College Admission Essays: Writing for the Tired, the Poor The Admissions Office

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Meeting Your Readers: The Admissions Committee

The Authority Figures deciding your future are a fairly diverse bunch. The typical college admissions office is run by a professional, the director, with a strong commitment to the institution and years of experience evaluating candidates. The director oversees an admissions committee that may include recent graduates of the school, faculty, older alumni, and even current students. The admissions office’s tasks are many:

• Attract a bright, varied pool of applicants whose numbers (as in the number of applicants and their standardized test scores) increase each year.
• Present the institution favorably so that those who are admitted choose to attend.
• Respond to the needs of the institution for athletes, writers, musicians, and so forth.
• Administer a financial aid budget for maximum effectiveness.
• Stock the office with brewed-to-sludge-level coffee so that caffeinated counselors have the energy to evaluate mile-high piles of applications.
• Read a zillion essays, some of which are yours.

Also keep in mind that your essay will arrive at one of two times:

• Early decision applicants: Autumn, usually by November 1st, when the readers are immersed in football or recovering from the World Series, trying to get some sort of winter wardrobe in order because those summer tee-shirts are so-o-o last season, preparing (if they’re faculty or students) for the last assignments of the fall semester, and thinking about whether they’re up to cooking or even attending Thanksgiving dinner.
• Regular applicants: Late winter or early spring, when the readers are just beginning to realize that those New Year’s resolutions were a bad idea, shopping for a bathing suit that erases winter’s diet lapses, preparing (if they’re faculty or students) for the last assignments of the spring semester, and desperately dreaming of summer vacation.

At most universities, two or more members of the admissions committee read every word of each application, including your essays. At the very least, one counselor will review your work. Though admissions counselors in general want to give you a fair shake, they plow through far too many essays every day. One of your goals in writing an admission essay is to grab their attention and keep it. Another is to make the experience of reading your essay worth their investment of time and energy.

Grad School Alert:  If you're applying to law, medical, or business school, the admissions committee probably consists of professionals in the field.  They'd like to see applicants who have thought deeply about what it means to pursue their career of choice, not applicants who say, "Doctors wear white coats.  Cool!"  Do your homework before you write an essay for a post-graduate institution.  Who knows?  You may discover that you'd prefer a different career after all, saving yourself essay-writing and about $200,000 tuition.

Keeping Their Attention When Yours Is the 9000th Essay They've Read Today

As an English teacher I collect 30 or 40 essays a week. When my energy gauge is stuck on “empty” and I still have ten student papers left to correct, I play a little game with myself. I thumb through the remaining work until I find one that catches my eye with an interesting fact or a great first sentence. Needless to say, I’m grateful at that moment to have anything spark my interest, and I tend to look more favorably on that particular paper than on the one that makes me mutter, “Wake me up when it’s over.”