4 College Essay Myths That Are Hurting Your Student

Every year, families come into the college essay process carrying a set of assumptions about what a good essay looks like. Some of those assumptions come from well-meaning teachers. Some come from older siblings or friends who went through the process years ago. Some come from the internet, which has no shortage of confident but contradictory advice.

And a surprising number of them are wrong. Fundamentally wrong in ways that lead students to write essays that work against them rather than for them.

Here are the five I see most often and what to believe instead.

Myth 1: The essay needs to be grammatically perfect.

Many students who have spent years being evaluated on writing mechanics. They've been trained to believe that good writing means correct writing, that the quality of an essay is directly tied to its grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure.

Admissions officers are not reading for grammar, they are reading to get to know the student. And sometimes the most authentic, most memorable version of a student's voice includes a sentence fragment, a conversational aside, or rhythm that would make an English teacher wince.

The essay doesn’t need to be formally correct, it simply needs to sound like the student who wrote it. 

Myth 2: The essay should sound like creative writing.

Related to the grammar myth is the idea that a college essay should be beautifully written in the literary sense. But the best college essays don’t read like creative writing. They read like a conversation.

Think about the most compelling person you have ever sat across from at a dinner table. They didn’t speak in perfectly constructed paragraphs. They told you something real, in their own words, in a way that made you feel like you were getting to know them.

That is what the college essay should feel like. Not a performance of intelligence or literary ability but a genuine exchange between the student and the person reading their application.

Myth 3: The English class essay is a good starting point.

Many students arrive at the college essay process with something already written. They worked on a personal essay in English class. It’s polished and well-structured and covers a meaningful topic. But in most cases, it’s not the right essay for a college application.

English class essays are trained to be formal, academic, and structurally sound. Those are genuinely good qualities for English class. But the college essay asks for the student's voice, their perspective, the way they think and talk and process the world. It's fine to come to the process with the English class essay as a reference point. But more often than not, a fresh brainstorming session leads somewhere more true.

Myth 4: More eyes on the essay means a better essay.

Parents want the essay to be as strong as possible, so they share it with everyone who might have useful feedback: a teacher, a tutor, a family friend who works in education, an older sibling who got into a good school. Each person reads it and offers their thoughts. Some rewrite sentences. Some suggest structural changes. Some push for a different angle entirely. By the time that feedback has been incorporated, the essay is technically stronger but it sounds nothing like the student who wrote it.

Here is what I always come back to: the college essay is the only part of the application your student controls completely. It’s the one place where the student gets to decide, right now, exactly what they want to say and how they want to say it.

One round of expert feedback focused on helping the student say what they mean more clearly in their own voice is appropriate and valuable. After that, the essay belongs to the student. 

What to do instead.

The through line across all these myths is the same: the college essay is not a performance or an academic exercise. It is a conversation between the student and the admissions committee in the student's own voice about something that is genuinely, specifically, authentically theirs. That conversation is worth starting now, while there is still time to let it develop into something the student is truly proud of.

The College Essay Kickstart Workshop is running June 10th and June 30th, 4 to 6 PM. $109 per student. Limited availability. Reserve your spot today.