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How to structure the common app essay
In last week’s newsletter, we discussed the #1 thing people miss in their essays. Spoiler alert: students tend to write about what happened to them, not how they are different (better!) after the event. This is true of many college essays, but particularly so for personal essays.
In this newsletter, we’ll stick with personal essays, but take a more pragmatic approach: how to get the thing written, written well, and written fast.
In this newsletter:
Students should choose the prompt that lets them show they’ll succeed in college
Avoiding the 4 most common personal essay mistakes
The power of outlines to save time and improve essays
3 points on Writing style: Admissions officers love nothing more than clear, straightforward writing
Students should choose the prompt that lets them show they’ll succeed in college
Strong essays can 10x a student’s chances of getting into selective colleges. Strong essays prove the student’s potential for college success by discussing experiences that exemplify one or more of the 5 Traits.
(If you follow us at all, you’ve heard all of that before — but you’re not surprised that we led with it again. It’s central to everything else we’ll discuss.)
Once you understand how critical it is that students showcase their positive traits, our counterintuitive advice for picking a prompt will make more sense: students should first, decide what they want to say; then, choose the prompt that lets them say it.
In other words, encourage students to brainstorm their own high school experiences first, and to choose the most compelling of those to discuss — those that showcase one or more of the 5 Traits. Only after that work is done should students spend any time deciding on their prompt.
(That being said, we believe some of the Common App prompts are better than others. See our guidance here.)
Avoiding the 3 most common personal essay mistakes
These are the most common mistakes we’ve noticed in our time reviewing tens of thousands of student essays. Let us know if you agree or if you have others that seem to come up regularly in your experience reviewing admission essays.
[1] Covering too much:
650 words is too short to tell a life story, but many students make the attempt. They struggle when they talk about interesting things that don’t relate to the 5 traits, particularly their family history or their upbringing.
[2] Too much drama:
Students often feel pressure to write about dramatic, unusual, or even traumatic moments, such as death, depression, breakups, and bullying. The problem here is that the reader is often left thinking “How is this relevant to being successful?”
Avoid this mistake by ensuring that students only write about drama if they can show that they became a better person after it — that they have since taken action on what they learned from the experience, as we discussed last week. (Ex: they mastered anxiety, which enabled them to star in the school play.)
[3] The love of [sports/music/theater] trap:
Students often focus their essays on a particular passion. The problem is that passion alone doesn’t prove much about potential for success.
The fix here is to discuss passion as a way of illuminating one of the 5 Traits. For example, a love of music can showcase Drive — how the student practices for hours every day; how they learned an instrument on their own; or how they wrote or recorded their own music.
[4] Writing a resume:
Students should resist the urge to pack in every one of their impressive accomplishments. It’s not just that these are best suited to the common app activities list. It’s also that listing accomplishments can obscure how the student exemplifies one or more of the 5 traits.
For example, if a student won a debate award, talking about the award alone makes them come off as a natural. Which is actually a bad thing — they may start to think that this student will struggle as they enter college and the real world, having been used to things coming easily. If the student instead talks about the hard work that helped them earn the reward — that is, their Drive — the officer will see a gritty and determined person who persevered to win an award, and will keep doing so in college.
The power of outlines to save time and improve essays
Using an outline saves students at least one draft and leads to more compelling essays. In our experience, students using outlines typically need just two drafts, versus three or four for those who don't.
For the Common App personal statement, two basic structures work well:
The Journey — for essays that show a clear progression of personal growth (ie: There was a Before You, now there's an After You). As we discussed last week, the most important part of this essay is what the student went on to do AFTER the experience of growth. Which actions did they take that prove they’re a changed person?
The Theme — for essays that show either how the student developed (a) one important trait over distinct experiences or (b) one meaningful passion over time. In this case, the aim is to describe a number of distinct experiences over which they developed or showcased a trait or passion.
Prompt has detailed outlines that students can access if they signup for a free account. You can learn more about this resource and others at our guidance counselor page.
3 points on Writing style: Admissions officers love nothing more than clear, straightforward writing
As we’ve said, admissions officers take notes on what students write about — they don’t grade their writing style.
Beautiful metaphors, clever analogies, and the rest of the literary arsenal tend to get students in trouble. They distract from clearly illustrating the experiences that prove they’ll be successful.
In terms of style, students should think about:
Clarity — the reader gets what they’re trying to say.
Flow — the reader gets where the essay is heading from the start; the ending feels natural.
Engaging style — the reader wants to keep reading because the text is easy to follow thought-by-thought, the sentence structures vary, vocabulary is simple and effective, useful anecdotes illustrate the points, and there are no jarring grammatical errors.
How to help your students write a great personal statement
Prompt’s Essay Planning Tools help students identify what to write about and how to write about it. The tools are available for free for every student either by requesting a Prompt college application essay resource page for your school (click here to request a page) or through our integration with MaiaLearning.
Click here for a 12-minute video overview of Prompt’s Essay Planning tools.
In our next issue, how to write the Why Us essay.
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