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Here's today's entry in the Look Over My Shoulder series: Look Over My Shoulder #2
If you find it helpful, please share it with your friends. Good luck writing!
Jon
Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.
Today I'm starting my new "Look Over My Shoulder" series. Each entry in this series will show you an application essay with my comments. I hope that by reading enough essays and comments, you'll learn to identify and avoid common essay mistakes. Here's today's entry:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fjNgjDk_UHCjKj4oNHmyrRpXnGAEfJ-68HNeLd9usu0/edit
If you find today's Look Over My Shoulder presentation helpful, please share it with your friends. Good luck writing!
Jon
Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.
Today's application essay tips will help you think about answering the big question, which Alice in Wonderland describes this way:
"Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!"
If your essay doesn't answer the big question, you're missing your chance to win the admission officer over. But the big question is annoying. How do we come up with a concise statement of who we are? Let's start by asking ourselves some smaller questions.
If you answer "yes" to any of these smaller questions, you might have discovered a clue to your answer to the big question. Take a look!
The outsider says, "I'm not who you think I am." If people make incorrect assumptions about you, maybe you can explore this idea in an essay explaining how you defy stereotypes. As I explained in my post about stereotypes, describing yourself as a combination of two - maybe even three - stereotypes allows you to distinguish yourself as someone who defies stereotypes. If you're an outsider, consider opening your essay with a sentence that describes the conflicting stereotypes you embody.
The expert says, "I know something you don't." Do you know something that most people don't? If this secret knowledge has influenced your perspective or your activities, then maybe it's worth writing about. You can explore how you first became interested in this knowledge, what steps you took to acquire it, what obstacles you faced in acquiring it, and what you've done with it. By the way, this knowledge doesn't have to be something high-flying like original scientific research. It might be an academic interest, or it might be an extracurricular activity - whatever has given you extra information most people don't have. If you're an expert, consider luring the reader in by opening your essay with a sentence that portrays your knowledge as a secret. Secrets are irresistible.
The doer says, "I make my world better." By using the term "world," I'm being deliberately vague. Part of figuring out who you are is figuring out what your world is. It could be your family, your neighborhood, your school, or your community. You might think of your community as geographic, social, religious, ethnic, academic, or something else. Once you know what your world is, reflect on whether you've made it better. If you hadn't been there, how would your world have been worse? Try opening your essay with a sentence explaining how you've transformed people, ideas, or places.
The fixer says, "I solve problems other people can't." The fixer sees life as a series of problems to be solved. So what problems have you solved? Don't let yourself off the hook by saying that you haven't solved anything. Sure, you might not have solved any world-wide problem, but I'm positive you've solved at least a few problems that mattered to you and the people around you. You have to get past thinking the essay is about writing some grandiose, vague statements about you. It's the opposite. The essay is about finding those memorable details that let the reader infer some truth about your character. Tell me the details of your most innovative solution to a problem - any problem. Let me see how your mind works.
The seeker says, "I ask questions other people don't." If you're always asking questions about random stuff, and then reading more, and discovering more questions about new random stuff, then maybe you're the type of person who's defined by the questions she asks. Everyone asks different questions because everyone has different priorities and values. That means the questions you ask can provide great insight into who you are and what matters to you. How has your curiosity affected your academic and extracurricular activities? If you can identify a question that has motivated you to explore your interests, consider opening your essay with that question. A well-written question engages the reader quickly.
I have two final thoughts about using the five labels - outsider, expert, doer, fixer, and seeker - to answer the big question. First, you can appreciate that these labels make up a partial list, not an exhaustive one. If you're something else, you're something else. That's fine! Second, these labels are starting points, not end points. You can't just say, for example, that you're an outsider because thousands of other students could honestly say the same thing. You have to say how, exactly, you're an outsider. Those specific details about how you're an outsider, not the general label of outsider, will be what set your essay apart.
If you found today's discussion useful, please share it with your friends. Good luck writing!
Jon
Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.
In my last post, I answered some questions about extracurricular activities. At some point, you'll have to write about those activities. I wouldn't be much help if I didn't point you in the right direction. Today, we'll go over some tips for writing the Common Application activities list.
Why? Because the Common App instructions tell you to list your activities "in their order of importance to you." Readers will assume that whatever activity you list first is most important.
The Common App asks you to list your "principal extracurricular, volunteer, and work activities." Principal, not minor, secondary, or ancillary. In other words, your important activities. When you write down an activity, you're announcing that activity really matters to you. Remember, one goal with extracurricular activities is to show depth over breadth, and one way to do that is by listing only important activities.
And don't worry if you don't fill up every single space. The Common App even tells you, "The availability of 10 fields is not intended to imply that you should list 10 activities, nor is there any expectation that you will do so." You don't need to include filler just to get to 10. You're aiming for "principal" activities, not "all the activities I can cram into 10 slots."
You're writing to a stranger, so you have to make sure your description makes sense to someone who's never met you. On the Common App, beyond the hours you spent and when you spent them, you only get to share a few tidbits about each activity. To make sure these details describe your activities clearly, let's review the three chances the Common Application gives you to provide activity details.
First, the Common Application lets you select the type of activity (like "Debate/Speech") from a drop-down menu. Yes, please do scan through all of the choices before choosing. But this step is easy enough.
Sometimes, you'll have to split an activity into multiple entries. For example, if you play violin in the high school orchestra and for a local retirement community, then (assuming both are "principal" activities) you would list each of these two activities separately. By splitting an activity, you show depth and get extra space to describe it. But use common sense. You only want to split an activity if it has discernible components and if you consider each of those components a "principal" activity. When in doubt, err on the side of depth, not breadth. Splitting only to show breadth is pointless.
Second, the Common Application lets you describe in your own words "Position Held, Honors Won, Letters Earned, or Employer." For example, you might write "President." If you've participated in an activity like Key Club for three years but have only been president for one year, no problem. Just add the grade level when you served as president: "President (11)." Multiple positions for a single activity? List them in succession: "Vice President (10); President (11)."
Third, the Common Application lets you describe in your own words "Details and Accomplishments." Start by defending against confusion. You don't want the reader to have a "What the heck is that?" response. So if the position or honor or employer you described might leave the reader wondering what you're talking about, clarify. After you defend against confusion, go on offense by describing your best highlight. It might be frustrating to condense hours and years of commitment into 2 lines, but relax - everyone has the same space constraints. These constraints simplify your task because you only need to describe one great accomplishment. And of course, if an activity really matters to you, you can write about it in the essay.
Having a title, a role, or a responsibility is fine, but colleges want to see that you've done something. Action verbs automatically show what you've done. If you're not sure how to describe an accomplishment, start by finding an action verb you like. I like Boston College's list of resume action verbs, which is organized by category (instead of alphabetically, which is annoying).
Whenever possible, use numbers to quantify your achievements. If you won a prize, say how many contestants there were. Saying "1st place out of 240 contestants" sounds better than "1st place." If you raised money, say how much. Saying "Raised $1,132 from 32 donors" sounds better than "Raised money from community." If you supervised people, say how many. Saying "Supervised 3 sales associates" sounds better than saying "Supervised sales associates."
As you can see, numbers provide lots of detail in very little space, and they stand out from text on a page. If you really can't think of how to use a number, or if using a number feels too forced, then fine, don't use a number. Just let that decision be intentional, not accidental. Usually, with a little brainstorming, you'll figure out how to work in some numbers.
Mark Twain is supposed to have commented, "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead." Though the space limitations of the activities list liberate you to focus on the best highlight for each activity, don't assume that space limitation means you'll be able to finish in thirty minutes. Concise writing takes time. Start writing your activities list early.
I hope you'll find today's tips helpful when you write your Common Application activities list. If you like them, please share them with your friends. Thank you!
Jon
Jon Perkins holds a B.A. in English from Stanford University and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He helps students with their college, law school, and medical school applications.
