is it smart to show off in your essay or not?

Answered

Hi @tatiana, I'm here to assist you in better understanding what the Main Common or Coalition App essay is about. And if there are any 9th, 10th, and 11th and rising seniors who are curious, read on.

While I personally think that all college applications should have a 2-minute required video where the applicant introduces themselves in their own words, that is not what the main essay is about. There are many schools that are catching on to this 2-minute video like Brown University so I think more should follow.

The main essay is prompt-driven so you have a choice of 7 prompts and they are as follows:

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

4. Reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has this gratitude affected or motivated you?

5. Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

6. Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?

7. Share an essay on any topic of your choice. It can be one you've already written, one that responds to a different prompt, or one of your own design.

So, you should choose a prompt that is advantageous to your personal experience, successes or failures, challenges or triumphs, and things you can write about that express how you feel about the prompt in your own words that reveals your true nature or character and type of person you are. Yes, your personality may shine in any of these prompts but the objective is not to put a spotlight on your personality, achievements, honors, talents, or accolades. Instead, the prompts are designed to give your written voice an opportunity to express or codify itself using 650 words or less to share to the application reader something that is not automatically revealed in the rest of the application. When an application reader skims through your grades, course rigor, ECs, recommendations, honors, awards, work experience, and test scores, they can only get a certain perspective on you the applicant as a human being.

The Main Essay and to some degree the supplemental essays are your opportunity to show the admissions reader how to connect the dots, fill in the blanks, or bring into focus your true nature.

Imagine you have a pile of 25 applications to read today. And you only have 10 or 15 minutes to evaluate each one. The first 5 minutes might be skimming the file, jotting the key points that matter to you and the college fit. But it's still kind of blurry because they still do not know how you express yourself in words, how you connect sentences to make points, how you structure your 650 words to make a beautiful bouquet of meaning that is germane to yourself, the one an only @tatiana

So they rely on these essays to inform them about what kind of human you are? Are you ambitious, myopic, and self-serving? OR are you compassionate, empathetic, and caring? Are you a life-long learner that sees college as a chapter in a multi-volume trilogy? Or is it obvious you are using college as a means to an end? So essays can be tricky because regardless of which prompt you to pick, they are going to evaluate your 650 words carefully and see what makes you tick inside. They are going to compare and contrast you to your file and see if your words align and are additive to your presented narrative, or if you have used a ghostwriter who has written a perfect essay but is contradictory to what you have presented.

In my opinion, it's better NOT to treat the essays as an afterthought or something you do last sequentially because it is the most difficult part of the college application. I think it's best to have a strategy with your entire application. What you write in for short answers, the order, and importance of your ECs, awards, honors, and what you write for your supplementals and main essay are related to one another.

Therefore pick a prompt that makes sense with the rest of your application narrative.

To more formally answer your question about "to brag or not to brag", I think it is very disadvantageous to the perception of your maturity, character, and personality to brag anywhere on your college applications. And this is especially true when you are applying to colleges that have 3%-5% acceptance rates.

One might think they are a prodigy, or superior intellectually, or gifted, or talented or exceptional but there are always applicants who have better grades, test scores, course rigor, intellectual vitality, better ECs, better recommendations, and better class rank and Global and National level awards and achievements. But remember, college admissions in the US are NOT a meritocratic process. It's messy, some say rotten system that has all kinds of country club rules that make no sense except to the private institutions that have written them. So focus on being compelling not trying to prove how smart you are. Focus on being a genuinely good person, NOT someone who thinks college is a stepping stone to a lucrative career as in Big Tech or Big Law or Wall Street.

I hope this is helpful for you. Good luck.