The BIGGEST College Essay Mistake You Can Make

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZwU5aNP8gg

After reading hundreds of college essays, I am still utterly shocked at how often this occurs.

It happens in 90 to 95% of the essays that I've read, and it will immediately send your application to the rejection pile. 

Here’s the issue: seniors spend way too much time complaining about the problem and not enough time articulating your unique solution. 

You might think that colleges want to hear about your environment, your situation, the experiences that shaped us into the people we are today, etc. but no, this is not the case. What colleges really want to hear about is what exactly you did in that precise scenario?

How did you make the most out of your environment? What was the precise role you played in those key experiences? In short, they are not interested in things happening to you; they are far more interested in you making things happen.

Let me spell this out for you guys with two rapid-fire examples. The first is relatively straightforward; the second is a bit more complicated. 

Here’s the simple one: you were driving a motorcycle and then you got into an accident, hurt your ear, and now you’re half deaf (we would call this “problem.”) However, as a result of this experience, you learn how to read lips, and this actually helps you learn and master Arabic—solution. But there’s more. Because you have to work twice as hard in understanding others, you develop a greater knack for empathy. One thing leads to another, and you actually decide to volunteer for a suicide hotline. One day, you successfully talk someone out of jumping off a building. 

Moving on to the second and more complicated example: you grew up in an abusive household where you were bullied for studying art—problem. This leads you to run away from home and live at a friend’s house for a few months—still a problem. Be careful; the reason this is still considered part of the problem is because the applicant hasn’t really done anything impressive or shown how they've grown during this tough situation. This might sound blunt, but the applicant hasn’t really done anything that would make a college want to accept them… yet. 

Let’s say, though, that at your friend’s house, the student decides to study the psychological origins of abuse. Then, using their passion for art, they actually write and draw a graphic novel about their own experience. After that, they start hosting workshops related to anti-bullying and domestic violence awareness at their local high school. Brilliant! Not only does this journey showcase the student's resilience, it also highlights their empathy for others, their proactivity, ingenuity, and intellectual curiosity, 4 aspects of our signature VSPICE rubric. 

The Golden Ratio

Just because I appreciate you all so much, I’ve prepared another gift for my dear readers/virtual little siblings: the golden ratio. 

Please, please, please spend at least 50% of your common app articulating your solution and no more than 30% of your common app talking about the problem. The final 20% of your essay should be spent on reflection where you’ll explain the key insights you gained from solving the problem. 

From my own experience, one of the most effective ways to successfully manage this ratio is by dropping your reader straight into the problem in the very first sentence. 

In fact, dramatically stating your problem this way serves as a really, really powerful hook: “The team was counting on me to serve an ace so that we could win our third consecutive championship,” or, “I needed to build a fire within the next three hours where my buddy Jon was at serious risk of dying from hypothermia.” Needless to say, the more high-stakes and unique your problem is, the more interesting your essay will probably be.

Two More Tips

Two quick tips before I let you guys go. 

1. Background information: avoid it at all costs. If you feel like it’s absolutely essential to explain a few things to the reader so they have better context for your essay, you can do so by sprinkling in those facts throughout your problem or even your solution. But do not, please, DO NOT provide a block paragraph, a block of text at the very start of your essay with pure background information. Believe me when I say that that's a killer mistake that will send your application directly to the trash bin.

   
   

2. The very final thing I’d like to mention is that I know that not every essay is going to center around the applicant solving one key issue. Even still, I recommend that you guys spend at least half your essay explaining unique approaches you took to not only improve and better yourself but also the community and environment around you. Make your solution the star of your essay. The more unique your solution, the better. The more specific your solution, the better.

   
   

We are furiously rooting for you! 

Your Virtual Big Brother,

Kevin Zhen