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Application Strategies (part 2 of 4)

Your Essays: Writing About Your Life

It is essential that a low-income student make a case for themselves in their writing.

Whereas the QuestBridge College Match application was built with low-income students in mind, most, if not all college applications were not. Most colleges have a policy of “need blind” admissions, which means that they do not ask for financial information about a student and make the promise that if they accept an applicant, the college will do their best to make admission affordable to that applicant.

This policy makes it challenging for low-income students because unless they mention something in their essays, the college knows nothing about a student's financial situation. Other than looking into where a student lives and what high school he attends, colleges do not know that the student may have had resource limitations or endured significant financial hardship.

You need to feel comfortable writing about your life and your experiences. Overcome any feelings of shyness, shame, or reservation you might have about writing personally about difficulties you’ve faced, challenges you’ve overcome, and differences that you may have experienced in access to resources. You may wish to try brainstorming and free-writing first on several topics to get yourself started, and then select a topic that will reflect the positive personal characteristics formed in the context of your background, such as perseverence and grit. This takes an open mind, as well as persistence, but quality essays that present who you are will be worth all the time you spend.

When writing about your life and your experiences, there are numerous emotional hindrances to writing about a situation or an experience clearly. They are:
  • Shame
  • Self-pity
  • Undue modesty that an experience or aspect of your life is unworthy of acknowledgment or praise
  • Underlying anger about an experience
It is important that when writing about yourself in your essays, to do so in a way that expresses a situation clearly, that is, that you show how it has or did affect you, and what you experienced. Looking for pity will be obvious. Embedding a sense of anger will turn people off. Coming off as entitled will make you sound self-centered. Feeling like your experiences aren’t worthy of acknowledgement will result in an uninspiring essay. Look out for these pitfalls!

Have someone read over an essay for you and see what their observations are. Your essay should be as moving as an excellent conversation you would have with an intimate friend. Movingly funny, movingly sincere, movingly deep, it doesn’t matter, so long as it has meaning and it’s moving.

It may take you a while to express yourself clearly. It is a myth that a great essay comes easily for some people and not others. We have worked with brilliant students for years and they all work hard on their college essays. Give it time. These should be the best essays you’ve ever written. They may take you up to 3 months or longer, so start early if you can.

<<-- Part I: Showing Your Speed Part III: The Non-Essays Portions -->>