You Have a Story to Tell. Colleges Want to Hear It

Scott Anderson, ContributorSenior Director for Access and Education at The Common Application @commonapp

You Have a Story to Tell. Colleges Want to Hear It.

How did you spend your summer vacation? Maybe you took a class or went to a camp. Perhaps you did some community service. Or napped. (Admit it. You definitely napped.)

It’s also possible you worked–scooping ice cream, mowing lawns, busing tables, selling movie tickets, babysitting neighborhood children. If that sounds like your summer, you’re not alone–but your ranks are dwindling.

Since Memorial Day, at least two articles–one inBloomberg, the other inTime–have explored the decline of the summer job among American teenagers. The Bloomberg article cited this statistic that would raise the eyebrows of any Gen Xer: “In July of last year, 43 percent of 16- to 19-year-olds were either working or looking for a job...In 1988 and 1989, the July labor force participation rate for teenagers nearly hit 70 percent.”

Both articles speculate on reasons for the drop in teen employment. One theory suggests that you and your peers are getting squeezed out by older workers remaining in the workplace for longer and immigrants seeking a foothold in the American workforce. Another hypothesis is that some of you are simply opting for something different–something that is tied to the calculus of college admissions.

The thinking goes like this: Extending the school year into the summer impresses through academic enrichment or acceleration. Community service at home and abroad conveys citizenship and cultural understanding. Athletic and extracurricular camps showcase ability and seriousness of intent. And together, these summertime pursuits create a compelling college application.

Is there merit in this pragmatic approach to summer? There certainly can be. To the extent that these activities reinforce who you are as a student and person, they help colleges understand you better. But that doesn’t mean that camps and academies and mission trips are preferable to a traditional summer job. Work teaches invaluable life lessons, and colleges understand this implicitly. And if you can articulate what you learned, all the better.

The point here is not that one type of summer experience–or even one type of extracurricular experience–is inherently better than another. It’s not. Everyone needs to choose the path that is right for them. But choice is a luxury that not all students have. For some of you, a summer job is a rite of passage. For others, it’s an economic necessity. And for this reason, it’s the responsibility of those of us who orchestrate the college application process to help you tell that part of your story. Put another way, it’s our job to help you see yourself in the application–because if you can’t see yourself in the application, it’s going to be harder for you to see yourself in college, especially if you will be the first person in your family to attend college.Wake up to the day's most important news.

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

There’s a reason “paid work” is an option in the activities menu on the Common App. It’s because we know that juggling a part-time job can hold a significant place in your schedule or identity–or, for many of you, both. Working is inherently no more or less valuable than other activities you might report. But including it alongside more “traditional” activities like school clubs and athletics sends the message that work is just as valid and valued as any other pursuit. The same, incidentally, can be said for family responsibilities, another option within the activities menu; caring for siblings or older relatives while your parents are at work is an important obligation and time commitment that colleges want to know about.

The other section of the application that invites you to tell your story is, not surprisingly, the essay. Here again, it’s our responsibility to help you see yourself in the writing options available to you. To that end, we’verevised the prompts for 2017-2018in our continuing effort to make sure that they speak to the experiences and backgrounds of all students. If you want to write about a job you’ve had and its influence on you, you can. If you want to write about something else, you can do that too. We’re not just trying to help you write a personally meaningful essay. We’re trying to help you look at the prompts and realize, “Wow, these schools are genuinely interested in who I am as a person.”

Applying to college is a two-way street. We need to make sure we provide you with the opportunity and license to tell your story.Youneed to have the confidence that your story matters, because it does. Summer jobs and all.

The word limit on the essay will remain at 650.

The goal of these revisions is to help all applicants, regardless of background or access to counseling, see themselves and their stories within the prompts. They are designed to invite unencumbered discussions of character and community, identity, and aspiration. To this end, we will be creating new educational resources to help students both understand and approach the opportunities the essay presents for them.

2017-2018 Common Application Essay Prompts
1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story. [No change]
2. The lessons we take fromobstacles we encountercan be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced achallenge, setback, or failure.How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience? [Revised]
3. Reflect on a time when youquestionedor challenged a belief or idea. What prompted yourthinking? Whatwas the outcome? [Revised]
4. Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma - anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution. [No change]
5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, orrealizationthatsparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.[Revised]
6.Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?[New]

7.Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.[New]

The Art of Writing the College Essay

How to avoid the Big Mac syndrome

By Parke Muth

Fast food comes to mind when I read essays that are part of college applications. Almost all the applications I see contain “McEssays”-essays usually five paragraphs long that consist primarily of abstractions and unsupported generalizations. While technically accurate - they are organized and use correct grammar and proper spelling - they are basically the same, like Big Macs. I have nothing against Big Macs, but the ones I eat in Charlottesville are not going to differ from the ones I eat in Paris, Peoria, or Palm Springs. I am not going to rave about the quality of a particular Big Mac, and the same can be said about the generic essay.

If an essay starts, “I have been a member of the soccer team, and it has taught me leadership, perseverance, and hard work,” I can almost recite the rest of the essay without reading it. Each of the three middle paragraphs will give a bit of support to an abstraction, and the final paragraph will restate what has already been said. A McEssay isn’t wrong, but it’s not going to be a positive factor in an admission decision.

A student who uses vague abstractions poured into a preset form will end up being interpreted as a vague series of abstractions. A student who uses a cliché becomes a cliché to admissions officers. We are what we eat; we are also what we write.

A preset form leads to a generic essay, and so does a generic approach to what’s perceived as the right topic. Too many students begin the search for what to write about by asking, “What goes my college want to hear?” The thinking goes: If I can figure out what they are looking for, and if I can make myself look like that, then I’ll improve my chances.

Several years ago, the University of Virginia, where I work, asked students to describe an invention or creation from the past that was important to them. The No. 1 response - from at least a thousand people- was the Declaration of Independence. This fact might make some people think that our college bound students are wonderfully patriotic, but since the institution where I work was founded by Thomas Jefferson, I have a more realistic answer. Many students chose the declaration because they thought that my colleagues and I would want to hear about how much they admired Thomas Jefferson. Whether this was a noble sentiment or a cynical maneuver, it meant that the university received a thousand essays that sounded pretty much alike and had virtually no positive bearing on the admission decision. Virginia is not looking for students who all think the same way, believe the same thing, or write the same essay.

The bad. Too often, students who want to avoid writing in a generic form or about a generic topic choose exactly the wrong remedy. They think that bigger topics – or bigger words - are better. But it is almost impossible, in a standard-length essay of 500 words, to write well about a vast topic: death, religion, politics, whatever. I am not advocating longer essays (remember how many applications admissions officers have to read); I am advocating essays with a tight focus and specific use of detail. In the world of admissions it is not God but the applicant who exists in the details.

Unfortunately, instead of detail, students try to impress colleges with big words. In trying to make feeding the homeless sound intellectual in the excerpted bad essay (box, page 50), the student resorted to a thesaurus and sounds pretentious. The act of helping the poor is hidden behind a wall of fancy words. The student assumed that these words would intensify the reader’s experience, but they diminish it. Any hope of hearing the student’s voice is lost because of a misguided attempt to sound smart.

The good. A good essay is not good because of the topic, though that can help, but because of the student’s voice as a writer. A good writer can make almost any topic interesting. A poor writer can make even the most dramatic topic boring. A good essay always shows: a poor essay virtually always tells. By showing, a writer appeals to all of the senses, not just the visual. To show means to provide an assortment for the eyes, ears, and depending on the essay, the mouth, nose, or skin.

The student whose essay appears in the box as an example of the good has risked describing - showing in detail - the deterioration of her father as he is treated for cancer. I do not know of a single member of Virginia’s admissions staff who was not affected by this essay. The writer carefully noticed everything that was happening to her father. She opens with the sound of his coughing and then creates a scene that we can see clearly. Writing about death and sickness is one of the most difficult topics to tackle in a college essay. Almost impossible, as I said above. But here is an example of good writing that also conveys the writer’s courage to face a terrible situation head - on with intellect and power.

A writer who shows respects the intelligence of the reader; a writer who tells focuses on the ideas, or the perceived ideas, behind the details. The latter is often more concerned about demonstrating the ability to be abstract than the capacity to be precise. In a short, personal essay, however, precision is power.

The risky. Any student who has learned the basics of showing should think about taking a risk on the college essay. What kind of risk? Think about starting an essay with: “I sat in the back of the police car.” Or, as in the example of the risky: “The woman wanted breasts.” These topic sentences reach out from the page and grab our attention. They create a bit of controversy and an exception that the writer might be willing to take academic risks in the classroom. That does not mean a good essay necessarily follows, but it does mean that a reader can look forward to what will unfold.

Students wonder if they will be penalized if they take a risk in an application. They want to know if there is any risk in taking a risk. Of course there is. A risky essay might border on the offensive. In some cases, as in the excerpt, it is possible that a few readers might write off an applicant because of his or her questionable taste. But in my experience, the majority of admissions officers are open-minded. Erring on the side of the baroque might not be as bad as staying in the zone of the boring. Those who are willing to take the risk in their essay, to focus tightly on a topic, and to show readers a world through striking detail will certainly help their chances of admission.

SAMPLE ESSAYS

The Bad

It was an overcast October day in East Houston, my hometown. My companions and I were on a trip to ameliorate the vile condition of indigents of our city at a soup kitchen. We arrived at approximately 11 o clock in the morning, at which time I was forever changed. Like many of my classmates, I had developed a disposition of benign neglect toward the impecunious; however, the unprepossessing visages I saw that day profoundly altered my attitude. Prior to that day I had taken things for granted, but their pensive countenances awakened my sense of appreciation.

The Good

The coughing came first, the hacking in the middle of the night. Then there were the multiple doctor visits, each one the same: the little white rooms with magazines where I tried not to stare at the bald, gaunt woman across from me. One of the white coats finally said something, steadily, fore casting an 80 percent chance of rain. The list of second opinions grew too long to count, looking for someone to say the right thing. Finally, there was relief in hearing the name of a kinder killer: lymphoma.

The Risky

The woman wanted breasts. She had fame waiting on her like a slave, money dripping from her fingertips, and men diving into her very being. Yet she wanted breasts because the world wanted her to have a bust. She looked at the big black-and-white glossy of herself arching on a silken carpet and knew that the world would be satisfied with her airbrush deception.

This woman is us. My family has been in existence for nearly 20 years now, and we are aging and losing our own breasts and tight face - the giddy happiness of a child’s unconditional love for his family, the young family’s need for each other. Yet we are constantly pressured by society’s family icons into compromising our change and age instead of accepting it.

Parke Muth is an assistant dean of admission at the University of Virginia.

College Essays

You Be the Judge

Read the following application essay. See if you can figure out this essay's strengths and weaknesses. Then keep reading to see our critique.

The Essay

My most important experience sought me out. It happened to me; I didn't cause it.

My preferred companions are books or music or pen and paper. I have only a small circle of close friends, few of whom get along together. They could easily be counted "misfits." To be plain, I found it quite easy to doubt my ability to have any sort of "close relationship."

After the closing festivities of Andover Summer School this past summer, on the night before we were scheduled to leave, a girl I had met during the program's course approached me. She came to my room and sat down on my bed and announced that she was debating with herself whether she wanted me to become her boyfriend. She wanted my reaction, my opinion.

I was startled, to say the least, and frightened. I instantly said, "No." I told her I on no account wanted this and that I would reject any gestures she made towards starting a relationship. I would ignore her entirely, if need be. I explained that I was a coward. I wanted nothing whatsoever to do with a relationship. I talked a lot and very fast.

To my surprise, she did not leave instantly. Instead, she hugged her knees and rocked back and forth on my bed. I watched her from across the room. She rocked, and I watched. Doubts crept up on me. Opportunity had knocked and the door was still locked. It might soon depart.

"I lied," I said. "I was afraid of what might happen if we became involved. But it's better to take the chance than to be afraid."

She told me she knew I had lied. I had made her realize, though, how much she actually wanted me to be her boyfriend. We decided to keep up a relationship after Andover.