Where does the present fit in to your college essay? During the application process, you need to think and talk about your past-- where you came from, how you got this way-- and the future-- where you're headed, what you hope for. It's never bad to take stock like this, even if, in four years, your thinking is completely different. But the present has a very important role to play in your essay content, so read on. Good storytelling (which you should definitely practice in your essay) allows for flexible or fluid interpretation. No one will chase you down with your college essay when you are 25 and doing something completely different from what you predicted and say, "BUT YOU SAID IT WAS LIKE THIS?! YOU SAID YOU WANTED/CARED ABOUT THIS!" Don't worry about reducing your future to one personal quality or goal. Instead, stay present. What does that mean? It's kinda simple. You can't just write about that important thing that happened to you and call the essay done. Tune into yourself, and use the last third of your essay to show your reader what you're like, now. How that important event or story relates to your current self--your actions, engagements, and mindset. Make Your Past Relevant to the Present Your entire past led up to this moment, this person, this character-- you. You picked just a slice of it to share with your readers, and in a well-told story you highlighted something about yourself, some personal characteristic you made real for us, worthy of our attention. But how is that trait an important part of your life, right this very minute? For example: were you a picky kid, who didn't like to wear socks in the winter, or who wanted notebooks of only a certain color? Well, maybe the present you has a high tolerance for adverse weather, or loves things other people find challenging, or has a fine sense of design, or maybe you advise those other kids who never seem to know what to buy (that was me, thank you!), and that's your Continue Reading …
Present
Stay Present
"Stay present!" And other grating advice... "Stay Present!" has become an instruction as common as "drink your water." Such common things are sooooo easy to ignore. It's valuable to take another real look. The most common things of all (like the Common App? like Air? Like, dare I say it, subtle kindness and subtle cruelties) are often incredibly important, but they don't catch your attention automatically. Unlike, say, that absolutely aware Meerkat, pictured above. (The Meerkat is eye-candy for your odd-animal spot. If you have one.) Reader, you may not even be 17 years-old yet, hoping your college essay will magically start (or finish) itself. Or maybe you're a parent of a kid applying to college. You've surely heard people say "stay present" or its cousin instruction, "be in the moment." Maybe you don't want to hear any more generic advice. To stay present is a virtue (in some circles), and it's not easy. But it will enrich everything. No, really. My Present is Your Present (and I'm bad at writing subheadings, so bear with me!) While I write (and rewrite and rewrite and rewrite) this one blog post, and attempt to do what I am writing about, I can hear my husband, stepsons, and 15 month-old in the boys' bedroom, jamming out to Otis Redding's "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay."-- "wastin' time" (Listen to Otis, he's so smooth. In a moment of total affection for his songs, I once told a student he was my dad. The student replied, "That's so cool!" Hmmmm.). When your aim is to "stay present", Otis croons, sometimes you have to just sit there. In our case: Sit with your self. Sit with your essay. Dig into the wildly mundane, wildly telling moment of... right now. Even if your "right now" feels pretty lame, pretty empty, pretty challenged. You get to cut right through that stuff. To the essence. The essence is NOT lame, is NOT challenged. The essence is something about yourself-- about all of us-- my present, your present, The Present-- Continue Reading …