An Eye-opening Way to Think About the College Essay

I heard something really beautiful a few months back on a podcast by The College Essay Guy. (He’s got a lot of resources on his website, and a great podcast where he talks with admissions officers from all over the country.) In one particular episode, an admissions officer revealed something poignant.

“At 17 years of age,” he said, “your essay should not be a record of your history, but a record of your becoming.”

This stopped me in my tracks. (I listen to podcasts every morning while I walk or run, so literally, it stopped me!) Such a simple statement, but oh, so profound.

I think one of the biggest fears students have when coming up with a topic for their essay is feeling like they haven’t done something special (spoiler alert: you have!); or overcome some hardship (if this is true for you, consider yourself lucky. Also, no one should have to trot out their trauma to get into college.); or solved the world’s greatest problems (I have yet to meet a teenager who has found the cure for cancer.)

At the tender age of 17, students are (knock wood, ptu ptu ptu) just at the beginning of what will hopefully be long, adult lives. They aren’t simply unfinished books; they are largely unwritten. 

So as you talk about the things you’ve learned, what else are you curious about? In sharing the things you’ve done, what is it that you still want to do? What do you ponder, how do you hope to grow, what do you still want to discover about the world … and yourself?

Not only is this a more honest reflection of where a student is in their life, merely admitting to not having it all figured out just yet is a refreshing act of vulnerability.

Think about it: if you already know everything – if you’ve already got it all figured out – then why do you need to go to college in the first place?