Parents: The College Essay Is More Important Than You Think

I want to talk about something that almost every family I work with underestimates, at least at first. The college essay.

And I get it. By the time students sit down to write, they've survived junior year - getting as high of a GPA as possible, retaking standardized tests, compiling their activity list, and possibly asking teachers for recommendations. The essay can feel like another item on a very long checklist. One more box to tick before they can hit submit.

But here's what I need you to hear: the essay is not a box. It's the most human part of the entire application and sometimes it’s the part that matters most.

Let me explain what I mean.

When an admissions committee looks at a student's application, most of what they see is flat. A GPA is a number. A test score is a number. Even the activity list, as detailed as it can be, is still just a list. The essay is the first time your student gets to become three-dimensional. It's the first time the admissions committee gets to hear their voice, understand how they think, and get a real sense of who they are as a person.

And that matters enormously. Colleges are not just building a class of high achievers. They're building a community. They want to know: who is this kid? What makes them curious? How do they see the world? What do they care about?

The essay answers those questions in a way that nothing else in the application can.

Now here's where families often go wrong and I say this with compassion, because it's an easy trap to fall into.

They think the essay needs to tell an impressive story. They think their student needs to have climbed a mountain, started a nonprofit, or overcome some extraordinary hardship to have something worth writing about. And so they push their student toward topics that sound good on paper. Topics that feel college-worthy. Topics that, honestly, don't sound anything like their student at all.

And admissions officers notice. They read thousands of essays. They can spot a "performance" from a mile away.

What they're actually looking for is authenticity. Not a polished, curated, strategically-positioned version of a student. The actual student.

Here's how I think about it: the essay is not there to impress the admissions committee. It's there to help them understand your student.

That's it. That's the whole job.

So the question students should be asking isn't "what topic will make me look best?" It's "what would help someone who has never met me actually understand who I am?"

That's a completely different question. And it leads to completely different essays.

It also means that the essay doesn't need perfect grammar. It doesn't need formal language. It doesn't need to follow a specific structure or hit a specific word count. It needs to sound like your student. Their voice. Their words. Their perspective.

When I read a student's essay and it sounds like a polished press release, that's not a win. When I read it and I feel like I'm sitting across from that kid in a conversation — that's exactly right.

One more thing I want to address, because I know what this time of year looks like for a lot of families.

Junior year just ended, or is almost over. Students are exhausted. Parents are trying to figure out what the summer should look like in terms of college prep. And essays are often sitting somewhere in the "we'll get to it" pile.

I'm here to tell you: summer is the ideal time to start. Not because there's a deadline looming. There isn't, at least not yet. But because good essays take time. Not time to write, necessarily but time to think. Time to reflect. Time to sit with an idea, step away from it, come back to it, and let it actually develop into something that sounds like the student and not like a first draft written at midnight before a deadline.

The students who start their essays in the summer are not ahead of schedule in a stressful way. They're just giving themselves the one thing you can't manufacture later: space.

So if you're a parent of a rising senior listening to this right now, here's what I want you to take away:

The essay is not the last thing. It might be the most important thing. And the best gift you can give your student right now is the time and the structure to approach it thoughtfully — not frantically.

If you want help giving your student that structure, I'm running a College Essay Kickstart Workshop this summer — two sessions, June 10th and June 30th. In two hours, students will walk away knowing exactly what they want to write about and how to approach it. Details are coming soon.

But even if that's not for you, I hope this post shifts the way you're thinking about the essay heading into the summer. It's worth taking seriously and it's worth starting sooner than you think.