52 Weeks to College: Week 9 - The Personal Essay

The Personal Essay:  Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

I'm not sure why the personal essay strikes such fear in the hearts and minds of applicants. But it does. And do you know what happens to most people when they are afraid? They stall out. Their minds go blank. They procrastinate. If you recognize yourself in this description, get a grip. Because if you don't, soon it will be the day before the application absolutely positively must be completed....and so you'll crank something out, but it won't be good and it won't do you justice. So let's beat back the fear. If you use these 5 rules for writing the essay, you can draft it this week. I promise. Pinky swear.

Rule #1. Stop wasting time agonizing about the topic of your essay.

YOU are the topic of your essay. Don't worry that YOU aren't sufficiently interesting. News flash - YOU are all you've got to sell. So you'll have to do. And really, most people do have something that can hold a reader's interest for 500 measly words. And, oh, if you're one of those who are trying to figure out what aspect of YOU will appeal to the admissions officer, forget it. There is no universal answer to this question.

Rule #2. Pick a focus for the essay by telling a story.

Not sure what story to tell? Remember the story should be a part of the "meta-story" that your entire application is telling. (See week 4 of the series [1].) Still not sure?

• Pick a story that is a part of the family mythology about "the real you." (You know that story your Mom always tells that makes you vaguely embarrassed but that you can't deny. For my brother, my Mom's favorite story is that he was always a chef with a refined palate -- he insisted on making his own breakfast from the time he was three, but cereal wouldn't do, so he learned to make an omelet even though he had to stand on a chair to reach the stovetop.)
• Pick a story that your best friend says is the best story about you in high school. Since best friends are biased and understand the struggle of college applications, he/she will pick a story that highlights "the best you." (You know, how you cured cancer in your spare time or more likely how you came up with the crazy plan that everyone on the girls' swim team would commit to shave their heads if they had a winning season -- which you knew wouldn't happen because the team had never had a winning season -- but it did and everyone on the swim team had to go to prom in wigs.)
• Pick a story that you hope a first date would know about you. This kind of story usually describes "the cool you." (You know, how you casually let it drop that you got an opportunity to do the zip-line [2] and had to rescue some darling kid who was stuck.)

Rule #3. Write first, edit second. Just sit down and write the story.

Don't worry about punctuation, grammar, and phrasing. Just tell the story in words on paper. That's writing. Once the story is written, then go back and edit it. If you try to write and edit at the same time, you tend to write and then delete and start over. You spend hours and have two sentences. Writing and editing really are different tasks and engage different parts of your brain. You start by writing and then only AFTER you have written it do you edit it. You'll save lots of time this way and end up with a better product. You will.

Rule #4. The difference is in the details.

Stories are interesting in direct proportion to their ability to capture the reader's imagination. Details are fuel for the imagination. If your story is about being an X-Treme Skateboarder, tell me what you wear when you skate, what board you use, and what thoughts go through your head at the beginning of a race/when you crash/when you win.

Rule #5. You aren't done until you've gotten feedback and made revisions.

If the admissions officer is the first person who reads your essay besides you, SHAME ON YOU. Everyone benefits from a critique - how else would you know that you sound arrogant or that your story is confusing in the third paragraph or that you have four typos? Leave yourself enough time to have 3 readers give you feedback and then incorporate that feedback into your revision. For the readers, I suggest parents, siblings, friends, teachers, counselors. By the way, don't let the reader do the rewrite - if you do that you lose YOU. Bad, really bad - remember rule #1.

That's it.  You better have a draft done in a week.  No fooling.  Time's up.

Comments or Questions? 

Frozen in fear?  Writer's block?  Post a comment and let people chime in to help you get unstuck!

Alison Cooper Chisolm [3] writes the series 52 Weeks to College [1]. She has worked in admissions at Southern Methodist University, the University of Chicago, and most recently Dartmouth College. She is a graduate of Yale College and the University of Virginia Law School. As part of the Ivey Consulting team, Alison works with college applicants and their families as they navigate the college admissions process. Read more about Alison here [3].