College Essay Topics to Avoid or Rethink With 10,000 things inside you…why choose the few that aren’t the best bet for your college essay topics? If you’ve been on the planet roughly 17 years, you have PLENTY to write about. While I have seen students write great, successful college admissions essays on almost every topic imaginable, including ones we'll advise against here, there are some topics that take you into risky territory. Those risks may not be worth the possible strike against your admissions options. In the end, you decide. Certain college essay topics are considered particularly inappropriate to write about for this purpose (admissions) or are best to avoid for very specific reasons. These topics: don’t really focus on you and your growth wade deep into trauma from which you may not yet have adequate emotional distance Make you look like someone who makes destructive choices, and might do so again are cliche or predictable in story arc Are B O R I N G Are better handled elsewhere in the application Write those stories- but elsewhere It's NOT that those essay topics should not be written about, period. Many of them must be written about for the world–or your world–to go on with integrity and wholeness. In fact, nothing (at all) should stop you from writing about no-no college essay topics of burning importance to you for another purpose. Sometimes, we have to free-write a personal essay that is pulling at our heart, masticating our mind or freeloading off us emotionally. We get it out on the page, and set it to the side for another day. Only THEN can we craft one that is best suited for admissions readers and the application genre– which, like most genres, comes with its important constraints. As a coach, teacher, and person, I’m never a proponent of self-censorship. However, knowing your audience is a crucial part of admissions essay (and any writing) success. Here, I’ll lay out some of the most common Continue Reading …
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College Essay Writing Timeline (A Primer)
College Essay Writing Timeline - A Primer (For parents and curious teens!) Parents of high school juniors and seniors often ask me about the college essay writing timeline and process. At first, the process is shrouded in institutional mystery, because the only part parents really know about is the end goal, or product. But how, and when, do we get there? And is there some kind of magic wand to expedite? There can be a lot of pressure on this one precious piece of writing, and there are ultimately some non-negotiable deadlines and no magic wand. However, if you understand that there is a process, and the college essay writing process produces reliably good results you might exhale. In fact, I hope parents exhale a lot! (Here’s 2 minute guided breath from Dora Kamau) I’m going to describe my recommended (optimal) timeline first, because it’s the first question I get (“When should a student start? How long should it take?). In a separate post, I’ll cover the college essay process, which can occur over a longer or more compressed time period. Later posts will be devoted to the ANATOMY of a college essay. If you’re already feeling overwhelmed about all things college, and prefer to talk directly to an expert and fellow parent, book your 30 min complimentary consultation HERE. Timeline for college essay writing process Spring Start When asked about the college essay process after all their applications have been submitted, students are rarely stressed to have started early. However, I think you can start too early. The college essay you write in Feb of junior year–even if you take a class or have guidance– is rarely going to be the one you send to schools. It’s the throat-clearing, orchestra-tuning round. And it has value as that. That said, all writing teaches you about writing, which teaches you about your thinking, feeling, and self. No effort is wasted! Between winter of Junior year and submissions season is a lot of months. You Continue Reading …
Is it cheating to use Chat GPT to write your College Essays?
A controversial take on a hot industry topic: is using Chat GPT to write your college essay cheating? Maybe, maybe not. It’s all about how you use it. Duke University announced this week they would no longer assign a numerical value to the essay as part of a student’s application: the rampant use of AI and of college writing coaches and consultants (like me!) skews the essay as a metric of a student’s independent writing ability. However, it can still give useful insights into their character. When is it cheating to use a tool? You can almost always cheat in life– including cheating on your college essay. So the question is, will you? Which begs the question, in the age of AI, is using Chat GPT to write your essay considered cheating? It depends. And it's not a new question. In college, I took a torturous 8AM Ancient Greek language class: Thucydides & The Peloponnesian War. Think: convoluted grammar, and geopolitics of long-dead people and long buried wars. Bellicosity, and weak dining hall caffeine. In a perfect world, independent work (or homework) is designed to enhance or embed learning. It’s designed for you to struggle a bit to retrieve the knowledge your ego thinks you’ve stored and mastered. However, at 2AM, when you’re stuck in a thorny section of translation, with pages left to go, and even caffeine has given up on you, what do you do? In the late 1990’s, there was no Chat-GPT, but you could look up the entire English translation of the Ancient Greek writers online- sometimes with word-for-word correspondence. You could get that homework done, correctly, on time, and by a 2:30AM bed time. Pretty tempting. Two obvious issues with cheating on your work: 1) Ethically, you didn’t really do the work by yourself. 2) The next time you hit that problem, you haven’t learned anything about how to solve it. The only thing you know how to do is where to find someone else’s answer. How to use Chat-GPT for your college essay- Continue Reading …
First write a bad college essay draft
First write a bad college essay draft to write a great essay I spend a lot of my time helping students unfreeze, and accept that if they first write a “bad” college essay draft, it might be THE most important step to a great draft. This blog came from a bunch of “you can write your essay” pep talks I gave to students over the past few weeks (and years!). ** It’s very paralyzing if you think you have to have a finished product before you even really started your college essay!** Most students don’t know how to write a narrative essay– I didn’t either, back when. But fretting about a lack of a skill never taught it to you. If it did, we’d all be amazing at things we never tried, but fretted a lot about. :) In fact, anxiety about the essay is exactly what will stop you from writing a great personal essay. You need to understand, hack, and tap into– the organic writing process. What’s the solution? FLOW. (Too Impatient for a pep talk? Cut right to getting expert help writing your college essay draft HERE.) A few essential reminders about writing college essay DRAFTS BTW: Even though I use the term “bad” throughout, I’m just using the language my students use. We should NOT call it a “bad” draft! There is nothing good or bad about it! It’s just… a draft! You might not even know the best college essay topic before you start writing! The search for a great college essay topic and totally great essay is noble and important, even critical. However, in my experience, you often have to write into a topic idea before you can be sure if it will work well or not. This is true for the supplemental essays and the Common App essays. It’s also true for…basically all writing! What sounds like a good idea while scaffolding might be less evocative (as in: not work) in execution. THAT IS A NORMAL PART OF THE PROCESS. The order goes: bad draft, good draft, great draft (but it can take way way more than three attempts!). And the writing might Continue Reading …
Core Traits? Text Your Bestie!
In college admissions essays, students are asked to identify their core traits, explicitly and implicitly. However, most teens I know don’t sit around thinking about this. Despite the myth that they are completely self-absorbed, I believe teens are often thinking about self relationally. For example, like my stepson, they might be spending their time in awe at human talent, watching people chase a wheel of cheese down a hill. (Go ahead, take a look.) It can feel really hard to dig in and identify personal descriptions, even armed with lists of adjectives or exploratory worksheets to help you choose. Not sure how to figure out what your core qualities are? Feeling kinda flat and regular? I’ll give you the secret trick to identifying personal characteristics for your college essay: Text your besties to ask them about your core traits! That’s right, do it now! I’ll wait… Choose 1-3 friends who you think know you best. People who really get you. Text them this: “Hey, what are the first three words that come to mind when you think of me? How would you describe me? No cursing: it’s for my college application!” Then wait. See what they say. Once they respond, read their words aloud. See how you feel when you read them. If they don’t text you back quickly enough, text them again: “U R RUINING MY COLLEGE ADMISSIONS PROSPECTS. PL REPLY.” (If they still don’t text you– bite it, and call them. Write down what they tell you, verbatim). You could also ask, “What is the best thing about being friends with me?”. When my stumped stepson tried this, his besties answered in about 5 seconds, eliminating many hours of agony while he tried to get started on his own. The words they chose for him were completely apt. He turned that frown upside down and started writing a supplement. Reflect on their responses about your core traits What did your friends say were some of your core traits? Consider: Does it feel true? Continue Reading …
Sample Common App Essay: Believe in Yourself Harder
Morgan's Sample Common App College Admissions Essay -- with my commentary Morgan's advice to applicants: "You've got to be vulnerable, or it's not going to work." Believe In Yourself Harder Your lowest point can be your turning point. I learned this in 10th grade when I told my mom about my reading problems. She didn’t believe me. Wasn’t she supposed to be my biggest supporter? I was scared. Were my feelings accurate or imagined? Was I just “a slow reader” or was it something else? Either way, I could not go on like this. I knew I hadn’t performed well on my first test of the year. When the grade was posted as 63, I was speechless, painfully holding back tears. My parents seemed furious (in reality, probably just confused). “Did you study?” I thought they’d be understanding, but “D” was a new game. I knew I’d have to work even harder to believe the affirmations I repeated daily, “I am smart, I am capable,” – reminders that my intelligence wasn’t determined by grades alone. Raised to have agency, one of my greatest fears is turning into someone who looks for pity or sees myself as a victim. To avoid this, I’d study 10+ hours for one test– unsustainable. Would overdrive improve my performance? My grades slipped; my anxiety climbed. As my education and future depended on my actions, I admitted to my advisor there was a problem, advocating for her to speak to my mom. This paid off: we learned I wasn’t “just” a slow reader, but there was a bigger problem that I received help to address. Aware there would be a day when I’d have to stand up for myself, I never imagined it would be at home. My parents had always encouraged positive self-talk, emphasizing the importance of feeling confident in our skin and having pride in our heritage. They taught us always to give 100% effort, never quit, and find paths forward. These beliefs were pivotal to the development of my self-esteem, my crown jewel. Now, when seemingly no one validated my perspective, I was forced to Continue Reading …