I’m considering including footnotes (a la David Foster Wallace) to make my essay more understandable and add some style. How do you guys think admissions officers will take the mimicry of style? I’m hesitant because I get that it could be perceived as gimmicky, and I’m not sure if the creativeness it presents trumps that.
My general advice:
Google “Hacking the College Essay 2017” and read it.
Write the Essay No One Else Could Write
“It boils down to this: the essay that gets you in is the essay that no other applicant could write.
Is this a trick? The rest of this guide gives you the best strategies to accomplish this single
most important thing: write the essay no one else could write.
If someone reading your essay gets the feeling some other applicant could have written it,
then you’re in trouble.
Why is this so important? Because most essays sound like they could have been written by
anyone. Remember that most essays fail to do what they should: replace numbers (SAT/GPA) with the real you.
Put yourself in the shoes of an admissions officer. She’s got limited time and a stack of
applications. Each application is mostly numbers and other stuff that looks the same. Then she picks
up your essay. Sixty seconds later, what is her impression of you? Will she know something specifically
about you? Or will you still be indistinguishable from the hundreds of other applicants she has been
reading about?”
@bopper said it more eloquently that I would have. I was going to say that it’s a terrible idea, and that “interpreting” some one else’s style would not be viewed as being “creative.” Oh, I guess I said it anyway.