Hidden Expectations of College Application Essays
In this American Journal of Education article, Sarah Beck (New York University) and
Amanda Godley (University of Pittsburgh) say the decision by many colleges to make SAT
and ACT scores optional, along with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on race-based
affirmative action, have made the application essay more important than ever. “The pressure is
on college applicants,” say Beck and Godley, “to illustrate the kinds of nonacademic factors
increasingly prized in applicants – namely, attitude – and so-called performance factors such as
teamwork, leadership, grit, and motivation.”
Beck and Godley analyzed college essays that were identified as exemplary by college
admissions staffers at four highly selective U.S. colleges, and also studied the advice given by
several groups to students writing college essays. Some common themes from the latter:
- Convey your identity, personality, uniqueness, values, thoughts.
- Present a unique topic.
- Reflect your maturity, introspection, grit, drive, curiosity.
- Provide new information (not a repeat of other parts of the application).
- Stick with the same main idea throughout.
- Give details, “show don’t tell,” be concise, don’t use clichés.
- Don’t be formal, but be clear and proofread your essay.
- Use your “voice and style.”
- Stand out from others.
- Demonstrate that you are a good, creative writer.
- Show how you will fit at this school and contribute to the community.
Beck and Godley believe the college essay is a unique genre that most high-school
students have not had exposure to. “Given the lack of alignment between the college
application essay genre and traditional school-assignment genres,” say the authors, “we are
concerned that emphasis on these essays for admissions decisions may continue to
disadvantage first-generation, racially and linguistically minoritized, and low-income students
in underresourced schools. Students with access to extra financial and human resources
increasingly receive the additional guidance needed to discern the hidden expectation of this
genre, whereas those with fewer resources do not.”
Beck and Godley identified a number of characteristics in the 20 highly-rated college
essays they analyzed, including:
- The use of an extended metaphor – for example, a tortilla, a Greek island, a bridge, a
pickle truck, Chuck Taylor shoes;
- Presenting themselves as good creative writers with maturity, introspection, grit, drive,
and curiosity;
- Standing out from the crowd, frequently indicated by the applicant’s cultural
background – “I am Puerto Rican and Irish and French and Polish and all these
backgrounds have allowed me to see unique perspectives.”
- A niche interest – Legos, music, fly-fishing, rock-climbing, nanomedicine, farming,
potatoes, soccer, creative writing;
- Presenting themselves as “authentic, distinctive, and a suitable fit for membership in
the community;”
- Exemplary essays avoided direct self-appraisal, instead referring to the reactions of
others: “My climbing partners say that I take the most unorthodox routes when
climbing, but ironically they’re the most natural and comfortable paths for me.”
- Including micronarratives – short, embedded stories – and vivid imagery;
- Mixing exposition and narrative in effective ways.
“This structure,” say Beck and Godley, referring to the last item on the list above, “illuminated
one of the ways in which the genre of college admissions essays is quite different from the
genres of essays typically taught in schools – such as literacy analysis, persuasion, and
personal narrative – and why this genre can be particularly confusing for students who do not
have access to expert guidance in the essay-writing process.”
Beck and Godley have these pointers for teachers, counselors, and parents preparing
students to write effective college essays:
• Expose students to literary journalistic essays (such as those in The New Yorker) that
combine personal narrative, persuasion through compelling example, and scientific findings on
data in novel ways that bring issues and ideas to life for readers. “Studying and emulating
multiple examples of such published essays,” they say, “is one approach that teachers and
counselors could take to provide support for students writing the new and unfamiliar genre of
college admissions essays.”
• Explicitly discuss with students “the aspects of self that admissions offices seem to
value,” giving them agency for the “cultural expectations for the representation and sharing of
the self with unknown readers.”
• The topics, vocabulary, and syntax of successful college essays are a linguistic resource
that can be taught to all students and form an important part of the “tool kit of academic
literacy skills” needed to vault over disadvantages.
• Beck and Godley discussed ChatGPT with college admissions officers and were told
that at least so far, artificial intelligence is incapable of emulating “the compelling personal
voice that distinguishes outstanding essays that improve applicants’ chances for acceptance at
elite colleges.”
“‘What Makes You, You’: The Discursive Construction of the Self in US College Application
Essays” by Sarah Beck and Amanda Godley in American Journal of Education, August 2023
(Vol. 129, #4, p. 539-564); the authors can be reached at sarah.beck@nyu.edu and
VPGodley@pitt.edu .
