The #1 College Essay Mistake (And How to Fix It)
Here's the full corrected version:
Day 8 — The College Essay Mistake Almost Everyone Makes
By day, I work in education. More specifically, I went from teaching high school English, to becoming a college counselor, to now being administrator of a college access program. Over the years, I have taken my own understanding, perspective, and training in writing to help students prepare their college admissions and supplemental essays. But what if I told you that the information on TikTok, Instagram, and maybe even from your parents might not be what admissions officers across the nation are looking for?
Over the past couple of years, I have seen a shift in what an English teacher might call narrative writing. People say that narrative writing is the easiest type of writing. I actually beg to differ. When you're writing a college admissions essay, there are a lot of things at play. The first is that you're trying to show why you are a fit in less than 500 words. The second is that you might not know who is on the other side of your application. Thirdly, talking about yourself is one of the hardest things to do, because it requires a lot of self reflection. You might see questions like, what is your favorite book and why. But the goal isn't to just talk about your favorite book. The goal of that question is to honestly connect the dots between who you are, what you've experienced, and why this institution or program should select you to represent them. Now, there are plenty of other questions out there. I suggest that students look up previous years of Common App questions to help guide their writing. No matter the question, the biggest thing is that you need to connect the dots between who you are, where you've been, and why you are a fit. On top of that, you have to make it so that anybody reading your essay will see just how unique you are, and how your talents, gifts, and dreams will make their community a lot more diverse, adding to a legacy of changemakers, founders, and historical figures.
So I'm just going to say the thing: if you don't brainstorm and write the first draft of your college essay yourself, we would all be able to tell. I am seeing an influx of students just throwing certain questions into AI models to write the essay for them. Do you know that admissions officers across the nation are using detection tools to ensure that you wrote it? If you need help with an outline, or if you want to save your time researching, I find that AI can be helpful. But, and I do mean but, you must be an ethical steward of AI in order to achieve your dreams and goals. So don't use your AI model to write the essay for you. What if you have an interview and somebody asks you about your essay? You wouldn't know what to say, because you technically didn't write it. The AI model did, and everybody has a unique voice that can be picked up off of your application.
So, the biggest mistake that I see is that students fail to connect who they are to where they've been, while balancing where they want to go and why. It doesn't matter what level of schooling. A personal statement, or intent essay, is supposed to be vastly different among humans. As someone who has achieved high levels of higher education, my personal statement has always fluctuated to articulate not only my foundation, but my experiences. And while different essays have illuminated different parts of my own journey, one thing has remained constant: my why.
For me, my why, no matter the industry or situation, has always been to lift as I climb, and bring equity, resources, opportunities, and cross collaboration to anything that I do. Whether I'm managing multimillion dollar budgets, putting on significantly unique programs, or helping build a strategy for a budding project, I make sure that I always remember my reason for doing what I do, and gaining the skills to make me more specialized in what I do.
