The Crucial Role of the Common App Personal Statement in College Admissions and How to Approach It Sarah O'Neill Chester County Supreme Editing

Sarah O’Neill Chester County Supreme Editing Expert Advice Every year I am approached with questions regarding the Common Application Essay — that primary, subjective piece that is required for over three hundred schools that participate in the Common Application process. This excludes schools like UC and MIT. But, for most schools, it gives a “voice” to the application beyond test scores, GPAs, and those objective measures that, let’s face it, are still needed. When I first began editing admissions essays over ten years ago, both the personal statement and supplementals, the questions consisted of: What topic resonates most with admissions officers? What style should I use? Can I be funny? Can I discuss religion or politics or are they off-limits? Do they care about grammar and structure? While these questions are STILL concerns, a new set of inquiries have dominated during this sticky time of generative AI such as: Do admissions officers care if I use platforms to check my grammar and wording? How much can I use assistance from ChatGPT? Do admissions officers even read these essays? How can I stand out through this essay if I am competing against thousands of applicants? To answer these questions is more complex, but I will try. No, I feel that admissions officers will not care about you using Grammarly or another system to check your grammar. They are freely available tools so why not use them to write more clearly and properly? You should NOT use ChatGPT to generate your entire essay. If you want it to make sense of jumbled notes that you wrote in your initial brainstorming session for the essay, I feel that it is okay, but there are clear indicators when you use CHATGPT to fully generate your piece — like dashes, quirky-aged wording, and even the way a sentence is structured or how a word is placed in a sentence. AOs are picking up on these clues now. Or, if you have a sentence that needs a cool spin on it, ask the bot to rewrite that one sentence to see if it fits. It may enhance the paper without plagiarizing it but do that sparingly. Yes, admissions do READ your essay so you could care about making a dominant impression. They even have junior readers at big institutions like Yale so multiple people can comment. And, finally, you can STILL stand out with this essay among thousands of applicants by staying original, by writing with authority and skill, and by leaving them with something about yourself that resonates beyond the test scores, about you as a person and what you have to offer their campus in terms of mindset and tangible contributions. How to Approach the Common App Essay Approach the common application personal essay by first suspending any belief that it does not matter because it does. Understand the serious task at hand — you are giving an INTIMATE VOICE to your application. What do you have to say? Next, brainstorm a list of memories and those events from your life that have truly shaped you (big or small). If they earnestly changed you or brought out an epiphany of what you are capable of or are putting you on a track for the future, then AOs will sense that and appreciate that. That’s why I say to write with HONESTY and AUTHORITY. Tell a narrative with so many details that they cannot deny that you wrote it or care about it. Try to avoid certain topics, for sure, like religion unless it is Notre Dame or some other religious institution. Also, see my articles on Common Misconceptions. Then, write out an UGLY first draft narrowing in on ONE memory that you can reflect upon fully and one that RELATES to who you are TODAY; not just who you were at, say, 4 years old. You can’t stay there in the past. You have to write from the point of view of you NOW even if you relay a brief experience to the past. Then, figure out what STRUCTURE to adopt. I like to think of essays in percentages, but they all have a Snapshot (a cool intro). For instance, you could do a 10% intro with a motif then create a series of VIGNETTES to tie them together. For instance, one person who was admitted to Columbia wrote about how the Chinese proverb “the frog in the well doesn’t know the ocean” then he wrote a series of stories that “widened” his world. Vignettes, however, are hard to pull off. Most applicants do an evolutionary style, a 50/50 piece or 20/80, where the one story dominates and then culminates at the end into an expanded reflection of WHY any of that story mattered to who you are and what you are doing today. Then, shape and mold your piece, cutting it to 650 words only later. You might have teachers, former admissions officers, editors, and mentors like me, or family read over your essay and offer you advice. Take them with a grain of salt sometimes as each person may have different opinions and it might confuse you because you think you must follow each person’s advice. Don’t. Consider the suggestions but realize that everyone is coming at you from different angles and experiences. If the content feels genuine to you, consider their advice, and incorporate some and maybe not others, but at the end of the day, you decide! If you see patterns in the advice you are given, that is certainly worth a RELOOK. Finally, have a mentor or editor read for clarity, grammar, and word choice to do that final polishing if you are not inclined. Look at the final version against the backdrop of your entire application: does it highlight what you had hoped to? Does it speak to who you are as a person as well as match those activities you’ve been involved in for four years? Does it sound scholarly or does it go against your true capabilities based on other information the college is getting? In the end, remember please that this Common Application Essay is STILL very integral to your overall application. If it wasn’t then schools would not ask for it! This is true for your supplemental essays as well. If they are asking the questions, they want the answers! Thank you for reading! Sarah O’Neill Chester County Supreme Editing