College Essays: Less is More
The college essay/personal statement is the medium through which admissions committees see a student's strengths or merits, or special circumstances that will make them a good fit for what the colleges are looking for in that particular application cycle. We always hear "show, not tell" when writing college essays, in the sense that you don't say in "raw" terms such as "I am very resilient or resourceful or ______ (however you want to fill the blank)."
Many students are under the impression that to "show and not tell" means to write stories from their lives. Well, the college essay is not exactly a story like a "story book." I have students coming to me with their drafts that are a chronology of a whole lifetime of events that happened to them, from infanthood through elementary school through high school. (Luckily, 12th graders only have about 16, 17 years of lifetime stories to pour on a page. Phew!)
One can write a personal story. But, a good storyteller has a message to bring across. It's not the same as writing at length about happenings from your life. Not at all.
The college essay is technically not a story. Yes, it could be a story, but with a focus on something or a few things about the student: strength, personality, special merits or circumstances. It is not a story in the sense that the more events you write about, the better the admissions side would know about you.
So, what does it mean to "show" through a story? Let me say that writing is an art, which is why when I work on essays with my students, it's never about a set of rules to follow but rather a collaborative process where the finished work is unique to the story and personality of each student. I could, however, share a few examples to illustrate how one “shows” without chronicling life events.
Example One: Excerpt from "Know My Name" by Chanel Miller
"...I’ll accept every pamphlet you hand out on the street… If there’s no more half-and-half on the counter at the coffee shop, I’ll drink my coffee black… I’ll put on three sweaters before I ask you to turn on the heat.”
So much about the writer can be inferred (i.e. “shown”) in these short sentences. Note that she did not use any lengthy narrations or dialogue a la mode de "whenever I walk past those who hand out pamphlets, I would take one or a few from them, because I know they have to finish the stacks of pamphlets before they can call it a day, and I am such a kind-hearted person” or “I never want to make trouble for others. One time, I was at Starbucks, I saw that they were understaffed and there was no more half-and-half …" Or "I never want to add burden on anybody. One time, I was at a friend's house for a playdate, the temperature inside was cold, but I decided to put on another layer instead, and my friend’s mom went ‘Oh your poor thing’ and I assured her I was fine and blah blah blah."
Example Two: Modified introduction from a past student's essay
"I drive myself to swim practice every morning at 5 a.m. The streets are so quiet I can almost hear the revolution of the wheels. They resemble the turns I make at the end of each lap. Over and over. That's my life."
This student got admission offers from a few Ivies, among many other top-tier schools. This short passage surpasses trying to describe the repetitive monotony of his life in detail. So much is conveyed with so little—his daily routine, his dread, his resilience (because admissions would see his other stellar sides such as a perfect GPA and SAT score in spite of a busy extracurricular schedule that starts at 5 a.m.) and even an expectation that he will make improvements (this is only the intro). With the metaphor of the continuous, repetitive turning of the wheels and the lap swims, almost without any story-telling, there is so much more depth and punch than if he were to bemoan his busy schedule by listing his activities throughout the day.
There are more aspects of essay writing that could be discussed. For this post, my focus is really to remind students to not try to include too many events in your life. My modus operandi is to use the term "less is more" when coaching my students on their college essays.
In Psychology, there's a concept called "theory of mind," which simply put, refers to the ability to attribute mental states to others. Loosely speaking, it is the opposite of ego-centrism. By high school, one really should be free from egocentrism and have a theory of mind to understand one fact: No one who's a stranger is interested in reading your lengthy life events. Don't get me wrong: to you, your life story is worth its weight in gold, but that's only as much as my own story is to me.
The college essay is meant for the admissions to know certain aspects of you. To bore them with a chronology of your life to date is to show how egocentric you are (psst: they have thousands of essays to plough through, spare them!). Plus, that's the mark of a bad writer.
