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What Can Make an Essay Flop?


This article is an excerpt from the book College Essays That Made a Difference


"Remember, it's not an English paper," says Matthew Swanson, assistant director of admissions at Williams College. "It should be written in a voice that is your own, which means it can have its own syntax and structure and need not be something you would turn in as a paper in school. Use it as an opportunity to expand the admission officer's sense of who you are, rather than reiterate what has been seen in the application already."

Admissions Officers Hate to See…

Johns Hopkins: There are two things that I see regularly, two "lines" that are crossed. (1) Ideological issues are best left aside. An applicant who gets too much into specific political issues just might be thrusting these views on someone who disagrees, and then [the reader] has to work at remaining objective. We train our staff to take students on their own terms, but we're all human. I don't see why an applicant would test the waters. (2) Sometimes students come across as immature. Showing a sense of humor is great, but don't use humor in your college application that you wouldn't use with your parents!

What the Admissions Officers Love to See...
John Latting, director of admissions at Johns Hopkins University: Get your pen and paper or saddle up to the word processor; the important thing to keep in mind is, don't write as if there is a correct answer. Don't be too cautious. It seems to me that we work hard to craft questions that prevent that, but we see students who are too cautious. Be adventurous intellectually-write unconventionally. Applicants have more freedom than they think, and it's in their interest to use that flexibility.

That's What Friends Are For
If your essay is filled with misspellings and grammatical errors, admissions officers will conclude not only that you don't know how to write but also that you aren't shrewd enough to get help. Ask your mom, dad, teacher, brother, sister - someone - to read your essay and comment on it. Be especially careful about punctuation.

Apart from just reading your essay, you really should have someone take a look at how your essay works with the other components of your application. Is there harmony and consistency between your essay, activities list and transcript? Have a seasoned editor or someone who's seen a lot of successful college apps, such as your high school counselor, take a look at yours.

John Latting, director of admissions at Johns Hopkins University: There are essays that are compelling, that make the difference. So students should know that essays should be taken seriously. If a student puts effort into essays, they should help his or her chances. The remarkable thing about essays is that there's no ceiling on quality, unlike SAT scores or GPAs. A great essay can carry a student. A poorly done essay might do the opposite. It can certainly determine the initial path an application takes through the process. We start at the beginning. The first sentence is read carefully, then the first paragraph is closely read, and then it's open-ended from there . . . if it's high quality, we'll examine everything. The very first sentence should accomplish a lot . . . the essays I remember do that-similar to a short story. Some students don't dive right in; they try to set up their case, crafting what turns out to be dry prose. They don't have time to do that.

The Facts

Johns Hopkins University is an extremely prestigious private research institution located in the city of Baltimore, Maryland. It houses just over 4,100 undergraduate students and approximately 1,575 graduate students. The university is perhaps best known for the huge leaps it has made in cancer research, and students have been no small part of the projects. The majority of professors are actually primarily researchers and physicians, so students are able to learn directly from the top professionals in the field.

The university is made up of several smaller undergraduate colleges, including schools of arts and sciences, engineering, professional studies in business and education, nursing, and the Peabody Institute, which is known for is biomedical engineering program. The university offers quite a few highly specialized majors, and some of the most popular with students include majors in biomedical engineering, international studies, biology, public health, and computer science. Most students go on to medical school, so many of the programs are focused specifically on premed students.

Admission to Johns Hopkins is extraordinarily competitive, and only top students are admitted. Last year, over 10,000 students applied and only 3,052 were admitted. Eventually, about 1,048 actually enrolled for the coming fall semester. The admitted students had a combined average SAT score ranging from 1290 to an impressive 1470, and an average comprehensive ACT score ranging from 28 to 32. Over 95% of those admitted were ranked in the top 25% of their high school graduating class with an average high school GPA of 3.66, as well as a large amount of advanced placement (AP) classes and an overall challenging curriculum.

Johns Hopkins has a great student to faculty ratio of 9:1, and student say it is rare to have an upper level class that is over 20 students. Most students say that even though their professors are very busy, they will make sure their students know they are available to help them out if they should need it. The academics are of course, extremely competitive, and students say the library is filled day and night.