All you need to know before writing your College App Personal Essay (C.A.P.E)

As you may already know, the majority of schools to which you apply will ask you to submit what is variously called the "College Essay," the "Common App Essay," and the "Personal Statement." I prefer to call it the College Application Personal Essay or the C.A.P.E.

The C.A.P.E. is a 650-word personal essay that all schools using the Common App require. Every college chooses whether or not to require the personal essay, but even if it's not required, you'll have the option to submit an essay; and it's an option well worth considering.

Parties on both sides of the college essay—you and the admissions officers—want your essay to portray you as a human being beyond your numbers (grades, statistics, test scores, RBI's, goals, assists, and all the rest of it), and even beyond your life as a student.

The C.A.P.E. is not a narrative take on your resume

Your essay should focus on elements of your life that are not reflected in the other parts of your application. If you think of this essay as just another version of your resume, you’ll be missing one of your best opportunities for the admissions committee to get to know you.

Self-Reflection

One of the most important elements of the personal essay is self-reflection. Your capacity as a self-reflecting human being says something about your individual journey and your capacity for growth and maturity.Nothing else in your college application will provide admissions professionals with a better sense of who you are as a self-reflecting human than your College Application Personal Essay.

How important is the college essay? Most college counselors agree that essays account for about 25% of your admissions decision. And now, as many colleges are becoming ACT- and SAT-optional, some college counselors believe that the college essay will have even greater weight.

Why is it important?

The C.A.P.E. is a chance to speak directly to the admissions office. No matter what your numbers, scores, and statistics, there are plenty of college applicants out there with similar numbers, scores, and statistics. 

And more importantly, whatever your scores and statistics look like—I can’t emphasize this enough—you are more than those numbers, and you want the admissions teams to know this. 

One way to think about it is that when college admissions teams see your file, absent the college essay, they only seeing you as two-dimensional; they see the length and the breadth of your academic, athletic, and extracurricular achievements, but it isn’t so easy for them to see beyond those surface elements of your profile. The essay is an opportunity for them to get at your depth, your substance, and your personality—the story beneath.

Tell me something I don’t know

“Tell me something I don’t know” was one of the most annoying things kids said to each other back when I was a kid, but it’s helpful, here, to think of admissions officers as having this statement in a thought balloon over their heads while reading your essay. You want your C.A.P.E. to tell college admissions officers something they don't already know about you. 

If you’re an Olympic-level equestrian, your profile already shows it. If you’ve dedicated yourself to the service of others, your profile shows it. If you nailed the SAT and the ACT and have never received anything less than an A+, your profile shows it.

Imagine the admissions officer reading the essay of a Division I ready athlete who writes an essay that doesn’t even hint at their athletic history. That is much more likely to make an impact on the admissions officer than an essay that addresses the essayist’s athletic history. 

This doesn’t mean there can’t be some overlap with another element of your profile. But if your essay addresses anything that’s already included in your application, it should expand deeply, richly, and meaningfully on that subject. 

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