I once did a presentation with an admissions officer from UC
Irvine who gave the following advice to applicants regarding writing essays
that shared sad tales from their lives, stories that he called, "'Poor Me' essays."
“That kind of story might make me feel sorry for you. But
your job as an applicant is not to make me feel sorry for you.”
It might sound harsh, but there’s actually a lot of wisdom
in those words.
Whether you have a trite story about the day your cat passed
away or a very real personal difficulty you’ve faced, if the only thing it does
is make the reader feel sorry for you, it’s likely not a good choice for a
college essay topic.
The best college essays help the reader get to know you
better in a way that the rest of the application can’t do. But more importantly, it has to make the
reader like you. Arun once described the
most effective college essays as those that made him think that he’d like to be
this applicant’s roommate if he were back in college.
Your essay can show the reader that you’re interesting,
funny, resilient, or quirky. It can
illustrate just how much you love playing golf, writing poetry, or designing
websites. It can help the reader
understand what it was like immigrating to this country, growing up with a
single mom, or adjusting to life in a new city as a military child. And yes, it might very well share a story
that was difficult, painful, or even tragic.
But that story has to be a vehicle to help them get to know you and the
traits about you that would make you an interesting addition to their college
campus.
Remember, the admissions officer’s job is to evaluate you as
a candidate, not to be your therapist.
Here’s a past post with more advice on whether or not to
share a sensitive story in your college essay.