You’ve worked hard for your grades, carefully curated your extracurriculars, studied hard for your standardized tests, and now it’s time for the final Boss: the Common App essay. While the personal statement can loom large for college applicants, it’s important to recognize that it is not an obstacle, but rather an opportunity that can be reflective for the self, illuminative to admissions officers, and even fun.
In order to deepen your Common App essay, ask yourself the following questions:
1. What don’t they already know about me?
Any individual college application profile holds so, so much information. Admissions officers use each of these pieces to try to get a sense of who you are, and the person you might be on their school’s campus if admitted. In a lot of ways, your application profile is simply a report of factual information – your grades, the extracurriculars you’re involved in, the scores you earned on standardized tests. There are three opportunities to provide qualitative information to schools, to add texture and color to the portrait your application profile paints for admissions – recommendations, the Common App essay, and the sought after interview. The Common App essay is the primary and most direct way that you, the applicant, can tell admissions officers something that might not already be reflected in your profile. Take full advantage of that opportunity! Add some color.
2. What story is essential to them understanding me?
As mentioned above, because of the largely quantitative nature of the assessments that make up the bulk of one’s application profile, there is a lot that can be shared about a person that falls outside of the existing channels. It can feel daunting to try to include everything that makes up your personhood into one passage of 650 words or less. And you know what - you shouldn’t try! There’s simply not enough space. An alternative to trying to tell admissions officers everything is to think about telling them something essential. Something that you feel is crucial to understanding you as a student, a community member, a person. Something that, once shared, gives them the ability to imagine you beyond the 650 words you’ve written.
3. What is a story about me that’s fun to tell?
Now, when I say fun, I don’t necessarily mean the kind of fun one has at an amusement park (although that’s entirely possible). Some Common App essays – ones about how a lifelong love of musical theatre made you comfortable being weird, or how Saturday mornings spent tagging along in your father’s 18-wheeler opened your eyes to a very different world than most other Saturday morning activities – are simply fun to read and to write.
But not all Common App essays are so bright or so rollicking. Some are vulnerable, and emotional, and poignant, and in those cases, what this question is truly asking is this: what is a story that, once you get going, you can’t help but want to tell well? What’s the story that you can’t help but pour onto the page? The story that comes into being easily and without force? The story that, once told, you can’t help but sigh with relief and satisfaction? That’s your story.
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