May...be it's time to start those college essays!

Wow! It’s already May, and if you have a junior in high school you know it’s the dawn of college essay season. And if you don’t know, now you know! ​

Many colleges and universities require at least one essay as a part of their application process, and special programs often require essays of their own. The whole process can be overwhelming. Fortunately, many schools rely upon the Common App or Coalition Application, which allows seniors to write just one essay for hundreds of schools

​Many schools also require supplementary essays like “why this school?” and “diverse perspectives." Some give you the option to write an “anything else we should know?” essay or an “extenuating circumstances” essay. If you’re really un/lucky, they might even ask you how you would put your life motto on a bumper sticker, how you’d describe yourself in a hashtag, or why it’s not easy being green (all real college "essay" prompts).

It's not easy being green... or is it?

One student chose to demonstrate their individuality, strengths, and resilience with an essay about beekeeping

Over the past four years, in my role as high school writing center coordinator, I've coached over 500 juniors and seniors on their college essays. Fall is definitely my busiest season in the writing center but it's also my favorite time of the year. I love being able to read so many interesting stories - tales of adventure, inventions, unusual hobbies, resilience in the face of adversity or loss, and just the unique way that each young person experiences and overcomes the typical trials and tribulations of being a teenager.

I feel like a lot of the college application process is a tedious hoop-jumping exercise and all that paperwork doesn’t do a great job of conveying who a student is or whether they are likely to be “successful” in college. But I actually love college essays. In fact, if I was in charge of the world, I’d have everyone write a college-essay-type-thing, whether they go to college or not. And actually, it would be pretty neat if we all wrote one every few years or so! Why? Because the college essay genre (if you can set aside for a moment that it’s a weird form of high-stakes test) is an opportunity to reflect on our experiences and understand how we have grown into the superheroes we have become.

The trick and the beauty of college essays is that the readers (ok, "evaluators") want to see vulnerability, humility, transformation, and resilience. Most of us are uncomfortable talking about ourselves, and we’re even LESS comfortable talking about our challenges. At the same time though, we love telling these stories in the right context. These are the juicy bits of our lives, the stories we tell among friends when we’re all grown up. 

For me though, the best part of writing these essays is the potential for transformation. There's real POWER in this kind of storytelling - you are not just relaying a series of facts - you are giving them meaning. We all can think of stories we’ve told about ourselves where we are the victim, the villain, a failure, or just a weak person. But hopefully, we’ve also had the experience of learning to re-tell those same stories in a new way, where we know ourselves to be a victor, a hero, a survivor, a person who grew, or even just a person who is no more flawed than anyone else. ​

​Re-telling our stories is one way we rewrite ourselves! We have the power to use language to reflect on our lives and create a new vision of ourselves that features our strengths, our values, our place in the world. I’m no therapist, but I have witnessed the power of helping students tell empowering stories about their lives. Whether a young person is reflecting on their first job, the death of a parent, their love of cooking, or living in China for a year as an exchange student - everyone benefits from reflecting on what they have learned and how they have transformed themselves.

(As a total aside, can I just say I loved that I searched for “transformation” on Pexels and this is what came up. I can’t recommend the site enough for stock photos that celebrate diversity and promote equity.)

Of course, I am also aware that college essays and college essay coaching are all wrapped up in power, privilege, and gatekeeping. College essays have an ambiguous role in reinforcing and challenging entrenched patterns of under-representation of students based on their race, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, sexuality, and so on.

On the one hand, some institutions use the college essay to open the door to applicants who might otherwise slip through the cracks, letting a student explain, for example, why they failed chemistry. Many schools use college essays to provide greater access to underrepresented groups even as formal affirmative action programs are being litigated out of existence. College essays can even help institutions weed out climate deniers and bigots who show their true colors in their essays. 

On the other hand . . . discrimination against some dialects and certain kinds of stories can disadvantage some candidates and the college essay coaching industry can give the most privileged kids an extra leg up. 

​So how does a justice-oriented writing coach manage the tensions here? First and foremost, I have made discounts and scholarships for underrepresented groups a core part of my college essay service and tuition structure. I hope to continue to develop ways to bring college essay coaching to kids who might otherwise have trouble accessing it. (If you'd be interested in partnering with me to offer these services let's connect!)

Second, I bring my justice-oriented writing philosophy to the college essay writing journey, helping student writers think about how their own words have the capacity to promote justice or cause harm. I help writers see how their own stories are interwoven with larger stories and conversations about race, economics, gender, the environment, colonialism (hello mission trip essays), and so on. Developing and demonstrating this awareness is a part of “acing” the evaluative aspects of the college essay but it is also an important personal exercise that is developmentally just-in-time for teens who are about to leave the small world of their homes and neighborhoods to become a part of much larger communities. 

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Of course, while college essay season is MY favorite time of the year, I understand that they can be very difficult to write. Why?
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1. You either have to write your essays during the summer or write them on top of your schoolwork in the fall. Neither is appealing to your average teen. (I’d suggest the former, but the latter works in a pinch)
2. Most kids don’t have any experience writing this kind of essay - a sort of creative nonfiction memoir that’s also a job interview.
3. It’s high stakes - and that’s scary

The essay writing experience CAN be fun or at least rewarding for teenagers though if they understand what’s expected and know how to approach the task. 
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If you’d like your young person to get the most of the college essay writing process, I’d love to help them craft an essay that showcases their character, resilience, and strengths while helping them to reflect on their own burgeoning transformation to adulthood. Check out my College Essay Coaching page for more information about my services and rates. 

Questions? If you have college essay questions share them in the comments (right under the title of the blog) and I'll answer them in a future blog!