College Admission Essays: Finding the Right Sort of Help

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Trolling for Topics

One of the most difficult aspects of writing an admission essay is deciding on a topic.  People who know you well — your immediate family, teachers who’ve spent a lot of time with you, your college counselor — can provoke a ton of good ideas just by asking the right questions. And as you generate two or three possible topics, the Helper Units in your life (parental or otherwise) may legitimately give you their opinion about the topic most likely to succeed.

Warning: No one can define a topic that is guaranteed to succeed. The college or graduate school application process has too many variables, many of which are out of your control. (You studied Tae Kwon Do and they need a Tai Chi master, for example.)

Other people are good at suggesting topics because they have an outsider’s perspective on your life that you can’t achieve. And because the admissions committee will read your essay from exactly that viewpoint — the outsider’s — it’s worthwhile to hear about that viewpoint before, not after, you mail your application.

Although helpers can comment on the topics you’re considering and even suggest some to you, they can’t make the final decision, as in “Write about the day the dog ran off with the roast beef.” You must remain in control of the choice.

Dialing for Details

After you’ve got a topic, you may certainly ask those who were involved to help you remember the details that will make your story come to life. For example, suppose you’re writing about the inspiration you’ve received from your ancestors, focusing on your grandmother’s immigration to the United States. Your mom may remember why Grandma left, how she traveled, where she lived, and so on. Interview your mom or phone Grandma herself and take notes. Or perhaps you’re writing about the science fair that you and your best friend entered. Call Best Friend for the lowdown on stuff that has completely slipped out of your mind, such as the comments the judge made as she examined your entry or the way that gooey stuff looked on her face just after the project exploded.

Warning: In the search for details, one tall temptation stands before you: fiction, also known as lies. If you can’t remember a detail, skip it. Don’t make it up!  You can, however, speculate or imagine, as long as you make the reader understand where you’ve wandered off the reality path into novel territory, as in “I always imagine that she wore a red dress, a green apron, and a Yankee cap on the day she arrived in America.”

The detail-gathering stage is totally open to your helpers, as long as none of them turn those details into sentences to be included in your essay.

Overseeing the Outline

When you begin to structure your ideas, putting the details in order, you may want some feedback. No problem, as long as you keep control of the work. Here are a couple examples of imaginary comments made after you’ve shown an outline to a Helper. In each pair, one comment is okay and one is too intrusive: