Every year, I have students bring me that essay --the incredibly heartfelt one-- about their trip into the woods, or up a mountain. Some of these students are accomplished hikers, some total, struggling newbies. 97% of the time there are blisters in these essays. It's hard to explain to the writer that this rubs a blister in the admissions readers. But I have to try. Here's why: what you experience on the mountain top or in the mosquito-thick woods is likely very similar to what every other person who ever hiked experienced: irritation, discomfort, transcendence, appreciation, disappointment. Often, you leave with gratitude, renewed perspective. It's also very likely those two last mental states are quite short lived. That essay doesn't translate to real life! Say: until someone double-crosses you at school, or you drink soured milk your sibling put back in the fridge, or you can't get a new bus pass and you have to walk somewhere in the sheeting urban rain, or...the list of irritating things in everyday, non-hiking life that ask you to face your inner self goes on and on. Where are the woods then? Where are all those blisters and mosquitos and the high cloud vista of the craggy peaks? Admissions offers have heard that essay too many times The admissions readers have heard your story 10000000 times, maybe literally. They know you mean it-- but everyone does. They also know, because they have lived a little longer than you-- that those take-aways are often temporary. So they are looking for something more. Sorry to say: Not the cliched journey with its predictable life-lesson. So what are you to do, if that essay is burning a hole in your mind, feels like THE ONE? Find a unique angle on that essay You need to dig much, much deeper into your experience. Beyond even those aggravating, debilitating blisters that dominated your psyche at the time. Last year, I worked with a student whose essay took a long time to find itself, but when it Continue Reading …
brainstorming
Try to Understand
If you don't try, you may never understand. My new student, J, was in his bright red basketball jersey and shorts, and he was doing his best not to shiver. Starbucks was as cold as a meat freezer. But what he was saying warmed my mind. In the course of a short conversation, he'd already told me that as a kid he'd been pegged as "troublemaker." Or, even worse, proving the little words matter: "THE Troublemaker." You wouldn't know it now, from his composure even under the offensively strong air conditioning. But according to his teachers, he had "too much energy" and bounced around the room and, worst of all, Socrates be damned, he had too many questions. I'm like: "Hold the sauce. How is it possible to have too many questions IN A CLASSROOM?" Continue Reading …