Part 2 is a continuation of Analyzing Ten Stupid Ways to Ruin Your College Application, Part 1, a closer look at Jay Mathews’ original article Ten Stupid Ways to Ruin Your College Application.
6. Use your application essay to expand upon how great your grades, scores and activities are.
One college official on Admissions 101 said a common bonehead play is to waste the application essay by telling admissions officers things “we more or less already know or could figure out just from reading other parts of the application.” This is not only boring, but it leaves the impression that your grades, scores and extracurricular activities are all that is interesting about you.
It’s a “bonehead play,” but not necessarily because it makes you appear as though you’re just a transcript.
The approach to an effective college application is the same approach I use when I work with a job seeker. The important concept here is real estate – and real estate is valuable stuff.
When you apply for a job, you get two pieces of real estate: the cover letter and a resume/CV. That’s all. The cover letter is 1 page and the resume is 1-2 pages. If one is applying for an executive or academic position, a CV will take the place of a resume – maybe 3-5 pages.
Either way, that’s not a lot of real estate to sum up one’s candidacy.
A college application can have more parts – a transcript, test scores, a resume, an essay, recommendations, etc. – but you’re still quite limited. You’ve only got a few pages to present yourself, so you can’t waste time and space talking about the same thing more than once.
If you’re a job seeker, rehashing your resume in a cover letter provides little additional value to the hiring manager. What’s the point of saying the same things the application reader can get from your resume?
A college application is no different. You need to take advantage of the real estate – don’t blow it by presenting the same material over and over.
Common sense, yes? Here’s where it gets weird:
College officials will never say this out loud, but one purpose of the college essay is to weed out insufferable people whom no one would want as a roommate. One good strategy is to write about some lovable quirk that reveals a facet of your character and lets you use some self-deprecating humor, essential to any successful college application essay.
They’re unlikely to say that out loud because it’s nearly baseless.
If I were to type out a full explanation of why these two sentences are misguided, my fingertips would wear down to the bone.
Does anyone really believe that admissions committees are so in touch with the personalities of their incoming student bodies that they can read 600 words and decide who will be easy to live with? Sure, if your essay is about how you’re an only child, have never shared a room and refuse to consider the possibility until you’re married, it might reflect badly on your candidacy. But really, worrying about what an application reader might assume about your behavior in a 15′x15′ dorm room after reading your personal statement is absurd.
I’ve read many personal statements that wouldn’t give the reader the slightest inkling about an applicant’s dorm persona. About 10 years ago I read in a book about college application essays a sample essay in which the applicant described a day on a recent vacation. He’d hiked up a large hill – it took several hours and this applicant seemed to be a stranger to physical exertion – and at the summit he took out his lunch.
In that lunch he’d packed a banana. He described in detail how that banana tasted and how he felt eating while it after such a difficult climb. He’d never paid so much attention to such a mundane thing in his life.
It was a wonderful essay that showed his ability to think, demonstrated his writing skill and gave the reader a glimpse into a side of him that didn’t appear on his transcript. I don’t know if the banana-eater was a good roommate, but he did get into Harvard.
But for the sake of humoring Mathews, let’s imagine a move-in day conversation that goes something like this:
John: “Hey, I’m John.”
Steve: “Hey John, I’m Steve. Do you like bananas?”
John: “Do I ever! Harvard selected me in part because they thought my banana-eating prowess would add to the social dynamic of Harvard Yard.”
Steve: “Wow – I love bananas! I can’t imagine living with someone who didn’t. I think we’re going to get along just fiiiiiiine.”
And they lived happily ever after. Well, until John stayed up all night playing Halo 3 when Steve was trying to rest up for his Differential Equations mid-term…
7. Nobody knows you when you are touring a college, so if you want to wear a T-shirt from a rival university or make a cellphone call, go right ahead.
Mathews elaborates:
This is another problem with which I was unfamiliar. I am not entirely convinced that it is an issue, but Connolly and other experts insist it can hurt you. They think tour guides in some cases have the names of the people in their tours and will report unseemly behavior. A college tour guide told Admissions 101 that his supervisors encouraged him to tell them about tour participants who did GOOD things, such as ask insightful questions. So, I suppose, bad news can also get back to the people who are deciding your fate.
I’m not sure why he’s unfamiliar with the erosion of courtesy – anyone who’s been to a movie theater in the last 10 years could write a dissertation on it.
But he and Connolly are right – people notice when you’re rude. And not only that, but you shouldn’t be rude to avoid losing points in the application process. You shouldn’t be rude because, well, it’s rude.
Use common sense. Conduct yourself respectfully for your sake and that of the others touring. At many schools, tour guides/hosts are advanced undergraduates who either volunteer or get paid peanuts for their service. Don’t make their job tougher.
Does it really matter what you wear on a tour? I think such a concern is outrageous and wholly insignificant, but it’s not that tough to avoid putting on a Boston College t-shirt when you’re touring Boston University. But if you want the truth, I find it both naive and offensive to think that a Duke University tour guide is so petty that he docks points on your application because you showed up wearing a UNC hat.
Remember, admissions reps aren’t that dumb and childish. And if they are, do you really want to spend four years there?
8. Let your parents do whatever they need to do to help you get admitted.
Helicopter parents, always hovering, have become a part of modern American folklore. They exist, of course. Students who let mom and dad get too involved are likely to suffer.
Helicopter parent folklore exists because the media loves the concept and the stories are entertaining, but I digress.
Parents need to respect the admissions process as much as students do. If parents and students don’t deviate from the application process, #8 won’t an issue.
Students, especially now, are busy people and sometimes parents have to follow up for them. If you’ve got a question about a college, financial aid or anything else related to applying, a parent can call and ask. Just remember that admissions reps/committees are likely even busier – ask your question, let them do their job by answering and leave it at that.
There’s just no reason to try to lobby aggressively on your child’s behalf. A good application lobbies strongly enough.
9. Colleges are attuned to all the latest fads, so when e-mailing them, it is fine to use text- message abbreviations.
Connolly said: “OMG, this is annoying for us non-texters and IDK why students do this to us adults when we are not their BFF.”
Conduct yourself like a professional at all times. Does that sound overly formal? It shouldn’t – high school seniors are professional students.
And if a student just can’t grasp the concept of behaving like an adult, at least convince them to behave like a veteran of childhood.
10. Don’t proofread your application carefully and don’t bother to check to see if the envelope in which you placed the application or letter of recommendation for College A might actually have the address of College B.
Keep your papers organized and work on applications one at a time. Problem solved.
Proofreading is a necessity. Again, it’s about self-respect and professionalism. If your eye for mistakes isn’t terribly keen, find others – at least 2 – to proofread for you.
I’m reminded of something I wrote months ago about a college counselor who suggests that applicants make mistakes on purpose to show that they’re real human beings.
Dumb. Don’t do that. And if you want to know why, you can browse that old post – it starts halfway through this article.
We’ve taken a closer look at ten ways you may or may not ruin your college application. I’ll leave you with a snippet from that article I just linked – it details a careless blunder that really didn’t have much of an impact on an applicant’s candidacy:
… when I was in high school, a friend of mine applied to SUNY Binghamton. He mailed his application on the deadline during 6th period lunch. After our physics lab the next period, we talked about his essay. He had a copy in his notebook and passed it around. I noticed that in the heading he’d written “Binghampton†– it’s spelled wrong but mimics the pronunciation. He never bothered to check.
He wasn’t a stellar applicant. He spelled the university’s name wrong on his essay. He still got in.
The moral of that story? Relax. This process isn’t as perilous as Mathews and some others make it out to be.
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