was: "I felt at home, so I did my research to see if Stanford might POSSIBLY be a fit for ME. And it WAS!"</p>

<p>It was NOT love at first sight... not yet. But there was that air of possibility. Only after I got to know the place did it look like there was a match. Just like with a person: Even if there is chemistry from the beginning, you don't declare everlasting love. How much stronger will it seem if that declaration only comes after you get to know the person in depth?</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

2

<p>Wow, this is just what I was looking for. I found exactly all the flaws of my essays that no one was able to point out. Thank you! :)</p>

3

Thank you for this!! I hate these kinds of essays, and I really appreciate all the wisdom in this post!

4

Great advice!

5

Excellent advice, digmedia. Thank you for posting.

6

@educateddarcy @MidwestDad3 @starrynight20 Thanks for the kind words. I know this type of essay is a b***h to write, and I don’t mean to make it look easy. But students need to step back and make it (IMHO) more casual than formal.

7

The advice is fantastic, but the example essay, with very, very little extra work, could be orders of magnitude better. This paragraph in particular:

If I take out the word Stanford, this still could very easily describe any number of schools. Any one of these sentences could be made so much stronger with a simple example:
What about the ES program’s website made the author feel that the school nourished wonder and awe?
Which guest speakers did they watch?
Which departments? What specifically was this person looking at?
Specific examples will make the essay very powerful.

Also, don’t be afraid to take the road less traveled. In fact, for my grad school, I was told after the fact how impressive my “why us” essay was. The reason? 99% of the people who apply for my department mention one of the handful of super big wigs we have in our department. The guys who are known across the country for their work. The professors you name because you only know a couple of professors at the school. I didn’t write about any of them. I picked the person whose work was most similar to my undergraduate research and I wrote about him and his work with details and specifics. The school was amazed that I knew about him and liked that I wasn’t drawn in only by the biggest names they had to offer.

8

My D16 was just tonight working on her final app, which required a Why? essay. She’s still working on it, but we’ve now discussed how she needs to elaborate on why the school’s experiential learning focus fits her to a T. She’ll get there, but she didn’t know how to approach the prompt at first. Thanks for spreading the word.

9

@Iwannabe_Brown - I totally agree with what you say on this. Here is a real-life example: Applying for a job if much like applying for college. The resume/CV is the filled-in application form; the cover letter is the essay.

I was managing a group doing some artificial intelligence (AI) work at Bell Laboratories and got a resume with a cover letter that talked about a paper our group published at a conference. The applicant had similar interests - that’s how he came to read the paper in the first place - and talked about participating in that research and making contributions to it. Well, of course I was impressed and offered him a job.

The point is, he knew what we were doing and talked about how it FIT his interests.

Same as “Why this school?”

10

How funny- I make that same point over and over again about cover letters.

At some point, most of the entry level resumes look remarkably alike-- kind of like a bunch of high school kids applying for college. What sets them apart is the cover letter/ essay.

I once read a cover letter that raved about where the young teacher had student taught. She LOVED it there. But she was applying to my school, and had nothing to say about us. Pass.

Other letters have raved about our school. Wonderful, we’re glad you think so. But that’s not why you sent me a letter. You want to be considered for a job. Great. Why should we choose YOU?

Yes, you’ve got to do your homework and know what we stand for. But merely telling us that you’ve done the homework doesn’t make you the right candidate for the job. You’ve got to tell us how you’ll fit in, how you’ll be part of all the things we’re good at.

Likewise, if you’re applying to college, rehashing all that’s on their website isn’t going to tell them anything they don’t already know. As digmedia so astutely stated: you’ve got to tie it back to you.

The BEST advice we got on the whole essay thing came from an adcom (from a school my son ISN’T considering-- it’s too large for his taste): You’ve got to give us a reason to say yes.

Every single sentence of any essay you write should give them a reason to say yes to you over someone else with similar credentials.

11

Worst is when they get it wrong, name a prof who doesn’t work there or a program that doesn’t exist. Or go gooey because the college has study abroad.

The problem with the blind love is that it’s empty. Adcoms don’t choose you because you love their college. It’s not so much the desperation as the impression caused by an empty response.

For UG, it’s safe to pick something you’ve learned the college values. That’s the problem, most kids don’t know what that is, “what we stand for.” You don’t have to ‘prove your stuff’ in the Why Us.

12

@digmedia - Just wanted to let you know, that I love this advice. So much so, when I see this question (or some similar version of the question), I just keep sending them back here for the answer!

(Love, the cover letter advice here as well…Need to remember that when my kids start looking for jobs!)

13

Great advice.
However, what do you do when your essay limit is 100 words?
Not enough space for a fully fledged answer.

14

Then pick out the most salient items. One of my kids liked a college with a strong physics program, an opportunity to learn beekeeping, and a great Thai restaurant next to campus. They had a very tight word restriction – she listed those and got in.

15

Wow, thank you. I do like Thai food too :slight_smile:

16

Well, you can only use it if there is a good Thai restaurant nearby. :slight_smile: I think what worked about it was that it was really specific. They want to know that you are interested enough in their school to dig in and find things that speak to you.