Accepted! 50 successful college admission essays - Gen Tanabe, Tanabe Kelly 2008
Too much detail
How to find the perfect topic
The director of admissions at Gettysburg College explains why it is possible to reveal too much
The essay can bring out the best and worst in all of us. When we sat down to write our essays it was the fi rst time that we really had a chance to refl ect on who we were and what we had done with our lives. While this type of deep thinking should lead to an essay that surprises even you, for some students it becomes an opportunity for confession, for an outpouring of fears, disappointments and anger.
Gail Sweezey, director of admissions at Gettysburg College, has seen more than her share of such essays. According to Sweezey, “Sometimes students can get way too personal in their essays. We want to hear what students have to say, and sometimes students have things happening in their lives that are diffi cult such as an illness or parents’ divorce. It’s totally fi ne to talk about these kinds of things. However, what doesn’t work well are essays that go into way more detail than necessary.”
As you are writing, be sensitive about topics that are close to you. Remember to take a step back to gain some perspective. Sometimes too much detail can obscure the overall message of your essay.
Will your essay be interesting? This is a very subjective question, but you should try to answer this as objectively as possible. Put yourself in the place of the admission offi cer who has already read 200 or more essays and has just grabbed yours, which also happens to be the last before he or she can go home. Will your essay pique the interest of this tired admission offi cer? Will the topic or your approach to the question make the admission offi cer want to read past the introduction? Just because a topic is original does not always guarantee that it will be interesting.
Can you present the topic in a way that will appeal to a wide audience? Do you need specifi c knowledge of the topic in order to understand it? For example, the best topic may not be polymerized nanocomposites. Remember who your readers might be. Don’t assume that an admission offi cer has any particular knowledge. They are generally well-read but may not necessarily be able to appreciate a topic that requires in-depth scientifi c or technical knowledge.
Is the topic truly meaningful to you? Essays about something that you care about are much easier to write and much more interesting to read. Think about all of the writing that you have done in the past. It is much easier and more enjoyable to write about something that you care about than an assignment that you are forced to complete. Help yourself write a better essay by picking a topic that really matters to you.
Can the essay be recycled? Since you will have to write many essays, one of the ways you can reduce this work is to write essays that you can use for more than one college. Often, just by making small changes you can use a well-written essay to answer a similar question by another college. There is more on recycling in Chapter 5.
As you eliminate topics, you will notice that a few will rise to the top as being the most promising. In the next chapter we will put pen to paper or fi ngers to keyboard. However, before you zoom off to write your masterpiece, we want to leave you with a few words on what we consider to be topics that you should avoid or at least approach with extreme caution.