When I’m working with applicants on an admissions essay, I like to borrow a technique from John McPhee, one of the country’s most decorated and delightful writers of nonfiction. He describes this technique in a book called Draft No. 4.
By the time McPhee reached the fourth draft of one of his New Yorker articles, or one of the books that won him a Pulitzer Prize, he’d go looking for any words or phrases that didn’t seem as specific as they could be, and he’d put a little box around it with his pencil. He would go back and replace the contents of every box with something that more clearly communicated the essence of his subject.
When I’m working with applicants on their essays, there are almost always words and phrases that could be working harder for them. These are words and phrases that might sound polished and professional, but they don’t get us as close to you, the applicant, as they could.
Here are two common types of these missed opportunities:
Feelings
Too often, when reading an admissions essay, I see that the applicant has omitted the details that will help someone understand the scope of their experience or achievement. Instead, they’re describing a feeling. For example, if I say…
“I’m passionate about teaching, and I discovered this while working at as a tutor during my MFA program”
…you might understand that I feel strongly about this experience, but you have no way to understand what I was actually doing. “Passionate” gets a box around it. While we’re at it, so does “working as a tutor.” Both of these things are hard to picture.
Let’s change both of those:
“I learned that my preferred mode of teaching is tutoring students one-on-one, and I discovered this while working with fifteen students each week in the University of Montana’s Writing Center.”
Suddenly, a reader who may never meet you understands what you were doing. This makes it easier for them to picture how you might contribute to the school or program you’re hoping to join.
Impact
Describing impact is also a frequent challenge for applicants, whether that’s the impact of an experience on them or the impact of their work on others. Consider the following:
“Working with students through a writing-focused summer program was one of the most meaningful experiences of my life.”
This lets us know that the writer feels intensely about this experience, but what was the impact of their work? We can’t tell. We’d put a box around meaningful, and come back to do some rephrasing.
Try this, instead:
“I worked with a cohort of twenty high school students each summer as they developed their college application materials. Each of those students was the first in their families to apply to college, and they now attend schools including Rice, Middlebury and Yale.”
We don’t need to hear that this experience was meaningful; we can see the impact.
Whether you’re writing for the New Yorker or working on an applications essay, remember: each word and phrase should illuminate your experience in ways that someone who may never meet you will understand. Put a box around any that don’t, and tinker with them until they do.
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