We think the essay can be the most meaningful part of the application to a student—it can be difficult and frustrating, but it also offers a chance for great introspection, the kind that students aren’t often asked to perform in our society, and that can lead to growth, a greater sense of purpose, and a stronger sense of self.

Because of that, we think the essay also offers a chance for students and parents/guardians to become closer to each other through this process. Again, we want to emphasize that students need to be in the driver’s seat here—they need a sense of autonomy with topic selection, and they should definitely do their own writing (we know admissions officers who red flag applications that feel like an adult had a heavy hand in writing or editing). But the writing process also offers parents/guardians great potential to be a sounding board for your teen, to nudge them to lean into vulnerable places and explore what truly matters to them and what they want out of life.

It will also be helpful to emphasize that this kind of writing is a process—the vast majority of essays we see go through 5+ drafts, and we think all students benefit from building through brainstorming to outlining to drafting to revising. That approach also can take the pressure off early drafts: It doesn’t need to be perfect, it just needs to give a student a sense of where they’re heading next.

For a more in-depth guide to writing a personal statement, head there. Or check out our pay-what-you-can courses here.

For the brief version:

Brainstorming

Below are five exercises that thousands of students have used to write compelling essays.

• Values Exercise: 4 min.

• Essence Objects Exercise: 12 min.

• 21 Details Exercise: 20 min. 

• Everything I Want Colleges to Know About Me Exercise: 20 min.

• The Feelings and Needs Exercise: 15-20 min. 

That Values Exercise is the cornerstone—we like to see core values illustrated throughout a student’s application. This is also a great chance for adults and teens to connect and help them explore: Work through the Values Exercise together, discuss and compare, and adults can (we’d say should, in fact) encourage students to identify values that are truly theirs (as opposed to yours, or their friends’, or their society’s). Nudge students to reflect on how those values inform what they want to do with their lives.

Structure

We think you can really boil structure down to just two approaches for college essays: montage or narrative.

Whether students take a Narrative or Montage Approach to structuring their essay depends on their answer to this question:

Do you feel like you’ve faced significant challenges in your life…or not so much?

(And do you want to write about them? Because you don’t have to. Really.)

If yes (to both), they’ll most likely want to use Narrative Structure.

If no (to either), they’ll probably want to try Montage Structure.

The above links dive into greater detail, but essentially, Narrative Structure is classic Western culture story structure, focusing roughly equally on a) Challenges You Faced, b) What You Did About Them, and c) What You Learned. Paragraphs and events are connected causally.

Montage Structure focuses on a series of experiences and insights that are connected thematically (so, for example, 5 pairs of pants that connect to 5 different sides of who someone is).

We believe a montage essay (i.e., an essay NOT about challenges) is more likely to stand out if the topic or theme of the essay is:

X. Elastic (i.e., something you can connect to a variety of examples, moments, or values)

Y. Less common (i.e., something other students probably aren’t writing about)

We believe that a narrative essay is more likely to stand out if it contains: 

X. Difficult or compelling challenges

Y. Insight

These aren’t binary—rather, each can be placed on a spectrum.

“Elastic” will vary from person to person. You might be able to connect mountain climbing to family, history, literature, science, social justice, environmentalism, growth, insight … and someone else might not connect it to much of anything. Maybe trees?

“Less common”—every year, thousands of students write about mission trips, sports, or music. It’s not that you can’t write about these things, but it’s a lot harder to stand out. 

“Difficult or compelling challenges” can be put on a spectrum with things like getting a bad grade or not making a sports team on the weaker end, and things like escaping war or living homeless for three years (essay topics we’ve seen before) on the stronger side. While someone can possibly write a strong essay about a weaker challenge, it’s really hard to do.

“Insight”—Essentially, has the student worked on developing the capacity to reflect? (Side note that this is especially where writing-is-a-process is useful to emphasize: insight is something they’ll develop in an essay over time. But it’s useful to understand that some topics are probably easier to pull insights from than others.)

Outline, Draft, Revise

In the interest of keeping this brief, we’ll recommend taking advantage of the resources we’ve linked above (which include several ways to revise), and again simply emphasize that students will be served well by treating this as a process (sorry if we’re getting broken record-y here, but the essay writing is our favorite part). Ideally, spend several weeks (or possibly months) outlining, drafting, and revising (and for specific tools for each, check out the links at the end of this handbook).