What ingredients make the perfect college essay?
Think about it. What comes to mind? Most students go BIG. They think, “What’s an experience I’ve had that will impress the admissions committee? What’s something I’ve done that will blow their minds and make me stand out from the piles of other applicants?”
Maybe you’ve spent hours racking your brain, trying to think of a trip or experience that will definitively prove to the admissions counselor at your dream school that you are gifted but selfless, worldly yet humble – basically, the second coming of Mother Theresa.
All this searching for “specialness” often leads to a “special” type of college essay. You’ve probably never heard of it before, but every admissions counselor since Kennedy was president knows exactly what it is:
The “Dreaded Mission Trip Essay” (DMTE for short.)
The DMTE describes a grand summer trip to a faraway place. Those essays where you help “save the world” in a seven day service trip. It’s an essay that basically says “Before I went to Timbuktu I didn’t know poor people existed. But now that I do, I want to end world hunger and save the world.”
High school students write the DMTE because that’s what they think admissions counselors want to hear. They’re trying to sound impressive with lofty language about “How much they saw” and “How profoundly they’ve changed.”
But here’s the biggest secret in college admissions: You can’t humble-brag your way into Harvard. The more you try to impress admissions counselors at your dream school, the less impressed they’ll be.
The problem with the Dreaded Mission Trip Essay is that it showcases a false ideal of a “perfect teenager”. What it doesn’t showcase is the unique you. Instead of going big-picture, zoom in on a tiny moment or learning that changed you or your worldview.
Students think they can’t write about boring, normal, “mundane” topics like trying out for the baseball team or acting in Les Miserables last fall. But guess what? When you’re seventeen, these “normal” experiences are the substance of your actual life, not the dream life you’re trying to paint for an essay reader.
On the surface, losing a swim meet or working in your uncle’s tire shop for three summers seems boring. But dig deeper. As you cried your tears of defeat, or as you sweated through piles of rubber, you were learning lessons that are uniquely yours.
The admissions counselors reading your essays are looking to read something only you could have written. So when you write your piece, ditch the Dreaded Mission Trip. Instead, write about the Mundane Miracles hiding in the memories of your so-called normal life.
Stop Stressing. Start Writing.
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