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Helping with the Application Essay
by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P.
reviewed and revised by Robert Needlman, M.D., F.A.A.P.
After all of the effort you and your teen put into choosing the right schools to apply to and figuring out financial aid options, filling out the applications might seem easy by comparison.
Most college websites provide applications, which you can either download or complete online, or colleges will mail you the paper-and-pen version on request. The fees for applying vary, but most are in the $25 to $45 range.
The applications ask for basic information about the applicant and family, high school attended and grades, extracurricular activities, and teacher recommendations. All of this is fairly straightforward--just a matter of filling in the blanks.
Then there is the dreaded Personal Statement. The instructions vary slightly from school to school, but typically the applications ask for an essay of 250 to 500 words on a theme such as:
- "Describe an experience in which you have had to persevere to succeed."
- "Tell about a person or experience that has had a significant effect on your life."
- "Explain an issue of personal, local, national, or international concern and its importance to you."
- "Give an example of a value or ideal that is important to you...describe a situation in which you behaved in a manner that was inconsistent with that value."
- "Describe the future."
Many colleges also invite students to write on a theme of their own choosing, while others allow applicants to submit a piece of creative writing that was a high school assignment and some of the less selective schools don't require an essay at all. Admissions offices use the application essay for two reasons: 1) to see if the applicant can write clearly, which indicates the ability to think clearly; and 2) to flesh out their picture of the applicant as a person--not just a collection of grades, test scores, and recommendations.
The difficulty of the Personal Statement is not so much the subject matter (after all, the themes generally don't require research or extensive prior study), but rather the anxiety that most students feel when faced with a blank sheet of paper and the instruction to "say something meaningful about yourself!"
What can you, as a parent, do to help make the process less tormenting and a good outcome (a successful application) more likely? Here are several useful suggestions.
- Help with deadlines. You know your child best. While some teens dive right in, others tend to leave anxiety-provoking tasks to the very last minute. If your child has this tendency, you may need to help her set an early enough deadline for a first draft, to allow time to review and revise her essay.
- Be a sounding board, but don't take over. If your teen wants someone to listen to ideas or drafts of the essay, that's great. But resist the temptation to dictate what should be in the essay (or what should be left out!). Admissions officers who have read hundred of personal statements are looking for a teen's ideas, not a parent's.
- Avoid consultants. Although some consultants offer legitimate help, many simply supply prewritten essays, weakly disguised. Besides being unethical, using these services is probably not as helpful as the proprietors would like you to believe. Inevitably, a canned essay will not sound genuine. Also, it's unlikely to match the way your child comes across in person at an interview.
- Offer to proofread. When your child is satisfied that her essay says the right things and is free of grammatical and spelling errors, offer to read it carefully yourself. Very often a new set of eyes (yours) will find errors that your young author has overlooked. Every writer needs an editor. In addition to outright mistakes, it's helpful to point out sentences that you may find confusing. If you have difficulty understanding something, chances are the people in the admissions office will, too.
It's also a good idea to stay within the word limits provided. Admissions officers read hundred of essays. If your child's is double the recommended length, there's a chance that the reader will simply stop halfway through.
- Try to see it as a learning experience. Writing is difficult for almost everybody, and penning a short essay about oneself is especially hard. The payback for all that work should be not only a convincing essay, but also the self-knowledge your teen will gain from having to put her thoughts down in words, and the satisfaction of having done something that is actually quite difficult.
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Created September 04, 2001
Reviewed and revised September 30, 2004
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