Everything that high school seniors expected to experience these last few months has been completely upended, except for one thing: The College Application Season is about to begin. Choosing colleges to consider and visiting campuses is being reinvented. But, the application process remains about the same.
This year’s high school seniors face an additional challenge: To write about the pandemic or not? Should COVId be the topic, sub-topic, or mentioned at all? How can you not mention it? If you do include it, how can you make your experience stand out?
The Common App essay and separate college supplements give applicants an opportunity to showcase their talents and experiences, share their values, and explain significant events and situations. Certainly, writing the essay can be daunting and even overwhelming. Some people pooh-pooh it with comments like “What are the chances anyone will read it anyway?... If I don’t explain ways in which I have saved the world, I won’t measure up.”
I have found that the essay provides a profound opportunity for self-reflection. For many, this is a first or once-in-a-lifetime, required self-reflection. As students choose among the given prompts, they must consider big moments they have had. However, it might be the smaller, quieter, or even more mundane moments that reveal more about who they are and what they will bring to and take from their college years.
I have had the good fortune to work with many students as they ponder the prompts and choose what might impress college admissions counselors. As we work together to consider all of the options, we often discuss situations and experiences that seem trivial, but dramatically affected either their own or others’ lives. Before channeling these ideas into an essay topic, we often uncover traits and skills that these students might not have recognized or considered important. Baking is ordinary, but baking Challas to continue a family tradition and, eventually, to deliver to neighbors and friends can springboard into an essay that shows what this student might be like living in a dormitory and which co-curricular activities he might join or start. Medical conditions are common topics, but explaining the process that a student pursued to research and diagnose her own illness is a compelling story. Often students do not see their own grit and perseverance in their daily, typical, or even unique activities. As we talk about the little things that happened on their way to class, during a class discussion, in a camp bunk, or at a party, we find valuable lessons that affected them in small ways or were even transformative. These chats often feel more like therapy sessions. Not only do these teens produce a compelling and admission-granting essay, we often get inspired by their history.
English teacher training requires the classic literature, writing, and education
courses. We meet requirements by taking classes in Shakespeare, creative writing, lesson planning, assessment strategies. We take psychology classes to learn only the basics about growth and development. Yet, as English teachers, we ask our students to analyze characters, themes, settings, plots. As they dissect the literature, these students often consider their own values, family issues, and society. We read Romeo and Juliet, to learn more about family relationships, taking chances, and preventing tragic consequences. We read books by John Green for the intrigue and romance, but also learn how to appreciate The Good Luck of Right Now.
More personal exploration and exposure happens when we assign journals, opinion pieces, and “Choose Your Own Topic” research papers. Even the classic, back-to-school question: “What did you do this summer?” results in self-reflection. Also common at the beginning of each school year is the typical teacher question, “Tell me about yourself.” The English teacher critiques sentence and essay structure, word choice, rhetoric, clarity, etc. and, if sticking to his/her job description, they do not offer therapy. The point of the writing is expression, yet the process causes self-reflection. It might even result in action or change.
This year, more than any other in recent history, will confound many teens. Almost every one of us now has more than 650 words of pandemic experience for many of the Common App Essay topics. We have many "lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success” due to the pandemic. The pandemic caused many of us to "Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea.” How many of us now have at least one additional “problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve?” Most unfortunately, too many people have experienced death and serious illness due to the virus. Even these tragedies require exploration before being chosen as the main topic.
Isolation, quarantine, stay-at-home orders, masks, remote learning and work, and even Zoom could easily be the topic of almost anyone’s essay. No one should take the approach that you must write about it or that you should not even mention it. Throughout the last few months, the pandemic has caused many of us to dig deeper into our own storehouses of strength. CommonApp is adding an additional, optional question to give students the option to explain how COVID-19 affected them. They can choose to answer this question in addition to or instead of dedicating their main essay to their COVID-19 experience. In addition, with many schools are changing their ACT and SAT requirements.
This year, writing an essay that shows why teens will be an asset to a college community and thrive on campus and in class will require digging even deeper into their 17-18 years of history.