The #1 Mistake Seniors Make When Writing College Admissions Essays

Here’s the biggest mistake that seniors make when writing college admissions essays: They write what they think someone wants to hear.

The “someone” they make the mistake of writing for could be an admissions committee member, a parent, a friend, a divinity — anyone who is not the student himself.

This approach is doomed to fail.

That’s because colleges want to see how a student is unique. They want people who will contribute something fresh and original, not just to campus but to life after it. Which college wants to bill itself as “Educating the next generation of cubicle workers”? Which wants to tell a group of 18–22-year olds, “For a dull time, come here”?

Here’s a test you can use to see if your topic is interesting. Call it “the voice test.” Try telling your story to someone else. Do you sound excited when you tell it? Or do you find yourself struggling to manufacture some energy while your listener’s eyelids droop to the floor? If the story isn’t exciting to you, it can’t be exciting to anyone who reads it.

If you are struggling to come up with topics for an admissions essay, try asking yourself these questions.

• What’s an object you have in your room, your desk, your purse, your wallet, etc. that none of your friends have?
• What’s something you’ve done that no-one else you know has done? (Note: winning a contest is a poor choice for answering this one, for obvious reasons.)
• Do you have a habit, belief, or possession that your friends would laugh at?

These questions, and a lot more, will help you write about yourself rather than your self-image.

Worried that your ideas will suddenly become too wild? Consider these essay topics written by students of mine:

• walking down the street and imagining seeing a dancing pink flamingo (admitted to Pomona)
• talking about going to visit a palm reader (admitted to Stanford)
• writing about the personal importance of a dinosaur watch the student received when he was a kid (admitted to Harvard)

Of course these creative essay topics are not solely responsible for getting students into top schools. Each of the students also had an impressive list of extra-curricular activities and solid SAT scores. My point is that these offbeat essay topics did nothing to hurt the student’s chances of admissions. Quite the opposite.

Now having praised idiosyncrasy and risk-taking, I have to add that there are limits. It is possible to range too far into the realm of the bizarre. Your essay should be interesting, not alienating. Finding the line that divides the two can be a challenge; this is another area where a good essay reader can help.

But the college admissions essay topics that students usually want to write are more likely to be conventional than crazy. Just for a moment, try indulging your crazy side — everyone has one — and then check with someone else to see if you really have gone too far.

As Henry David Thoreau says in Walden (a great book to read for inspiration in creative living),

“Say what you have to say, not what you ought. Any truth is better than make-believe.”

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