The Problem With Writing the Essay You Think Colleges Want

Why Trying to Sound Impressive Ruins College Essays

There is a version of the college essay that sounds exactly like what families think a college essay should sound like, one that is well-structured, with sophisticated vocabulary. The topic is long the lines of a leadership experience, an academic passion, a challenge overcome with grace. Its exactly what a parent might imagine an admissions officer is looking for.

And it is, almost without exception, completely forgettable.

I'm not trying to be harsh. But I have read thousands of essays on both sides of this process, and the pattern is consistent: essays that try hardest are the ones that land flattest. And the essays that seem, on the surface, like they might not be impressive enough are often the ones that stick.

What admissions officers are actually reading for.

Here is something I heard directly from deans and vice presidents of enrollment management: they are not looking for impressive. They are looking for authentic. Impressive and authentic are not the same thing.

Impressive is a performance. It is a student showing an admissions committee what they think the committee wants to see. And admission officers feel that performance coming through the page.

Authentic is something else entirely. It is a student trusting that who they actually are is enough. That the thing they care about, the way they see the world, the experience that shaped them is worth putting on the page honestly.

The essays that actually worked.

Let me tell you about some students I have worked with.

One student wrote about her rings. She wears one on every finger, not because it is fashionable or fits a certain image, but because it is her. It is the way she has always chosen to embrace the parts of herself that make her different from her peers. That essay was about identity and not an achievement. And it was unmistakably her.

One student wrote about working weekends at the zoo and noticing that he was able to connect with animals more easily than he could with people. He wrote honestly about his Asperger's, about the way it sometimes got the best of him in social situations, and about how the zoo became a place where that did not matter. That essay required real courage to write. And it told an admissions committee something about that student that no transcript or activity list ever could.

The problem with trying to sound impressive.

When students set out to write an impressive essay, a few things tend to happen. They choose topics that look good rather than topics that feel true. They use vocabulary to show intelligence instead of language they would use in conversation. They sand down the edges of their story in favor of something that feels more universally acceptable. And the result is an essay that could have been written by anyone. Which means, in a very real sense, it was written by no one.

Admissions officers are not reading essays to evaluate writing ability. They are reading to meet a person.

What authentic actually looks like.

To be clear, authentic doesn't mean unpolished. It doesn't necessarily mean stream of consciousness or grammatically chaotic. It means the essay sounds like the student who wrote it: their rhythm, perspective, and specific way of seeing what they are writing about.

The college essay does not need to be formal or follow a structure that would satisfy an English teacher. It needs to feel like a conversation with the student where the admissions officer finishes reading and thinks: I know something about this person that I didn't know before.

A note on AI and over-editing.

Two things consistently strip authenticity out of an essay faster than anything else.

The first is AI. Even using it for brainstorming introduces a layer between the student and their own ideas. The essay that begins in AI often sounds processed not felt.

The second is too many editors. Every person who rewrites a sentence in a student's essay leaves a little of themselves in it and takes a little of the student out. One round of expert feedback focused on helping the student say what they mean more clearly is the right amount.

The goal is always an essay that sounds like the student. Not a more polished, more impressive, more carefully managed version of the student. The student.

Last chance for early bird pricing.

If your student is a rising senior and the essay is on your summer list, the College Essay Kickstart Workshop is the right place to start. Early bird pricing (10% off all services with code EARLYBIRD) closes May 28th.

Two sessions: June 10th and June 30th, 4 to 6 PM. Limited availability.

Link to reserve your spot before early bird closes.