Crafting a Compelling College Admissions Essay

  Recently, the dean of admissions at a top-ranked university held a conference call for alumni volunteers who conduct application interviews. He told the call participants that, after accounting for grades–the most important factor when considering an applicant’s viability for admission—the second most important aspect of a candidate's application is what the student says about themselves in the personal statement.

   Not standardized test scores.

   Not extracurricular or in-school activities.

   But the applicant’s own words.
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   Now is the start of the college application season for the high school Class of 2025. And the focus of this month’s blogpost is the college admissions essay, also known as the personal statement. In this post, I will discuss what makes college admissions essays a compelling read, and why I still do not believe that AI is yet the way to go in helping students craft their personal statements.
 
   Why Compelling
 
   compel - transitive verb
   com·pel (kəm-ˈpel): to drive or urge forcefully or irresistibly
 
   The college application personal statement is a uniquely American phenomenon. In other countries–such as Germany or the UK–some institutions may require a personal statement be submitted with an application, but the focus of those essays is mostly on what a student intends to study at the university and why they feel qualified to do so. It may be an interesting intellectual and historical exercise to understand why the requirements to enter American institutions of higher learning evolved as they did (that’s a blogpost for another day), but for now, rising seniors all across the country are starting to think about what they are going to say in their college application essays that will help them stand out in a field of possibly tens of thousands of applicants.

   Students applying to college–particularly those applying to selective institutions–are concerning themselves with the seven prompts on the Common Application (more commonly known as the Common App). These prompts change every few years or so, but the rules are pretty straightforward: students using the Common App portal to apply to multiple colleges may answer one of seven essay prompts with a maximum limit of 650 words. Applicants must figure out how to answer one of the seven prompts in a way that best reflects who they are as candidates. Applicants should also understand that the response to these prompts must accomplish a very specific job. College application essays must compel another human being (or a group of human beings) to act favorably on behalf of the applicant, particularly when an applicant cannot advocate on their own behalf in-person.

   Let me restate this another way to drive home the point.

  The Common App personal statement should be seen as a stand-in for a student when that student is not able to present themselves to an admissions committee in-person, and convince them as to why they should be admitted. The Common App personal statement is, in part, a piece of persuasive writing. I believe it must be understood as such, and carefully crafted with this understanding.

   It has been said that while people may not remember what you say to them, they will always remember how you make them feel. I ask my clients to keep this in mind when drafting their personal statements: how will admissions officers feel about you once they have completed reading your essay, your supplemental responses, your application overall? The title of this blogpost is very intentional; a top-level goal of writing a college application essay, among other things, should also be to intentionally craft a compelling read. In addition to being a piece of persuasive writing, crafting college application essays is also an exercise in storytelling.

   Stories move us, stories inspire us. Stories have the power to compel us into action. So, when thinking about crafting the Common App Personal Statement in this way; it becomes not only an exercise in essay writing, but in creating compelling storycraft.
 
   Tell a Great Story
 
   One of the first things I do when helping my clients craft their Common App personal statements is helping them understand what constitutes a great story. I also help them understand who exactly the audience is for their essays: members of the admissions committees of the schools on their application list. This is a very important distinction to make because oftentimes, students seek their parents’ approval of their essays when writing them, even if it is in their mind’s eye. That makes emotional sense, as parents are often the most powerful and influential relationship in a teen’s life.

   But…

  Parents are NOT experts in adjudicating college applications. So, while a parent may think an admissions essay is not up to snuff or does not reflect their child in the best light, it might be a vein of gold for an admissions reader. Parents and admissions officers often read application essays through very different lenses, lenses that are often incompatible.

  Also, understanding who members of a college admissions committee are is NOT about telling them in the personal statement what you think they want to hear. Instead, it is about constructing a compelling story to make them feel what you want them to feel. And what you want them to feel is positive about you as an applicant to their college or university. So in that respect, writing a personal statement is just as much of an emotional enterprise as it is an intellectual one.

  Great stories are memorable because they take readers on emotional journeys. They also serve as mnemonic devices that stay with us long after the story ends. Think about the last great book you read or the last great movie you’ve seen. You can recall them easily because you remember the emotional journey of the story and how it made you feel. I encourage my clients to use the same framework to think about and, eventually, write their application essays. Not only should the essays highlight aspects of self not overly abundant in other parts of the application, but they should be crafted in such a way that you are telling the admissions readers a great story about yourself.

​   Also, by our very natures, humans are story-making machines; we make up stories all the time to help us understand the world, ourselves, and others. Stories provide us with an accessibility to each other that other forms of writing simply do not. I encourage my clients to use this information to their advantage. I help them to remember that it is another human being that will be reading their essays, not some faceless, formless machine. I remind them that really well-written stories–great stories–are not only memorable, but have the power to connect us across time and space, and emotionally move us in a particular direction.
 
   Get to Know Yourself
 
   “I don’t know what to write about.”
 
  This is the most common concern students have when they begin writing their application essay. Not many applicants have had the opportunity to learn how to properly construct a personal narrative, hence why they are so perplexed when asked to do so in order to gain admission to college. Unfortunately, most high school curriculums do not offer a course in learning how to write personal narratives, nor is learning how to do so well often a section of a course curriculum. Not even AP English Language and Composition hosts a unit on crafting personal narratives. It’s a bit of a disconnect, really, that learning how to write a personal narrative is a required part of the college application process in the United States, but rarely is it taught as an essential part of a high school’s curriculum. No wonder even the brightest students are challenged when it comes to figuring out what they want to write about.

  The operative word in the phrase “Common App Personal Statement” is “personal”. The most compelling application essays I have ever read are deeply, deeply personal. Those essays go beyond simply sharing an aspect of one’s self that an admissions committee will not learn about an applicant from a transcript or list of extracurricular activities; those essays allow readers to get a glimpse into the author’s soul. I would argue that if a student truly wants their application to stand out among a crowded field of applicants, then their college application essays must be written from a soul level. And it is for this reason I encourage my clients to use the college application process as a way to begin knowing themselves.

   From an admissions officer’s perspective, it is okay if an applicant is not completely sure what they wish to study in college; that is to be expected. But what is unexpected is the high level of self-awareness that some students exhibit through their college applications. The applicants that leverage the application process as a means of getting to know themselves are the one who submit the most compelling reads. I recommend that students think very deeply about what they wish to share with an admissions committee, and how they wish to express it.

  This is another reason I recommend that parents DO NOT read the application essays of their children. As I stated above, parents are the most influential relationships in a student’s life, and the college application process is a place where that influence may be more harmful to the process than helpful. In addition to parents not possessing the expertise and skill set of an admissions officer to understand what comprises a compelling college admissions essay, it is also very possible that students have life experiences they desperately want or need to share with an admissions committee that they are not yet ready to share with their parents.

  The college application process, particularly the crafting of the college application personal statement, is part of a student’s emergence into adulthood. At its core, college applicants are young people who are making an effort to start their adulthood in a place where they believe they will find communities that are aligned with their core values. Their applications should reflect that, admissions committee members need to know that, and parents might not yet be ready to know that.

  Why Not AI

  It is because of the deeply personal nature of successful and compelling college application essays that I believe AI technology is not yet sufficiently equipped to help students draft them. Since most students have had little to no exposure on how to write a compelling personal narrative, I assume most students will struggle with exactly what are the proper prompts they should put into a tool like ChatGPT or Google Gemini in order to produce an edit-worthy first draft of an admissions essay. Also, with the exception of the 7th prompt, all students using the Common App portal will choose to respond to one of the same six prompts; I am not exactly clear if AI technology is advanced enough to provide an infinite number of compelling and unique responses to the same set of questions. And lastly (and maybe the most important point), AI cannot replicate writing that comes from an honest and truthful emotional–human–place; it cannot create a narrative from a soul level.

  Forbes Magazine published an article on getting ChatGPT to write two college application essays in a matter of minutes. I have included an excerpt from one of those essays below:
 
  "In my sophomore year, I suffered a major setback when I broke my shoulder in a swimming accident. Despite this injury, I was determined to return to the pool and continue competing. After months of grueling physical therapy and hard work, I was finally able to return to the water. I was not as fast as I used to be, but I was still a valuable member of the team and I continued to improve throughout the season."
 
  Compare this to an excerpt of an essay written by a human:
 
  "Drowning in a coat to protect me from the January chill, I let the mic echo my words about the power of youth voice and emphasized the necessity of discourse. My eyes reflexively searched the audience, landing on my friends, grasping onto banners declaring, 'RESIST.' Yet, the gutting hypocrisy of my words overtook me. Even amid a like-minded crowd, I felt alone without my parents' support. And it hurt to be alone."
 
  The excerpts from both essays describe a pivotal moment in the lives of both students. I would argue that the excerpt from the Forbes article achieves the objective of describing the comeback from a major life setback, but it does not take us through the emotional journey of what was going with the internal life of the “author” while he/she/they were going through the process of recuperating from the injury.

  In the excerpt written by the human, we get a LOT of information in approximately the same number of words. We get a sense of time and place (time = winter, place = youth rally). We also get a sense of who the speaker is (one of the designated speakers at the rally) and what is important to them (youth empowerment). We also get a sense of the speaker’s emotional journey (the parents are not at the rally/do not support the participation in the rally…and it hurts) as well as the speaker’s soul level conflict (feeling like a hypocrite during the rally).
 
  Which comes across as the more compelling read?
 
  Summary
 
  There is an art to crafting a compelling college admissions essay. It is a unique piece of writing that most students will never have to do again in their adult lives. And yet it is a piece of writing that may very well be an important factor in determining one’s life trajectory. So, it is important to not take the endeavor lightly and get it right.

  For students reading this blogpost, start working on your Common App personal statement NOW. Ivy Edge clients who were accepted to some of the most prestigious and selective colleges in the country spend an average of four months working on their personal statements; it is never too soon to start. And for parents reading this blogpost, I highly recommend it is worth the investment to enlist the help of a professional to assist your student with this process. As I mentioned above, as well meaning as parents are when wanting to help your child craft a strong and compelling essay, the nature of a parent-child relationship may unintentionally be a hindering factor in helping a student produce the best essay possible.

  Good luck to the members of the Class of 2025 who are starting to work on their personal statements. Just remember to dig deep, share your truth, and tell the admissions committee an amazing and compelling story as to why you belong at their university.
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  Happy crafting!