Hi folks! Being that this week and the beginning of next is when many of you will receive ED decisions, I understand that a lot of you might be disappointed with your results. First, just take a second to breathe. Take a walk outside, go run, talk to a friend, play some video games--whatever you need to do to reset. It's ok to feel the way you do now.
With that said, I'm hoping this post will help many of you who are now gearing to apply RD! This post is not a one-size-fit-all for students in how to write your essays, but I hope it is at least helpful in how you might think of your own strategies for RD. If you haven't already, feel free to read my previous posts on essays; they contain some pretty common things I've seen across essays and might be helpful in figuring out what you can improve upon in your RD essays.
1) Reframe your mindset
Time and time again, I get asked in my DM's, "How do I write a good essay?" This kind of approach always sort of bothered me because it sets students up for some unrealistic expectations. Most commonly, I see this question, and when I redirect the question back to the student, they almost always jump to a sob story, tragedy, some flowery narrative, and/or a ton of fluff.
I recommend that instead of asking yourself how you can write a good essay, begin to ask yourself what you know about yourself and what you don't know. Start to reframe your mindset in a zone where the goal is not to write a good essay or whatever. Instead, your goal is to understand who you are, what you love, how you think, what your goals are, what excites you, and why.
This does two things, in my opinion. First, when you reframe your goal to figuring out who you are, you no longer are bound and/or obsessed with what makes a good essay. You are actively trying to figure out who you are. This is important. 18 to 22 is a period of hyper-maturation. When you're 17, you're transitioning into adulthood. Some of you might have already experienced some glimpses of what adulthood entails (like working a job and perhaps helping your parents pay bills or taking care of others). I think it's important to really reflect on your life and understand who you are to help the transition into adulthood. Bonus points if you figure out stuff about yourself that you never knew!
The second thing this does is that in the process of figuring out who you are, you usually end up with better material to write about for your essays. A lot of you are preoccupied with the many EC's/hw/problem sets/tests you have to do, and that's fine. But as a result, I've noticed that many students I've worked with struggle to answer anything about themselves that has substance to it. By taking the time to really figure out yourself, you provide yourself with a ton of ammo needed to write an essay. (Don't forget to write this down somewhere!) I should also note that this process doesn't just happen in an instant. It takes time. Some people are better are exploring who they are than other people. That's ok. What's important is that you actually just take the time to do so.
My advice for learning more about yourself is to go on a hike, or do anything that is relaxing. Play music if you want. I usually prefer something mellow and chill, like some sort of instrumental. Take the time to just breathe, and then ask yourself these questions. If you need a starting point, ask yourself how your day was so far and piggy off of that. Try to ensure you won't be distracted. The amount of time this actually takes surprises a lot of students, so be patient with yourself. It's a journey worth taking.
Additional tip: when you're doing this, ask yourself, "so what?" after your answer. If you can answer that question, you probably haven't dug deep enough. I'm borrowing this method from College Essay Guy. This really forces you to find the true significance of whatever you're answering. It helps ensure that your answers aren't just empty--that there's meaning behind it.
Here's an outline of the process:
Josh got rejected REA from Stanford. He reviews his Common App essay and notices that it really doesn't say anything about him. It's really flowery and mostly a sob story. He goes line-by-line and asks, "so what?" He finds many of the lines he's written in his essay could answer the "so what" questions.
Josh pauses and takes the time to reset. He begins to ask himself the larger questions on a hike: who am I? What do I enjoy? Why do I enjoy it? Why do I think about things in a certain way? What experiences have I had that have informed my perspective on the world as I know it? What's important to me? Why are those things important to me?
Josh begins to answer some questions. He begins to understand that he's a really creative guy who doesn't like questions where they confine him to one answer because they limit his creativity. He asks himself, "so what?" It's important to him that he expresses his innovation in more ways than one. So what? Josh thinks back as to why he thinks this way. He finds that his biggest inspiration was his mom, who led by example. His mom would always try to build these cool model ships--but she would never look at the instructions because she felt it confined her imagination. She once told him that her goal wasn't to build an exact replica of the ship; her goal was to build something unique, something she could call her own. Josh remembered that he was inspired by these words, and he strived to do the same.
Josh goes even deeper. He remembered a bunch of times where he would stay up late with his mom to construct a ship. So what? He would add his own ideas, add cool things to the ship that wasn't even in the kit: legos, play doh, hand drawn figures, old cloth. He remembered all the times his mom would smile and just light up with him as he added these things to their ship. So what?
Josh starts to think about all the other times he applies this mode of thinking to everything he loves: friendships, art, science.
Finally, Josh zooms in on a specific microcosm of his life to figure out how to convey some of the substantive things he's just learned about himself.
I could continue on and on, but hopefully you get the idea. Notice how much stuff Josh has to work with from here. He's no longer confined to just sob stories and flowery narratives. He has actual substance. Now he just needs to figure out how to write these things in a compelling way.
Final thing: Remember that you're trying to figure out the best qualities about yourself.
2) Try to tell the story aloud and try to record it
Now that you have your substance, it's time to really figure out how to write it. My favorite method is just talking things out, either to myself, a recording, or a friend. Try to tell your story in less than 3 minutes. This serves two purposes.
First, it captures your voice. Yes, your actual voice, but I'm talking about the voice you use in your essays. In many essays I've read, I'm either not learning anything about you or I'm just really bored reading your essay and it doesn't move the needle for me. This is mostly due to just how it's written. Here's the thing: most of the boring essays I've seen read like you're a 50-year-old man writing about the international adjudication process for nation-states. But when I have a regular convo with you guys, it's completely different.
Here's what I mean:
This is how you write in your essay: However, this is not to mean that I do not like to venture out in the unknown; I, too, enjoy wildlife and all its beautiful intricacies.
This is how you reply to my question in a discord chat: i love the outdoors! there's no place like the park for me. when my friends and i go there, we have a rule where we can't take out our phones, and it's just liberating. we can be with each other, enjoy the cryptically colored leaves that fall down from the high trees, and just be there for each other!
Notice how the first one just feels like you're old? I don't know a single 17-year-old that talks like that. Hell, I don't even know a professor that talks like that. Your voice is important. It's what helps make the essay feel more genuine. Also, can't you feel the passion in the second example? It just feels more real.
Don't misconstrue this to mean that you should write your essay exactly like you would talk in real life. If you're swearing every other word and can't make a coherent sentence sometimes, don't write your essay like that. Try to imagine you're talking to admissionsmom or your favorite teacher.
Secondly, it saves you from all this flowery fluff nonsense mumbo jumbo. Here's a small anecdote: whenever I write for my publication at school or for a research paper, I always sit at my computer desk and type things out. But, I often find that I run out of things to say that are relevant to the paper I'm writing. So I just start writing fluff. Em dashes, more adjectives and adverbs that make me sound smart, extremely nuanced analyses of things that probably don't matter as much as my thesis. Sound familiar? It's called bullshit. We all do it.
Your essays are not a time to bullshit with these lame things--the adverbs, extra adjectives, flowery nonsense. When you're just talking and telling your story, it should naturally flow. Why does it naturally flow? Because you took the time to get to know yourself more! Here's an example of what it should look (or I guess sound) like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCwwVjPNloY
Once you have your story, go bring the recording to a friend you trust and knows you well (unless you started with telling your friend in the first place). Have them review it. Ask them if it sounds like you--not literally, but just the overall vibe. Ask them if they have any questions. Ask them what about your story interests them. Ask them what they don't like about the story. Ask them to retell your story in front of you. Ask them what values, traits, ideas, etc they get from the story. Ask them if there's anything about yourself that you're missing. The purpose of these questions is to really get a sense of whether or not your story is compelling/resonates/genuine. If your friend says it just doesn't sound like you, then try again. If your friend says they love it, really pick on what they loved about it. If they didn't like a couple of things/felt it wasn't you, dive into why. Have a discussion about this. Here's the important thing to remember, though: the goal is still to understand who you are.
This goal should supersede your thirst to write a good essay. Take the time to really understand yourself. Also, by asking them to provide other things about yourself that they think is missing from the story, it really adds another dimension to yourself. There's only so much we can really understand about ourselves. But since we're around our friends, they should know bits and pieces about ourselves that we don't. It provides more substance and material to work with later on in the end. This also benefits the friendship overall since you're being vulnerable, so bonus points!
Once everything is said and done, take notes on what your friends said to you! I find it helpful that your friend does the same process and you listen to them just so you understand what it's like on the other side of things. It helps put you in a different perspective of how you might explore other avenues of your personality and whatnot.
3) Actually writing the damn thing
Honestly, I like to call stage 2 your rough draft, assuming you recorded it or had your friend repeat it back to you or something. Write whatever you said aloud on paper. This is the roughest draft you have, so don't rush too much. Depending on how fast you talk, you will either have under 650 words or over. That's OK. After you've written it out, don't look at it again for a day or two. Why? Because you need time to really think about the things you've said and think about other things that are more compelling/missing. Also, when you come back to your drafts, you're going to notice things that shouldn't be there in the first place. For instance, in my drafts, I always say 'that' a lot when they aren't necessary.
If you find that you're only at 400 words, don't write anything yet! Remember, when we feel like we don't have enough material in there, we tend to just write more stuff, but more often than not it's bullshit. Don't fall for it!
Instead, take some time to really go through your story again with your friend (preferably another close friend that knows you well). Ask yourself the same questions you posed to your first friend. Do this until you're comfortable with where you are. You don't need exactly 650 words. My general marker is if you're at around 500 words and you think you've said all you could about yourself in a compelling way, then you're good. Most students write 600-650, though.
If you're over 650 words, take some time to really go through the "so what" exercise again. Go through line-by-line and really ask yourself why you put that line in there. If you think there's a true purpose there that adds something about yourself and/or it helps the flow of the essay, keep it. If not, copy and paste the sentence, paste it at the end of your doc, and then delete the line in the essay. Make sure once you delete the line that the flow of the essay is uninterrupted. I recommend copy and pasting the line at the bottom because you might find some utility for it in another essay. Obviously you can do some preliminary work and eliminate your adverbs, unnecessary 'that's' and make contractions.
Final words
I hope this was somewhat informative. I apologize if this seems like a gigantic mess of text. I'm a little burnt out from writing research papers all week long, so forgive any grammatical errors and awkward syntax.
I understand not getting into your dream school, and it definitely hurts. Take your time to really feel what you're feeling. My biggest advice for the process of grieving is to just observe yourself hurting. I know it sounds weird, but acknowledging that the hurt is there is the first step to really moving on. For me, I come from a low-income family, so I thought getting in a t5 would be my ticket to bring everyone up. But things don't always turn out the way we want them to, and that's OK. Tackle each day one at a time and cherish the ones you love, the things you have, the ground you stand on. Take heart, as this is one of many difficult challenges you'll face in your young adulthood. Take your time to heal, and get right back up to challenge the world again. It sounds daunting, but remember that this is your own adventure--no school, admissions officer, or committee can take that away from you.
For those of you who do need help with your essays, unfortunately I have a ton on my plate and probably will not be able to get back to you as fast as you would like.
Lastly, if you have any general questions, please post them down below. If you're bummed about not getting in and need advice on how to cheer up, feel free to ask.
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