Using Quotes and Profanity

College Essays
1

No, that title isn’t clickbait. I understand both are controversial.

My Common App essay details my obsession with gardening and plants. To begin, I included a quote by Demetri Martin:

“I bought a cactus. A week later it died. And I got depressed, because I thought, ‘D-a-m-n. I am less nurturing than a desert.’”

I’m pretty comfortable with the profanity after some threads I’ve read, as d*mn doesn’t seem to be especially inflammatory, but I just want to be sure. Is that ok?

In addition, I’ve searched for opinions on beginning an essay with quotes, but they only warn against cliche quotes (such as “All’s well that ends well.”) Is my quote ok, or is beginning with a quote generally frowned upon on the Common App essay?

My final concern is voice. My essay is fairly casual, but not to the point of slang. I refer to the reader as “you” and use sarcasm. Is this going too far?

Edit: Is it frowned upon to not reach the maximum word count? I’m at 528/625.

2

I think the answer to all your questions-- except possibly the last one-- is “It depends.”

Write the essay, and see how it all works. I don’t think the particular quote you used, with the particular choice of profanity, is necessarily a dealbreaker.

But here’s my feeling on the word count: They give you a 650 word window to “sell” your application to the college. This is your single opportunity to become more than a bunch of statistics-- to give them a reason to say yes to your application.

Are you sure you’ve done it as completely as possible in only 528 words?

3

Thanks for the input! I had the essay already written but I feel pretty good about it. I just didn’t know if anything I listed was an immediate “no”. Thanks again :slight_smile: