High school seniors! As you dive into your college applications, I wanted to share with you some pitfalls to avoid before you commit time editing and re-editing your all-important Common App essay. As you’re brainstorming topics and drafting your essay, look out for these red flags:
When your essay becomes more about your grandma than you.
It’s totally okay to write your common app essay about someone who looms large in your life. Perhaps it’s your free-spirited aunt who inspired you to dive into visual arts; perhaps it’s your 3-year-old nephew whose inherent curiosity reflects your academic hunger to study early childhood development. However, you need to remember this: schools are not admitting that person—they’re admitting you! So if you find your essay is 90% about Grandma’s experience in the Cultural Revolution and only 10% about you, revisit how you’re telling your story. It’s your story, not hers; your common app essay should be about you and why you do the things that you do. It should answer the big Why? that explains the rest of your supplements, honors and awards, and activities sections.
I would also add another mini-pitfall related to this one: if you’re part of a historically marginalized community, one pitfall to avoid is writing too generally about the experiences of your community. Your group may have faced injustices big and small, historically and in the present; while that is certainly important and impacts your story and coming-of-age, remember that specificity is key. What makes these Big Issue Topics relevant and important to you? How do your community’s experiences affect you? Beware of generalizations; focus on telling your story.
When your essay starts reading like a resume.
Of course we want to put our best foot forward and present the shiniest parts of ourselves to our admissions officer! However, there is an honors and awards section of the application for a reason. If you’re just using the common app essay space to reiterate your many accomplishments, your admissions officer might as well skip to the next section! Instead of name-dropping exclusive programs that you got into or competitions you won, focus on the big Why. What is behind your go-getter attitude to land competitive STEM internships, for example? Why do you spend all your free time composing on the piano, or graphic designing for small businesses, or playing chess with senior citizens? What inspired that in the first place? These questions will get you thinking about the bigger picture. Your essay will be deeper and more mature than just a list of flexes.
When your essay ends with “And that’s what I learned!”
Those are probably not the exact words you might find yourself using, but I encourage you to be on the lookout for any phrase that summarizes your essay. This is probably drilled into you by the many essays you had to write in high school (the conclusion paragraph restating your central arguments). Beware of that when writing your common app essay. In creative nonfiction, this urge to summarize comes across as redundant and trite; it might almost cheapen the depth of your essay because you’re breaking one of the cardinal rules of good storytelling: show, not tell. Trust your reader to emerge with their own set of takeaways about who you are. If you’re afraid that they’ll miss the main point if you don’t summarize, that’s a pretty good indication that your essay needs more revision: honing in on the central idea, showing, not telling.
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