How to Write a Great College Essay
The essay is one of the most dreaded portions of the college process. It requires a huge amount of time and effort, and can really influence where you get in. You can’t turn yourself into an amazing writer in a few months, so you should accept that your essay won’t be perfect. College admissions counselors aren’t looking for a perfect essay, they want writing that reveals more about you.
The common application essay is the most important essay, and the essay that you’ll send to the most schools, so I’ll focus on that. While there are a few prompts you can choose from, you can basically write about whatever you want.
What to write about
I would press for writing about something that you care about, and something that sets you apart from other candidates. You shouldn’t try to make yourself seem like the smartest, most empathetic or nicest applicant. Your goal for an essay should be to make sure that the admissions officers who read your essay remember it in a positive light. Your essay should, obviously, be as well written as possible, but also be about a pretty unusual topic.
A friend of mine wrote how he loves thinking and philosophizing while on the toilet, and what this reveals about him. Another friend of mine wrote about his favorite places in New York and why he cared about them. These were both well-written essays that revealed unique traits about the writers. That is exactly what college essays are supposed to accomplish.
If you need help, try the College Admissions Essays for Dummies. While I think this is less useful than many other books on the college process, it provides a lot of good prompts to help you think of potential essay topics. There are some free resources to help you brainstorm ideas. Like most things the College Board does, their advice on essays isn’t groundbreaking, but it might be helpful if you’re having trouble. Parke Muth, a dean in the admissions office at UVA has a good guide to writing college essays that helps you avoid common mistakes.
What not to write about
I would strongly recommend against writing about some community service you’ve done and how it’s affected you. Unless you have a phenomenal essay that goes way beyond how community service made you realize how fortunate you are, your essay will sound like hundreds of others that are written about the same topic.
What I wrote
I wrote about how reactions to my red hair in different countries that I traveled to shaped my perspective of myself. I’ll be honest; this isn’t a perfect essay. It’s kind of corny and I’m sure it could’ve been better written. However, it’s about a pretty unique topic and hence, it’s likely to stand out in the minds of admissions officers. I’d be willing to bet that very few admissions officers read more than one or two essays about having red hair this year. Here’s what I wrote:
I have red hair. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been referred to as redhead, ginger, “Carrot Top,” and “Ronald McDonald.” The name of just about any celebrity with red hair seemed to be an acceptable label for me. The source of my hair color remains a mystery; my mother was born in Cuba and my father in Texas, and neither have red hair. In elementary school the parents of my friends always referred to me as “that nice redhead boy.” No matter what I accomplished, I was still identified by the color and texture of my hair. As my hair grew longer and curlier, it reached the length where people found it appropriate to refer to it as a “jewfro.” When I first went to sleep away camp, my counselor—and soon after my whole cabin—referred to me as “brillo.” I was befuddled by the name until a friend explained to me that “brillo” was short for “brillo pad,” which was a coarse, wiry sponge—usually, unsurprisingly, a reddish brown color—used to scrape pots and pans. There seemed to be no avoiding my constant identification with my hair. This brought me a perpetual sense of insecurity. I feared that I always stuck out like a sore thumb.
This insecurity existed throughout my youth, and the encounters that perpetuated it occurred all over the world. My mother works for a web site dedicated to family travel, so we vacationed often and I had the opportunity to meet people of various cultures. Whether we were in Japan, Morocco, France, or Thailand, the one thing that most people we met had in common was the desire to comment on my hair. Some referred to it as strange and red, others described it as large and bright. It didn’t matter to whom we were talking or what language they spoke, fascination with my hair seemed to be transcend cultural or lingual barriers. In the summer of 2005, I visited my cousins in Istanbul. Towards the end of our trip we took a cruise around the city. Our boat had just passed the Topkapi Palace when one of the young men on the crew of the boat came up to me and pointed at my head and said “Napoleon Dynamite.” I was baffled for a second before realizing that he was referring to the recent film that chronicled the adventures of a quirky, nerdy redhead in a small Idaho town. Napoleon and I both have red hair, but aside from that, we have few things in common. While Napoleon lived in a small town, I live in a large city, and while Napoleon enjoyed drawing supernatural animals, my artistic talents are quite limited. My whole family laughed while I tried to laugh along and hide my embarrassment at the same time. I realized that I could travel halfway around the world, and yet the insecurity that my hair brought me would follow me every step of the way.
The moment that changed my perspective came towards the end of my sophomore year of high school. I was at my grandparents’ house when my grandfather screamed for me to come into the TV room. There was a news report on about redheads, and apparently my “species” was going to go extinct within the next century. Using statistical projections some scientists had estimated that the birth rate of redheads was declining, and that virtually no redheads would be born by 2100. Aside from my uncle making bad jokes about selling me to a research lab so they could do tests on me, the report changed my view. Every time I saw a young redhead child I would always think about the years of annoyance that child would have to endure. The report made me realize that there would be a time when there would be no more redheads. I had slowly been growing more accepting of my hair. I found redhead jokes slightly less annoying, and was even able to laugh at them once in a while. However, the news report really woke me up. I began to embrace my red hair. It became clear to me that we should all be proud of who are we are, even of our sometimes embarrassing aspects. I realized that even if people annoyed me about my hair sometimes, it is part of who I was and am, I shouldn’t be embarrassed by it, and I can’t change it. Well, that may not be true. I could’ve dyed my hair. But looking back, I’m glad I didn’t.
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