Too many students try to inject a meaningful life lesson into the story they share in their college essays.
“Being on the tennis team taught me the importance of committing to my goals.”
“My leadership position demonstrates that I work well with others.”
“During my trip to France, I learned to appreciate different cultures.”
There are two problems with those messages in college essays.
1. They’re often not true.
2. They’re the same lessons thousands of other applicants are claiming to learn.
I’m not suggesting that you can’t learn things on the tennis team, in a leadership position, or in a foreign country. But has that tennis player ever actually said those words, not in a college essay or a formal interview, but in their day-to-day life, to a friend, relative, or teacher? I’ve certainly never met a student who has.
And that’s why those lessons fall flat when you cite them in college essays. They’re clichés, not unlike the formulaic movie where you can see the ending coming a mile away. College admissions officers want to get to know the real you, not some contrived version who injects deep life lessons that weren’t actually there at the time.
There are two ways to avoid this trap.
1. Remember that not every essay subject needs a deep life lesson.
No, you shouldn’t write an essay that leaves the reader asking, “Why did this kid just spend 500 words telling me how much he likes to eat peanut butter out of the jar?” But that doesn’t mean that your stories need to have deep, philosophical meaning. Sometimes the real point is that you were the worst player on the tennis team but you loved tennis anyway. Or maybe you never felt better about yourself than when the school dance you had planned got a large turnout. Or maybe the best part of your trip to France was chatting with your big sister for ten uninterrupted hours on the flight. You’ve just shared an interesting tale about yourself that the reader couldn’t have learned from the rest of your application. No big life lesson necessary.
2. Share the real lesson if there is one.
If you learned something from an experience, say so! But share the real lesson, regardless of whether it’s deep or impressive. And share it in a way that you’d actually express verbally to a person you know.
“When you work as a restaurant host and you have to wear a uniform, you learn how to iron a shirt really well.”
“The day I saw my mother argue a case in court was the day I realized that my mom is, to put it bluntly, kind of a badass.”
“When I had to choose between drama and baseball, everyone in my life was surprised that I chose the stage over the diamond. Two years later, I can say it was the smartest decision I’ve ever made.”
There’s nothing contrived about messages like those. Nothing manufactured to sound deep or impressive, just real insights from the students who experienced them. But the real lessons are almost always more interesting to read about.