“During my junior year, I was fortunate enough to be given the unique opportunity to perform over 50 hours of volunteer work at the hospital. I sought out the internship because of my interest in becoming a doctor, and I believed the hospital would allow me to broaden my knowledge about medicine. The experience has been extremely rewarding, because I feel that I am truly making a difference in th e lives of the children that I work with.”
• This student is trying too hard to impress. That’s what most kids do when writing college essays.
• When you try to guess what will sound impressive; you write what every other student writes.
• Let your application impress the admissions officers. Let your essays help admissions officers get to know you.
• Our first essay example is Megan. Megan was a very good student who decided to admit in her essay that she had lost every election she’d ever run for.
Megan’s Essay
I am a good loser. It is an art that I have perfected. When I was six, I lost a button up my nose. I put it up there and it never came back. My mother took me to the doctor and he couldn’t find anything. To this day I have no idea where the button went. For all I know it could still be up there.
When I was a sophomore, I ran for sophomore class president. I stood up in front of my classmates, read a speech filled with big words and fancy phrases, and lost. The same thing happened when I ran for ASB president my junior year. One week after that bitter defeat, Ire-used my campaign posters and ran for junior class president. I rattled off another inspired speech, and lost. I was starting to perfect my art.
I knew I was good, but I never knew just quite how good I had become. I honed my expertise at my first National
Honor Society meeting. We had to elect a president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer. I lost all four elections in a matter of twenty-five minutes. Who can boast that kind of speed and precision? I had finally mastered my art.
But I don’t feel like I’ve lost. Ironically, my losses have opened doors of involvement in other areas that might not have been available to me. I have committed my time away from what would have been ASB meetings, to being a lector at my church. Once a month, I stand up in front of a crowded church filled with my peers, elders, and the priest, and attempt to proclaim the Word of God. Every week, I am complimented on my public speaking ability. I have never lost my composure.
I was able to spend my entire summer working at Special Camp for Special Kids, a camp for children with physical and mental disabilities. It was there I met Alyssa, a twelve-year-old girl with Spina Bifida. In a large, open gym, Alyssa and I turned on Britney Spears music as loud as we could and danced —me doing my best modern dance interpretation, and
Alyssa in her wheelchair laughing at me because I was an embarrassment to the human race. On the last day of camp, she wrote me a thank-you note. Scribbled in pencil on a little Hallmark card, Alyssa had written, "Megan- Thank you for making my week so much fun!" I will never lose that note. If I had been elected ASB President, I could not have been elected as a "gladiator" of our spirit rallies...twice. Dressed in my school’s colors, I put on skiing goggles while running over, and flying under, tables in an effort to win "spirit points" for the class of 2009. The entire school cheered me on, staring in awe as I flew under the last table and hit my head hard enough to make a sound resembling a small sonic boom. I didn't lose anybody's attention, and I certainly didn’t lose any spirit points.
I am a good loser. I'll give myself that. But each time I’ve lost, I’ve continued to try. I’ve never lost my spirit. I’ve never lost my drive. I’ve never lost an opportunity just because I was afraid to fail. I have tried so many other things and found success in those other areas that my losses have actually allowed me to win. So much of my life exists before me —so many obstacles, so many challenges, so much fun. I want to try all of it. What do I have to lose?
• Does she sound like someone they’d want to hang out with in college? Why?
• Most kids would never talk about this in a college essay because they’d worry it’s not impressive. But Megan wasn’t worried that colleges would think she was just a big loser. She was honest and comfortable just being herself. And she got into every college she applied to.
• You don’t have to be an “A” student like Megan to follow this advice. And you don’t have to write a funny essay about a failure.
• Brad, who wrote the next sample essay, was a “C” student who was quiet and shy. He shared a family tradition that helped colleges get to know him better.

Brad’s Essay Gone Fishin’
My dad and I go fishing together once a month. It’s a tradition that we started when I was four years old. We load up the car with our poles and tackle, get dressed up in all our fishing gear, and my mom packs us some sandwiches to take with us in a cooler. We leave before the sun comes up and make the three-hour drive to the lake. Then we find our favorite spot on the shore, cast our lines, and spend a relaxing day fishing together. Over the years, my dad has taught me everything he knows about fishing. He grew up in Oregon and used to go fishing with his dad when he was a kid.
Now he’s passing that knowledge on to me. I always looked forward to our weekends fishing together when I was little, and I still do today.
When I was about 13, I turned into a typical teenager. Every time that weekend came around to go fishing with my dad, there were always a bunch of other things I would rather have been doing. I would worry about missing out on fun with my friends. Being out on a lake with my dad never seemed as exciting as it was when I was a little kid. But I always went. And to tell you the truth, I’ve always been glad when I did. Once I get out there with my dad, I’m always happy I made the trip.
W hen my dad and I are fishing on the lake, it’s the only time that we’re not father and son. He doesn’t lecture me about why I should be doing better in school, and I’m not disagreeing with every single thing he says. We’re just two friends fishing. The fun ny thing is that we never catch any fish. I think we’ve caught two fish in all our years of doing this. My dad seems to know what he’s doing, so I think that maybe there just aren’t that many fish in the lake we go to. But it doesn’t matter. What’s most important is that we get to spend that time together.
One thing that’s great about fishing is hearing my dad tell stories. I never knew this, but he and my mom actually met in college when she was his tutor. I guess my dad wasn’t a very good student and my mom had to help him pass all his classes in his business major. He told me while we were fishing that he never would have done well in college without my mom’s help.
Today, my dad is the chief operating officer of a large computer software firm. It made me feel better to know that my dad struggled in school like me. I probably never would have heard that if we didn’t take our fishing trips together.
There are still some weekends when I really want to stay home and hang out with my friends instead of going fishing, but I always make the trip with my dad. None of my friends get to do this with their dads. I feel lucky that we have this tradition together. I know that next year when I go to college, my dad and I will have to stop doing our monthly fishing trip. But I also know that when I come home for Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring break and for next summer, my dad and I are going to pack up the car, find our favorite spot on the lake, and spend six hours not catching any fish just like we’ve always done.
Brad doesn’t have a dramatic story to tell.
He’s not funny like Megan, and he doesn’t write quite as well as she does. But he shared something that was important to him; and we feel like we get to know him a little better, too.
• The most important college essay concept for kids to understand—and there is no close second—is that when you try too hard to be impressive, you write a boring college essay. Almost every college essay mistake kids make, from injecting deep meaning that wasn’t really there, to resorting to clichés, to sharing safe and unrevealing stories, are all products of too much effort to impress the admissions office.
• To write great college essays, start by just being you.

• “Owning your story” means that a story is yours—one that nobody else can tell.
• The way to take ownership of a story is to inject as much detail as possible so that nobody else could tell quite the same story.
Without detail: “I was extremely nervous before the orchestra started playing. However, I knew that this was an important performance and that I needed to play well. I took a deep breath, relaxed, and did my best to concentrate.”
With detail:
“I was sitting there on the stage with my violin resting on my shoulder, and I was sure I’d never been that nervous. I looked out into the crowd of 200 people and somehow, I found my dad. He was holding his video camera, the same camera that’s been in our family since I was ten. My dad loves recording everything I do with that video camera. It’s the same camera he used to record my first home run in little league and my entrance onstage in my first school play. Now, as I was about to play as the first chair violinist in my community orchestra, there was my dad, once again, with our family video camera ready to go. Something about seeing him there just made me feel more relaxed and comfortable. I knew I was going to be OK. My dad gave me a quick thumbsup and mouthed the words, ‘Good luck.’ As the conductor raised his wand, I smiled at my dad, nodded back at him, and started to play.”
Without detail
“Our soccer team’s bond is not limited to the field. We are together at school almost every day and share a sense of sisterhood. This is what makes soccer so rewarding.”
With detail
“On game days, you’ll notice our sea of blue jackets weaving in and out of the other students in the hallway. You can hear the ’flop…flop’ of our Adidas soccer sandals that are just now getting comfy after three years of wear. You can always spot Gina, our goalkeeper, who’s covered in bandages and gauze and looks like she requires immediate medical attention. Sometimes when I’m in that sea of blue jackets, I think about all those mornings during the summer when we met early at my house to go for six-mile runs in the canyon. I think about the soccer camps in Fresno when it was 100 degrees, the carwash fundraisers we did to get our new uniforms, and all the latenight talks we’ve had about how badly we want to bring a championship banner to our s chool. I’m proud to wear one of those blue jackets. But more importantly, I’m proud to play with these girls. I love soccer, but my team is what makes it so worth it for me.”
• When you’re writing your college essays, ask yourself, “Could somebody else be telling this same story?” If the answer is “Yes,” add more detail and take ownership of it.
• If you can’t come up with enough details to take ownership of a story, it’s probably not a good story to share in a college essay.

• Pick a story that has not been mentioned anywhere on your application. Or…
• Write about something that has been listed on the application, but share new information about it that the admissions office didn’t know yet.
Roderick’s Essay
Home Cooking
My mom has a picture in a photo album at home. When I asked where it was taken, she told me it was our house when we lived in Ohio. Wow, I was surprised. Every time I look at the picture it's like a before and after commercial. There were clothes everywhere, with books and newspapers stacked all over the place. It was a mess. It looked like kids ranthe house (at times we probably did). Now, my house would never look like that. My mother, our house, and I have changed a lot since then.
My mother had me when she was sixteen years old. She didn't know how to properly clean a house or cook a good meal, but she was determined to learn how to do those things to become a better mother for her children.
Sixteen years later, my mother’s cooking is the best. I know that nine out of every ten kids say that about their mother’s cooking, but I'm positive that my mother’s cooking is the best. I am in love with my mother’s fried chicken. It’s like we were made for each other. Sometimes I cheat on fried chicken with the seductive candy yams. But I'm married to the cornbread. I see her every night. I'm probably the only small guy that can say that I eat food with a passion. A meal of my mother's absolutely brightens up my day. If I didn't get full, I'd eat all night.
But my mother doesn't do all of this alone.
My two brothers and I work in a rotation around the house. One week, my job will be the kitchen, my brother
Darnell will be cleaning the living room, and Julius will be scrubbing the bathroom. It's like a clock. The next
Sunday, we’ll rotate jobs. And it's not just straightening up; it’s cleaning up "spic and span" as my mother likes to call it. My day begins when football practice ends. At t he end of practice, when the coach yells, “Bring it up, Bring it up!" everyone yells as the whistles blow. My teammates are happy because the practice is over. But when I jog into the huddle tired from all of the hard work, my mind isn't on how tired I am. I’m thinking, “Man…I have to clean up that bathroom when I get home.”
There is always a certain day out of the week my mother asks me to pull some food out of the freezer for her to cook that night. I'm always looking for something to be fried. So I might pull something out like pork chops. About an hour later my mother gets up and starts to fry the pork chops while my brother Darnell is washing a pot for her to cook the macaroni in. As the pork chops fry and the macaroni is being stirred, my mother calls Julius to come open the peas and put them in the pot. When everything is just about done she calls me to come make the cornbread. As the food cooks, we talk. This is our quality time together. When the food is done, my mother calls everyone to the table and we eat. We talk about football with my little brother and tell my other brother that he should play football, too. My mother officiates and tells us that he can play basketball if he wants to. Then we watch Dancing with the Stars. As everyone is starting to finish, Darnell is yelling, "Y'all better wash y'all plates!" while my mom yells, “Y'all better clean up before you go to sleep!" As we clean, Julius procrastinates so my mom calls out, "Okay I'm gonna wake you up out of your sleep!” As he begins to vacuum, I scrub the toilet. My night ends with a relaxing shower, my homework and some music before my eyes close. My mother and I have come a long way from that picture. It was a gift to be born to such a young mother. We’ve grown up together. We’re like partners, molding each other, pushing each other, and growing with each other. And like my mother has watched me grow into a man, I have watched things like her cooking blossom, growing beautifully through rough times. My mother has helped me so much by accepting my birth as a gift instead of a burden. When I go off to college, I know I'm going to miss my mother and her cooking. But I can't wait to come across problems so I can face them with the arsenal of qualities I’ve been given from the beautiful mother that God has blessed me with.
• Colleges would never have known this story from the rest of Roderick’s application.

Ben’s Essay
Playing the Field
My mom has a picture of me as a freshman marching in a field show in the band; I’m wearing a football uniform. I remember that day. I was running late and didn’t have time to change. I felt sorry for those marching near me because of the locker room stench, but I did march in the show, and that’s what was important. It was a full day— two football practices with a band show sandwiched between. I know the two activities seem like complete opposites, but they’re the same in that I love them both. The only plus that the trombone has over football is that football season comes and goes, but the trombone is always there.
When I was nine, my parents encouraged me to play the trombone. My doctor, however, had a different opinion.
He thought my asthma would prevent me from playing a wind instrument. At first, it seemed his prediction would be right; the first time I picked up the trombone, I had trouble playing past fifth position (there are two more further than that on a trombone) —but not because I ran out of breath. The difficulty arose because the trombone was bigger than I was. I tried and tried to get out to sixth, but my little arms couldn’t reach it. Seventh position was a dream and was nowhere to be seen.
The enormous trombone became smaller and smaller during the following years, and by the time I reached high school I had already been in the Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association (SCSBOA), Honor
Jazz band, and had won a conference title in football. I began football when I first joined band, and ever since then I’ve been balancing my schedule. It’s gotten harder as both activities have gotten more involved. I constantly run from football to band and vice versa. Sometimes I have football practice in the morning and have to leave early to make the bus for a parade and then later that night perform in a field show. It’s the same with jazz—I’ve shown up to several performances just in time to throw a shirt and tie over my sweating body.
There is a major difference between football and band. Since I’m an offensive lineman, I live in obscurity on the football field, but in jazz band, many times I will have a solo, which gives me the chance to “show my stuff.”
There’s nothing wrong with being in the “under-appreciated trenches,” and sometimes it’s more fun to play without having to worry about every single person watching your every move. I can blend in as a football player, but not as a musician. In jazz, I can be the center of attention. During one of the Honor Jazz groups, I had a lengthy solo, and it was the most nervous five minutes I ever had because everyone in the room really knew jazz; there was no way that I could fake what I was doing. The result was the best improvisational solo I had played. It felt amazing. I have come a long way from a nine-year-old who had to be encouraged to play the trombone. I’m now a six-foot,
245-pound offensive lineman, one who, incidentally, plays a mean trombone. My goals for college haven’t changed very much from those that I set for myself a long time ago. I want to continue playing football, one of my favorite activities. Not forgotten are my academic goals. Lastly, my goal for music is very simple —to keep playing the trombone. Playing the trombone helps me relieve my stress and keeps me connected to my childhood. One day, far in the future, I hope to be like the baritone saxophone player in “Tower of Power” who must be helped onto the stage, but once he’s there, he blows everyone away with his music. In essence, everything in life will come and go, but the trombone will always be there.
• Admissions officers would have known from the activity listing on his application that
Ben played both football and the trombone. But they never would have known what it’s like to juggle those two activities simultaneously.
• This essay was sharing new information about something that had already been mentioned in the application.

Let’s say you were going to write an essay about how you struggled but prevailed in chemistry. Here are two different versions of a first paragraph:
1. “Throughout our lives, we are often forced to confront challenges. Oftentimes, we are able to learn the most valuable lessons from challenges that we successfully overcome. I found this to be the case when I chose to enroll in AP chemistry my junior year. In spite of my best efforts, I consistently struggled with chemistry (my natural strengths are in English and history). But I persevered, and I’m very thankful that I did, as I successfully completed the course and proved to myself that I can finish what I start.”
2. “In the middle of my junior year, chemistry and I were having irreconcilable differences. The divorce was going to get ugly. Really ugly. I don’t know why, but no matter how many days I spent after school while my teacher, Mr.
Chapman, patiently tried to help me, I just couldn’t get it. In fact, after finishing the class, pretty much the only thing I’m sure about when it comes to chemistry is that I could never be a chemist. Believe me, that’s good news for the scientific community.”
Which of those essays would you want to keep reading? Why?
• This is the biggest difference between college essays and the academic essays you write in your high school
English classes. Academic essays are formal —your opinion and personality shouldn’t be in them. But college essays should sound like you.
• To keep from being too formal, ask yourself, “Is this something I would actually say to someone else?”
• To keep from being too informal, ask, “How would I say this if I were describing it to my favorite teacher?”

Problem:
This student doesn’t own the story. He describes what life is like for every athlete.
Solution: Find a story about athletics that you own. And if you can’t find a story you own, just write about something else. The sport will be still listed on your application.
Problem: This essay essentially s ays, “France is very different from America—the food, the language, the customs. But I learned to appreciate the differences and to adapt to the ways of the French.”
Solution: Make yourself, not the country, the focus of the essay. If you don’t have a travel story that will help them get to know you better, pick a different story.
Problem: This student breaks all the rules. He tries to be impressive. He doesn’t own the story. He repeats info rmation from the application and says things he wouldn’t say to someone else.
Solution: Don’t write about community service just to get the admissions office to notice the activity. Write about it if it really was important to you, if you really feel a connection to the organization or the people. Make sure you’re not just repeating what they already know, and tell a story that you own.
4.
Problem: Lots of applicants choose their most impressive activity and tell a story about how the activity helped them develop admirable traits like leadership skills, the ability to manage their time, the skill to work with others, etc. Most of those essays sound exactly the same.
Solution: Only write about an activity if you can take ownership of the story. And never write about an activity just to make sure the admissions office will notice it.
Tell the truth and be yourself. Don’t worry as much about what’s going to sound good or what they want to hear. Colleges just want to get to know you better.
Write stories that nobody else could write by including as much detail as you can. If you can’t find detail for a story, consider another story.
Write about things you haven’t mentioned on your application. Or use the essay to share new information about something that you’ve already mentioned.
Write things that you would actually say to someone else. And use language as if you were describing this out loud to a teacher you respect and feel comfortable with. Your essays should sound like you.