The number 1 thing to hit with an essay: Uniqueness

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The number 1 thing to hit with an essay: Uniqueness.

College essays are intended to show off who you are. They should cover a topic that you can’t fit in anywhere else on your application. They should be about something important to you, whether that be a hobby, an issue, a relationship, or a motto. They should broadcast your personality loud and clear.

But most importantly, they should be unique.

Unique, in this case, doesn’t mean that you should pick a strange or obscure topic. Not that those aren’t okay, they totally are, but there just aren’t that many unique topics out there. The system isn’t designed to hurt people who grew up in very typical lives; so don’t think that not being an exiled African princess will ruin your chances.

Unique means that the essay is clearly from you. It’s about you and could only have been written by you. Even if you pick a cliché topic (volunteering, a role model, travel, illness, harry potter) that doesn’t mean your essay has to be cliché.

For example, I wrote my big essay about my lifelong identity as a bookworm. But instead of waxing poetic about experiencing the lives of others through stories, I talked about how reading has affected me and shaped who I was.

Being a reader gives me bruises from tripping over the massive pile of books I keep next to my nightstand. It taught me to support my points and give a critical argument in Elementary school when my teachers thought I was telling lies about how much and how quickly I read. It served as an escape and a crutch through the worst of my middle school bullying, as a book in hand served as a signal that someone was safe to approach. It served as a catalyst for me to challenge myself constantly, to set goals (50 books in 90 days, for example) and top myself.

Plenty of people could write about their love of reading, but no one could write about reading using those kinds of stories. Those stories are the building blocks for who I am.

That’s what you’re going for. You don’t have to be original. But you have to be unique. Put your own spin on a cliché topic. There are no unique topics. Every admissions person is going to see 10,15,100 essays on the same topic. The topic isn’t the important part. The essay should use the topic as a jumping off point to explore who you are.

Be genuine. Be you. If anyone else could make the same points, find ones that are better tailored to who you are.