The essay is one of the most revealing pieces of the college application process. Not only are you expected to bare your soul in 650 words or less, but you’re also offering a window into how you think. Most of you do it subconsciously, which can lead to mixed results. When, however, you become conscious of this fact and put in the work, then your writing will ultimately present your clearest and most interesting thoughts. You will tell your story in a way that reveals your challenges, values, and best qualities. You will carefully examine your tone and the details you include, so your essay makes your admissions readers like you, perceive how your identity and life experiences make you different from all of the other applicants, and envision you as someone who will have something unique to contribute to the college campus. When you do all of this, most of your essays will eventually reach the equivalent of a Yelp rating of 3.5 stars out of 5. This is a huge achievement and it will leave your admissions reader feeling satisfied!
But what if you want to write a 4-star essay, or even the elusive 5-star essay? How do you get beyond the level of 3.5 stars, or “standard good?” Just like any Yelp-reviewed business owner will tell you, you need to bring a level of thought and creativity to your work that exceeds expectations. Contrary to popular belief, essays that deserve 4 or 5 stars do not possess “ineffable qualities” that transcend explanation. Rather, they possess quite identifiable qualities that signal that these student writers are next-level thinkers. So how do they do that? And probably of more interest to you, how do you do that?
Reading is the first key to success
Let me start with the one piece of advice that I give to every student during my first meeting with them: read. Read as much as you can. Read like your life depends on it. I recently joked with a student that I am a pathological reader. If at least two people mention a book to me, I feel like I’m out of the know, and I buy the book and read it. For this reason, I have a stack of books on my nightstand that sometimes gets so high that it falls when I place another book on top – but I do eventually get through them all. You should do the same! The more you read, the better you will write, the better you will think, and the better off you’ll be in life. This is a long-term commitment and one that you should begin the moment you receive this advice!
Once you, too, become a pathological reader, you will absorb stylistic elements and ideas that you will be able to integrate into your essays that will make them exceed “standard good.” While form, or the stylistics you incorporate, can play a role, that kind of elite writing typically only comes from those of you who are award-winning creative writers. Elite content, on the other hand, isn’t restricted to an interest in creative writing and thus I want to focus on that part of the piece, which is more widely accessible.
So, after closely reading many essays as well as many other pieces of writing over the years, I have identified 6 elements that make an essay a 4-5 stars out of 5.
You change the way your reader sees something.
Back in 2016, an essay went viral for this. It was about a girl’s adventures in Costco where she would let her “unfettered curiosity” run free. Going to Costco was no longer the mundane weekend chore that most of us find it to be, but an opportunity to question consumerism, physics, and the morals of President Andrew Jackson. It was an opportunity to show her extracurricular interests as well as her intellectual pursuits. If you can do what this girl did, namely make your readers reframe how they see something, then you’re on your way to an elite essay.
You transform something inherently unintellectual into something intellectual
I love these essays, because they put on display a mind that can perceive the meaning in what is seemingly insignificant. One of my students did this brilliantly in a Stanford essay about translating fan mail for a Chinese pop star. She delved into her decision-making process when choosing words, doing everything she could to keep the meaning and tone of the original fan’s letter, and Stanford got insight into her creativity and thoughtfulness. She didn’t feel the need to pick a pretentious or even obvious topic. She went with something she enjoyed and showed how it was an intellectual exercise (and yes, she went to Stanford).
You simplify something incredibly complex into something anyone can understand
One of the biggest struggles for students who have done advanced or professional-level research is explaining it in layman’s terms. They’re so enmeshed in the field that they’ve worked in, and they’re also so new to it, that they know the mechanics, but they don’t understand why their research matters to the rest of the world. If you are someone who can explain very complex ideas in simple terms, you will doubtlessly impress your admissions readers. As the great American poet, Charles Bukowski once said, “Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.”
You let your unbridled creativity run free
One of my favorite essays explores how one student came up with an answer to The New York Times’ weekly Spelling Bee by jumping on a train in her brain and riding along to pick up letters that she stuck in a basket, before putting them together in the most complicated winning solution possible: a word that uses all seven letters. Another student of mine used her explorations with photography to express her efforts to overcome her inability to swim. Introducing abstraction, we see her artistic sensibilities take shape alongside her willingness to jump into a pool. Creativity is frequently the mark of a brilliant mind. However you choose to express your creativity, putting your imagination on display gets you at least a 4-star essay.
You seamlessly answer many prompts when you were asked to choose only one
When I start students on their Common App personal statement, it doesn’t matter to me which prompt they answer. Part of the reason is that I want to give them the freedom to write their story without artificial constraints. I firmly believe that every story comes out in the way it wants to be told, kind of like how Michelangelo believed that he was just clearing the marble away from his statues that were merely already encased in the blocks. Another part of the reason is that all of the prompts are asking, “Who are you?” They’re just doing it in different ways. The prompt you choose ultimately doesn’t matter. Finally, the last part of the reason is that I want to give students the chance to tell a story that answers more than one of the seven prompts at the same time (okay, maybe one of the six “closed” prompts, since the seventh one opens the door to submit any essay of your choice). If you are able to do this, then you can rest assured that you are telling not just a good story, but a great one!
You go beyond the formula
One of my favorite essays to help students with is the “Why This School?” essay. It’s obviously not for the whimsicality of the prompt, but because it can be so formulaic that I don’t have to think twice about how to structure this essay. Its pieces – the opening story; the personal experiences that lend themselves to build connections to the school’s classes, special opportunities, and professors’ research; and the conclusion – can be easily lifted from one school’s essay to the next! But this isn’t the only way to approach this essay. As long as you share how you are a good fit for the school and incorporate appropriate ways in which you will contribute to and take advantage of its opportunities, the structure doesn’t ultimately matter. If you can transcend this formula and come up with a unique way to present your story, then your essay will transcend that 3.5-star review.
Final Thoughts
Now that you have ideas on how to take your essays to the next level and earn that 4 or 5 star Yelp-style rating, I encourage you to give yourself the time you need to create such essays. Part of it will happen during the years leading up to essay-writing season as you read and read and read as much as you can to get inspiration from dozens if not hundreds of authors who are already recognized and rewarded for their creativity. Learning starts with observation and absorption, which is, after all, how we all learned to speak, write, dance, sing, whatever skill we wanted to develop. Then once you’ve built that foundation of ideas, give yourself the time you need to think and write. Writing alone can be quite mechanical (ChatGPT has proven that), but if you take the time to figure out how you can mix, stretch, twist, flip, simplify, complicate, and reshape your ideas like ingredients in an Ottolenghi recipe, the more impressive your essays will become, and I can promise you, they’ll be much, much better than “standard good.”
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