Imagine this, it is pass 2 a.m., but you are not yet asleep. You wanted to put your struggles in the basketball competition as your essay topic, but after three sentences, the essay won't materialize. Suddenly sour grapes theory kicks in, the harsh training during last summer felt mediocre to the grandiose vision in your head. The sweat, the tears, the days where you had to argue with your mother to let you continue training seems mundane and insignificant now. If it was really that life-changing, why couldn't you squeeze a word out of that topic? That, you decided, cannot be suitable material for your golden ticket into the US universities. No, it wouldn't do. Silently, you lament on an hour lost in unproductive labour as you try another approach to craft your literary masterpiece.
Welcome to US admission essays 101.
I have to contend that the hardest part of the US application is not getting high enough SAT scores or all the other technical stuff, but rather the admission essay. Crafting the perfect admission essay is like climbing Mount Everest while holding your breath - needless to say, it is very hard. But before we start, we need to first define what is the perfect essay. Is it the essay that says your life story? Or is it the essay that the admission officers would like to see? But how do you know whether your life story is impressive enough. And how do you know they will buy it. There is only one way to find out - but by your submission it would be too late.
However, we can also make smart guesses, by looking at essay samples of successful admits into top universities to sort of find a hidden pattern. One thing becomes apparent - they are impressive! Just a first hand look at some of the essays do either one of the two things - it either scares you away from applying to US universities at all or it gives you a glimpse of what you're aiming for. As much of these great essays are out there, there were also essays which were completely normal and perfectly within writable range but still get the writer into top universities, such as in the case of Kwasi Enin.
The truth is, the admission process is not that simple. Guided by their principle of "Holistic", the admission officers hope to build a balanced incoming class. They would be searching to fill their golden ratio of geeks to athletes, of guys to girls, of Hispanics to Caucasians, all in the best interest of the school. Take my school SUTD for example. As a tech school, we are already oversaturated with guys but surprisingly we still have a healthy 60:40 guys to girls ratio and everybody is happy. We think this is due to the administration's policy but we are not complaining. Put yourself in the admission officer's shoes, if all your top applicants are geeks, wouldn't you cut off a few to add a few non-science people? It is but a small sacrifice to diversity.
Besides ethnicity, gender, the school also considers other things in their application pool. For example, if you are a star athlete in touch rugby and their rugby team has been rusting for all these years, you might be recruited to revive the team. Similarly, if your parents are alumni or made big donations to the university, you might also receive a small boost in your admission chances. This is what we term as legacy. All these hidden factors are also taken into account when the admission officers make their minds.
So the Chinese saying goes "知己知彼，百战不殆；不知彼而知己，一胜一负" meaning that when we don't know a thing about our opponent yet having perfect knowledge of ourselves, we have at most a 50% of winning. And that exactly sums the whole essay writing process - we must do our best in our essays - the thing that we can control and hope for the best outcome. The things we can't control - like the competition or the officer's preference all boils down to luck. So to answer the question posted earlier, we must write the best essay that is impressive and never, ever write to please the admission officer. As much as you like to bend over backwards for them you must see that there is no way you can know what makes them tick.
So how to write the perfect essay? It is certainly attainable, despite all your doubts and failures. The only constraint being time. If given enough time to write, rewrite and navel gaze, I am sure that you can write your essay. Every little failure builds towards the perfect final form. It is not back to square one every time but instead you would have taken an invisible leap forward. I used to quip to my friend that "in writing the essay, we are making progress by doing nothing." Every word deleted slowly builds up to that pinnacle, so don't give up. Do start early though, this time, procrastination is your biggest enemy. If you do not start early enough, you might not reach the state of enlightenment needed for the best essay in time. And in place of your masterpiece, you might be forced to submit something subpar, which you would not want to live with this uncertainty the rest of your life. (I didn't get into X University because of my crap essay...
I hope this post will shed some light on US College Essays. Start writing, boys and girls, everyone has to start somewhere.
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