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Let’s continue getting to know the reader of our college admissions essay by asking ourselves what else they are reading, besides our essay.

What else are they reading? Generally, they’re reading more essays.  Boring, right?

An admissions staff member will read hundreds, if not thousands, of applications over a few weeks or months. A few things happen when you read so many things that are in the same format:

1. you become very frustrated with the format.
2. the individual essays begin to blend together in your mind, because, generally speaking, they are very similar to one another.
3. you develop automatic ways of evaluating the essays, in order to save time (i.e., good story about leadership here, okay, that’s a plus; poor sense of career goals here, that’s a minus).

Why does this matter? Can you subtly change the format of the essay? Can you depart from the standard, three paragraph format that everyone else uses? Can you say something unique, something different? If you can do these things, then your essay will make the reader wake up and take notice. The reader will think, “Hey, this is different,” and he or she will be pleased that it is different. However, at the same time, the reader will struggle to fit your work into the standard mechanisms he or she has created for evaluating essays. So if you do say something different and unique you have to be certain that it is something positive, or at least something that will be evaluated positively.

There’s a pretty simple way to do this, actually, and we’ll get back to it in a later post in more detail.  But here’s a quick summary:

DON’T think, “What can I say that is really different and unique?”  If you do this, you’ll write something different just to be different, and the result can sometimes be weird.  Example: Most people will write a safe essay that doesn’t really answer the question.  Well I’m not most people.  And I’m not interested in safety . . . A student might write something like this thinking, “Wow, this is going to be great, it’s so different!”  A reader would probably say, “Wow, what is wrong with this student?”

DO think, “What about me is really different and unique?  And how can I write about that in this essay?”  If you focus on your own unique character, personality, etc., then you’ll end up writing something different that is also something true. And THAT is pure, essay-writing GOLD!  Example:  my views of my role as a woman in society were shaped primarily by my mother.  She was the model, traditional housewife.  She always spoke softly and almost never challenged the decisions of my father.  She would tell me often that the best I should hope for in life was to find a good husband who would take care of me and our children.  In high school when I took a class on leadership, I learned that “modern” women were supposed to act differently.  We were supposed to speak up and challenge others.  We should have grand ambitions and should fight, night and day, to achieve them.  I became almost ashamed of my mom.  But as I have grown older and gained more experience, I have come to realize that my mother was, in her own way, a quiet leader.  And although I do have grand ambitions, and I’m not afraid to challenge others, I have also learned more than a few lessons from my mother – things that make my own approach to leadership quite unique.  Let me tell you what those are . . .

Notice how nothing in this short paragraph is incredibly strange.  Many people have “traditional” mothers.  Many people have taken leadership classes.  Many people struggle to find a balance between “traditional” and “modern” values.  So there’s nothing that screams, I AM SOOOOOOO DIFFERENT AND UNIQUE, LOOK AT ME!!!!  At the same time, it’s clear that the writer is unique.

You want to find something in your life, your personality, or your experience that defines who you are, and then you want to relate that in the clearest, simplest way possible.

Posts in this Series

1. Tell Us About Yourself: Final Advice for Essay Writing - 08 Oct
2. Should You Pay To Have Your Essay Edited? - 01 Oct
3. The Greatest Editing Trick For College Application Essays - 29 Sep
4. How To Edit Your Essay - 28 Sep
5. The "What They Want to Hear" Mistake - 17 Sep
6. Know Your Reader, Part Four - 16 Sep
7. Know Your Reader, Part Three - 15 Sep
8. Know Your Reader, Part Two (This post)
9. Know Your Reader, Part One - 13 Sep
10. Listen to an Admissions Officer Discuss Essays - 11 Sep
11. How to Write an Essay for University Applications - 09 Sep

In our last essay-writing post, we heard from an actual admissions officer about good and bad traits of college application essays.  In the next three days, I want to challenge us to spend some more time inside the mind of the people who will be reading your applications.

In general, most of the essay-writing advice on the web is going to focus on you, the writer.  This is important, but we should never forget that what really matters is not how you feel about your essay, but rather what the person reading it feels.  We need to spend more time thinking about our audience.

So what about that reader?  Let’s take some time and think about some key aspects of that reader’s experience of college essays, and see if we can learn anything useful.

Where are people reading your essays? College essays are typically read in an office environment.  There are computers, desks, chairs, phones, etc.  The language of the office is precise, technical, bureaucratic.  Why does this matter? If you write an essay about something outside, something happening in another environment, with language that is active and colorful, you may be able to get your reader to sit up and feel refreshed, or to feel that your essay is something new and different. 

Example: The most challenging moment of my life came on the side of a windy, bare mountainside.  The air was crisp and cool, the sun was bright, and as far as I could see, I was the only living thing.  The problem was, I was lost.  I had become separated from my classmates on a hiking trip, and now, as I looked around me, there was nothing but rocky ridge after rocky ridge, separated by dark, forested valleys.  How would I find my classmates?  What would happen to me if I didn’t?

Do you see how the above immediately takes you out of your environment and makes you imagine yourself standing with the writer on a mountain?  Do you see how the descriptions  – “windy,” “bright,” “crisp”" – contrast with the typical office space?  These contrasts will create pleasure in the mind of most readers.

This doesn’t mean your essay has to be about hiking or nature.  It could be about a busy street, a crowded shopping mall, a loud and noisy classroom – just don’t make it about a quiet, clean office, and the challenges you faced in filing papers.

Tomorrow we’ll speak about what else our audience members are reading.

Posts in this Series

1. Tell Us About Yourself: Final Advice for Essay Writing - 08 Oct
2. Should You Pay To Have Your Essay Edited? - 01 Oct
3. The Greatest Editing Trick For College Application Essays - 29 Sep
4. How To Edit Your Essay - 28 Sep
5. The "What They Want to Hear" Mistake - 17 Sep
6. Know Your Reader, Part Four - 16 Sep
7. Know Your Reader, Part Three - 15 Sep
8. Know Your Reader, Part Two - 14 Sep
9. Know Your Reader, Part One (This post)
10. Listen to an Admissions Officer Discuss Essays - 11 Sep
11. How to Write an Essay for University Applications - 09 Sep