3
3 years ago
Admissions Advice

Is humor ok in Essays, and Applications?
Answered

Is humor ok in Essays, and Applications? I’m working on an essay to my school’s robotics team and would it be ok for me ito include some humour? What about in a flipgrid video?

9th
collegeadmissions
mistakeinessay
Admission
essay
freshman
essays
3
6

Earn karma by helping others:

1 karma for each ⬆️ upvote on your answer, and 20 karma if your answer is marked accepted.

3 answers

4
Accepted Answer
3 years ago

Humor is perfectly fine in your essays if that's how you talk in real life or are as a person. Don't be so informal that you use "gonna" instead of "going to" (unless it's in a quote you include), but don't be afraid to add humor into your essay. If you talk with humor in your daily life, add it in; college admissions officers will be able to pick it up. However, don't add humor just to add in humor, it'll be obvious to college admissions officers that something's not right or seems forced. For the Flipgrid video, I believe humor is still fine, as long as it's part of your personality and not forced. Hope this helps!

4
1
3 years ago

Just to confirm, agree with the other two answers that have been posted! Don't be overly informal and don't force it if it's not who you are / it's just what you think they want to see / hear, but otherwise humor is great! You want to show off your personality and what makes you you whenever you get the chance.

1
1
3 years ago

I agree with @joyous on the language aspect of it, as well as the idea that if humor is something that comes to you naturally, then for college essays/applications it is okay. However, for in-school assignments, whether they're videos, or essays, or applications, whatever it is, I would say that it depends mainly on the teacher or grader. I would try to gauge what type of teacher they are and whether they are the type that would be okay with you using humor in your work. Some teachers want extremely formal work from you, and in that case, I would highly recommend that you follow that and avoid using humor in their classwork/homework. It also depends on the assignment or content that you're covering - for example, if you're doing a video project that is meant to be a fun activity, it is probably okay to use humor, but the same cannot be easily said for, let's say, your AP Lang rhetorical analysis essays. Same idea with the content - if the content is something very serious, I would not recommend using humor. I hope this was helpful!

1
What are your chances of acceptance?
Your chance of acceptance
Duke University
Loading…
UCLA
Loading…
+ add school
Your chancing factors
Unweighted GPA: 3.7
1.0
4.0
SAT: 720 math
200
800
| 800 verbal
200
800

Extracurriculars

Low accuracy (4 of 18 factors)

Community Guidelines

To keep this community safe and supportive:

  1. Be kind and respectful!
  2. Keep posts relevant to college admissions and high school.
  3. Don’t ask “chance-me” questions. Use CollegeVine’s chancing instead!

How karma works