The Vandy Admissions Blog

Brad February 6th, 2009

Hello Vandy Admissions Blog Readers,

The allegations are true. Early Decision II letters are in the mail. We are in the process of compiling the statistical data and will release the information in the coming days.

Best of luck to all applicants and congratulations to all new Commodores.

• Application Process , College Application Guides , College Confidential , Uncategorized
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Thom September 12th, 2008

We talked yesterday about the importance of voice in your college application essay.   Today let’s discuss the second insight your college application gives our admission officers, specifically, how you put your thoughts together to convey a point.

In college a buddy of mine introduced me to a friend of his at a party like this, “Hey man, I want you to meet Thom.  [motioning to me and continuing to his friend]  He’s like really funny.”  After the cordialities and and “nice to meet you’s” it was, well, awkward.  The yoke of funny was unexpected and darn heavy.  Trying to tell us you’re a leader (for example) in a college essay, versus showing us, is a lot like that.

There is a truism in life that in our haste, we’d rather tell others something than have to show others something.  You may well be a leader, but just like your calc teacher, we’re going to ask that you show your work.  In the essay, this means paying particular attention to the details of how you write.  Beyond the basics covered yesterday (grammar and diction) the order and organization of your essay, the words you choose, and the depth of your description of your topic all speak to how you make sense of the world around you.

Here are a couple of real examples, with my general take-a-ways from reading it: 

• “During that [mission] trip [to Kenya] I was struck by how the villagers went about their days in such happiness even though they had very little.”  -This is a common sentiment, intended to contrast cultures and depict the perception that people of greater means have more troubles while those with less means lead simpler lives.  However, it conveys an overly simplistic worldview, and makes me worry about the commitment that individual has to deeply understanding social and human conditions.
• “I describe myself as an ‘out-of-the-box’ thinker.”  -A kind of oxymoron if you think about it, in that the phrase is a very common cliché, and challenges how out-of-the-box the writer really is.  Being an unconventional thinker is more clearly conveyed by unique descriptions and word choice.
• “Reflecting back on it, winning that [big] game for our team changed me in immeasurable ways.”  -A fine sentiment so long as the next sentence ushers in a reflection on how that event changed you.  It’s not enough to recount an event and just say that it changed you, let us in on your introspection on that event.  It conveys your values and what you find important in life (i.e., saying that “it changed you because you experienced for the first time the inter-dependence of a true team environment” conveys that your worldview includes those around you, not just you).

The reason your AP English teacher tells you to write succinctly is because the practice of doing so forces your mind to first focus on an argument, and then support that argument with relevant evidence, the true mark of an educated mind.  The reason we ask you to do that in your college essay is to show us the culmination of this practice.  We’re looking to understand how you think, how you engage concepts and ideas as a projection of your fit with our intellectual community (i.e., our classes, Commons houses, etc).

It goes beyond the OCD (see yesterday’s post) gimmicks like having a “hook” or some odd essay format (like a second person account of a conversation between the applicant and God - a topic listed as “can’t miss” in one of those guidebooks at the mega-bookstore).  Clear message, well thought out voice, and solid writing and editing.  Simple right?

• Admissions Committee , Advice for Parents , Application Process , College Application Guides , File Reading Explained , The College Essay
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Thom September 11th, 2008

My two year old son likes to ask me to tell him stories right before bedtime.  I weakly protest but ultimately acquiesce in the effort to get him off to dreamland.  Quite candidly though, I suck at it.  He is a tough, but forgiving audience, mostly finding a matchbox car more entertaining after about two lines in to the tale.  Once I became so bored with my own story that I began plagiarizing the plotline of The Wizard of Oz, passing it off as my own.  Don’t judge me, okay?  You try and concoct a story that will keep a toddler’s attention.  Oh the great divine irony then that I work in a field that demands that students tell us a story about their lives in the form of the application essay, and then passes judgment on the merits of that story.  I just hope we have a slightly better attention span than a two year old. 

The application essay is perhaps the most common grist for the anxiety mill that is the application process at highly selective colleges.  I get why it’s a little daunting to applicants.  It’s a task which is nearly completely in your control, including the overall direction of the content, and most importantly, the decision of when that task is successfully completed.  At some point, your grades are on paper in the transcript, the standardized tests are taken, and there you are, staring at the rhythmic blinking cursor on the screen, almost like it’s a tapping foot.

What I don’t get is the cottage industry of “experts” who crank out guides to writing said admissions essays that “can’t miss.”  So in the effort to do research (and get out of the office for an hour) I have taken a pilgrimage to the local mega-bookstore to seek the collective wisdom of the great Oracle of College Decisions (for short, we shall call it OCD) on the admissions essay.  Here’s what I learned:

• You must package yourself in every way, “just being yourself” and “just being honest” isn’t enough.  One “expert” even lists these as “fatal errors” in the essay writing process based apparently on one student’s experience of writing an essay on her honest assessment that her effort level in her high school studies was lower than it could have been, as her academics seemed to come naturally to her.  She had to *gasp* “settle for her 4^th choice school.”
• If you are a graduate of a highly selective university you apparently can write books about how to get into those colleges.  Nevermind that this logic is akin to me saying that I can be a real estate agent because I applied for and got a mortgage.
• Under no circumstance should you write an essay that someone else could have written.  Since the number of students applying to college is nearly 2,000,000, each applying to an average of 6 colleges each, your essay must then be one out of 12,000,000 in its uniqueness.  Yeah, that’s reasonable.
• The café chairs in mega-bookstores are really uncomfortable.

The essay is a chance for you to speak directly to the individuals reading your application.  It’s not moderated through someone else (like a guidance counselor or teacher letter of recommendation or the SAT or ACT companies), it’s just you.  In the college application essay, we are trying to assess two major things (one that I will address today, and one that I will address tomorrow):

1.       an understanding of your voice, and

2.       an evaluation of how your mind pieces together thoughts and concepts

The science of writing an essay is no different than what you’re taught in your English composition classes:

• A clear, coherent message/thesis that is consistent throughout the essay
• Great proofing and grammar, and please go beyond spell-check which will not catch that you “did the loin share of the work on the lab project”  
• Use examples and imagery rather than simply stating things (show me, rather than tell me) – more on this tomorrow
• Answer the question (seems simple, but you’d be surprised)
• Use precise word descriptions

The art of writing the essay is found in the voice.  I know you’re reading this now and perhaps rolling your eyes at the very ethereal notion of “hearing your voice,” but stick with me here.  Your essay, and the topic can be ordinary, oddball, simple, or complex, so long as it is genuinely you, it tends to work.  The reality though, is that we all have multiple voices.  Put another way, we all have various wonderful facets of ourselves, be it a thinker, a leader, a friend, etc.  So which one should you accentuate in your college essay? 

To answer this, humor me with a quick exercise on a scrap piece of paper.  First, write your name using your dominant hand.  Easy enough right?  Now write your name with your non-dominant hand.  A lot harder right?  Took longer?  Looks pretty bad too, huh?  Trying to write an essay in which you are trying to package yourself for some unknown admissions officer is no different than trying to sign your name with your opposite-hand.  It’s going to take forever and the product of your labor isn’t going to look all that familiar to you.  I don’t care what the OCD tells you.

If you’re a naturally funny person, that should come out in your essay.  If you’re known by your buddies as being introspective, always thinking about tiny, sometimes odd details, consider letting that voice come through.  Try this test to see if your essay clearly aligns with your voice.  Take your essay and remove your name, or any obvious self-identifying elements within it, and put it in front of 10 people who know you best.  They should be able to identify you as the author by its contents.  The college admissions essay should amplify your most natural, and thus strongest voice, not mimic someone else’s.

Tomorrow I will tackle the second dynamic we gleam from a college application essay: how you piece your thoughts together.

• Application Process , College Application Guides , File Reading Explained , The College Essay
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