We admissions people try to turn two-dimensional applications into three-dimensional portraits of students, hoping to gain insight into a student through his or her writing. Before that, though, students must try to turn their three-dimensional selves into meaningful writing on the page or screen – a more daunting task than ours.

Having taught English, I’m familiar with the anxiety the blank page causes in any writer, especially writing about oneself, and even more especially for a college application. I want to share a few thoughts about the college application essay (or “personal statement,” as you’ll often see it called). My first recommendation is that you think of the written application as a potential place of power. Everything else in the application is rather indirect or statistical: a test score, a letter grade, a recommendation letter. But in the written portions, you get to determine exactly what you want the admission committee to know about you. It is the one place in the application process where you are most clearly in charge.

Many students get nervous because they feel writing, particular creative writing, is not their strongest suit. I can say emphatically that the admission essay is not a literary contest. I have read many lyrical, poetic essays that did not tell me anything of substance about the student, so they did not advance the student’s case for admission. On the other hand, many of the engineers I have helped admit are not the next Toni Morrison or John Updike. They are simply smart young people who write clearly, readably, and in an organized, short format, about their beliefs, values, ambitions, or life experiences.

Another myth I’ve encountered is that you have to have a big story, and preferably an emotionally fraught one. Having read upward of 20,000 applications so far in my career, my sense is that most of our applicants have had fairly undramatic lives – and why not? They are all quite young. Most have had good to excellent educations. Most have had happy upbringings. And only a small number have had highly unusual life experiences, usually due to good or bad luck, not of their own doing. Yes, I have read essays that moved me, about a death in the family, the divorce of parents, overcoming a rough childhood or a terrible disease. But even a moving essay needs to be an effective essay, one that communicates something about its author’s intellectual abilities and readiness to attend my college.

Some of the best essays I’ve read were those that simply had a clear, individual voice, that helped me see and understand the student more clearly. Even the least exciting, most average life can be carefully and well observed. One essay that has stuck with me for years was written by a student who had lived in one place, attended a good school, and seemed to have a happy family life – no drama. But she wrote about the habit she and her mother developed of having breakfast together, just the two of them, every morning, how this daily encounter helped her learn things about her mother she’d never imagined, and how their relationship grew and deepened as a result. As I said, the impact is not in the story itself, but in how you make your life and your observations come alive for us as readers.

One last bit of advice: don’t just revise, but give yourself time to revise. Just setting your writing aside for a day or two, then approaching it afresh, can make a big difference. Admission officers have a sixth sense for writing that feels rushed, thrown together, not carefully considered. Have a friend, parent, or teacher read over your work and give you feedback. Make sure your writing is in your own voice, not your parent’s voice, and certainly not the voice of that imaginary Perfect Student you think the admission committee wants to see. Give yourself time to see your own writing, to test out approaches, to not feel panicky under deadline. Be yourself in all your unperfected, unique aspects: be ruminative, politically engaged, pensive, idealistic, undecided, curious. If you’re an amusing writer, don’t be afraid to use a little humor. But if you’re not sure if you’re funny in print – please don’t start with the college essay. Good luck!

Director of Admissions Rice University 
Keith Todd