I wrote very few college essays, and did not get into any extremely impressive schools1; I did win some writing-related accolades in high school, and am probably in the top half of writers at METR (largely because most of my job depends on writing and interpersonal communication). I’m largely unqualified to give general advice2, yet I suspect there are many people like a younger version of me:

  1. You’re a pretty good writer when given a clear outline (for instance, you regularly get very high scores on argumentative essays in literature or history classes, and can communicate complex technical ideas to non-experts better than most of your classmates), but are struggling with your essay topic or structure.
  2. You've basically finalized the other parts of your application (e.g., letters of recommendation, extracurriculars).
  3. You’re working on the Common App personal statement, or another essay which similarly lets you write essentially anything you’d like.

I think most essay advice (that I read when I was in high school, at least) fails to help you come up with a good central idea, focusing too much on listing structure options or telling you about the craziest (yet somehow successful) essay the author remembers. This is my attempt to provide slightly better advice.

Your application is an argument

The goal of your college application, essay included, is to present a compelling argument for why you should be admitted. It is not to illustrate your passion for the school, or prove you’re good at learning, or even to show the college who you truly are, unless those things help you get in. Reviewers need to be able to argue for your acceptance, and your application must single-mindedly focus on handing them an excellent argument on a silver platter.

Most of your application - your transcript, extracurriculars, and letters of recommendation - is probably set in stone by this point, and so a lot of the argument is already written. Your essay is necessarily contextualized by this. So, the first question you should answer is, “What argument does my application currently make?” To answer this, you can:

  • Send teachers, counselors, or others the non-essay parts of your application and ask them what vibes they would pick up if they were admissions officers.
  • Do the above, but with your favorite LLM, asking it to act like an admissions officer at the school you’re trying to get into.
  • Do the above, but with yourself, trying to imagine what it would be like as an admissions officer with no other context about your school, living situation, personality, etc.

These exercises should help you understand the current strengths and weaknesses in your application’s argument, as well as the profile of application you might fit into (e.g., “crazy olympiad kid,” “resilient survivor,” “smart jock,” “natural leader”). Try to write down a one- or two-sentence summary of your current argument.

Your essay is a narrative argument

Your essay is not trying to tell a story, despite being a free-form narrative. Its primary purpose is, like everything else in your application, to persuade. It just happens to be in a narrative format. When writing, think of an opinion article or a fable, rather than a short story or a vignette.

So, return to your application’s overall argument, and consider what you want to add or change - again, not to show the admissions office a more complete picture of yourself or whatever, but to present a compelling argument for admitting you. Then, come up with a one-sentence argument about yourself that readers should take away from your essay. For example:

  • If your application is very research-heavy, and paints a picture of a burgeoning scientist, you might want to lean in and show that you’re intensely curious. → “I am driven by curiosity in everything I do.”
  • If you’re worried you come across as too resume-like/prestige-maxxing3, you might want to show that you care about others, or emphasize your non-prestigious interests. → “I am a deeply empathetic person.”

Once you have a solid sense of the core argument of your essay, the rest is easy:

  1. Come up with as many real-life examples that prove your argument as possible. Spend at least 15 minutes in a room with nothing except a paper and pencil brainstorming. Consider asking your friends, classmates, and teachers to help brainstorm as well.
  2. Narrow these down to the most clear, compelling, and interesting stories, or ones that string together particularly well, or ones that show a clear pattern of growth into the skill you’re trying to argue you have4. Again, here you can ask your friends, teachers, and LLMs for advice.
  3. Come up with a compelling structure for your essay that incorporates one or more of the stories, and flesh this out into an outline. Here, again, you can use friends, teachers, and LLMs.
  4. Write!

I don't know if this advice is good, or even if admissions officers would endorse it as better than average. However, it seems principled and focused on the goal of your application, which is getting into college. Good luck.

  1. I applied to Georgia Tech, University of Georgia (+ honors program), Georgia State University (+ honors program), University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, and MIT, all in early action. I was accepted to UGA’s honors program, GSU’s honors program, UA’s Presidential Elite scholarship, and ended up attending Georgia Tech. I was deferred and then rejected from MIT. ↩
  2. In the interest of full transparency, I've uploaded my personal statement here. ↩
  3. If you were focused primarily on getting into college all throughout high school, that was bad and you should feel at least a little bad. I recommend reading this. ↩
  4. These are not the only options, by any measure. You can also, for instance, write a more clearly argumentative piece with a few narrative components. ↩