Composing College Admission Essays Starring You

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There are three typical types of questions educational institutions will ask to learn more about you: those relating to your academic experiences, your future goals, your daydreaming/hypothetical self and your character.

Explaining Your A+ in Recess and Other Academic Experiences

Educational institutions, not surprisingly, are interested in your academic experience — not just the numbers and letters on your transcript, but the way you relate to school and learning. Essay questions about your identity as a student include:

• Describe a class you liked.
• Does your academic record reflect your achievement or your potential? Why?
• Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your education thus far.
• Describe a failure and what you learned from it.
• Address any low grades or failures in your background.
• What do you wish you’d known before starting high school? How would that knowledge have changed your high school experience?
• Describe a situation in which you surprised yourself and learned something about your talents and interests.

Faced with one of the preceding questions, you have some thinking to do. How do you learn? What subject or type of learning is difficult or easy for you? Which class or assignment awakened your passion? It may not be the class in which you got the highest grade, by the way. When I look back at my own high school experience (so far away I need a telescope just to get a glimpse), I don’t remember all the A’s I got (she said modestly) in history and English. I remember the sweat I poured into Experimental Physics. Nothing in that course came easily to me, but I stuck with it and gained at least enough information to become a fan of StarTrek (the one with the bald captain, not the other ones). You may have something similar to recount.

To describe an academic experience, consider focusing on a particular activity or assignment.  Another way to answer the academic-experience questions is to write an essay that surveys a year or more in one subject or field. “Ranging over a long period of time,”. Here is an excerpt from an essay written by a fine young mathematician. The time period discussed in the essay begins in third grade and continues through senior year in high school. The author presents sample experiences from third and tenth grade in some detail. She also briefly touches upon her passion for math at other times in her life. The essay is a mixture of long and short descriptions:

third grade math lab, playing with tangrams instead of practicing softball (long description)

car rides and math olympiad (brief mention)

10th grade class (long description)

11th grade pre-calculus and 12th grade independent study in math (brief mention)

The author ends the essay with a dose of interpretation, explaining that her mathematical studies relate to other academic experiences, such as writing and art history. She closes with a punch line that delivers her main idea: “Whatever I do in life, I will always be thinking of an equation to go with it.”

In general, you shouldn’t dwell on your academic shortcomings in the essay portion of your application. Even if you’re describing a failure (responding to a specific request to do so), concentrate on the positive aspects of the experience. Explain what you learned from the fiasco.

Envisioning the Future: When I Retire at 20, I Will...

Judging from the applications I’ve read, I’m not the only one who read H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine as a kid and never got over it. Dozens of schools ask you to time-travel to a future college reunion or to some other indeterminate moment that has yet to occur. Still more institutions ask for an essay speculating about your future life’s work and accomplishments. Check out these questions: