The Parent’s Role in the College Essay Process

Although summer break just started, fall—and college application season—is just around the corner. Applying to college is stressful for both students and their parents, but the application component that causes the most apprehension is typically the college essay. As parents, we always want to support our children—but what role should parents take in the college essay writing process, and what do parents need to know about college essays to help their children succeed?

Understanding the College Essay

At selective colleges, good grades in challenging courses get an applicant’s foot in the door, but the essay can often be what pushes the student across the finish line into the admitted pile. After the student’s academic record, the essay is the most important component of the application.

The college essay is also one part of the application that is entirely in the student’s control. Everything else—grades, test scores, extracurriculars—has already been set in stone. This is the student’s one big opportunity to speak directly to admissions officers in their own voice.

One Yale admissions officer advises students to take this opportunity “to show the admissions committee something they wouldn’t know from other parts of the application. There’s no formula for a successful college essay. The best pieces are thoughtful, reflective, and convey a student’s own voice.”

It’s a personal narrative—not a report.

It helps to properly identify what a great college essay should be: a story.

The term “essay” can be misleading because it calls to mind the types of essays that students have written in school—book reports, research papers, persuasive essays, and so on. But in the context of college admissions, most essays are really personal narratives rather than reports. “The most successful essays make the reader laugh, cry, feel something.If I can connect with the student’s essay, begin to root for the student as I read, I know they’ve got something that will impact admissions officers,” says Mike Ducorsky, a Senior Educator and Essay Specialist at C2 Education.

The ultimate goal of the college essay is to get admissions officers to advocate for the student’s admission, and great stories have great persuasive power. In fact, research has shown that sharing stories with others can create a sort of “mind-meld” between storyteller and listener (or, in the case of the essay, reader).

By leveraging the power of storytelling, students can encourage readers to connect with their experiences, making admissions officers more likely to root for them.

The resume approach won’t work.

It’s also tempting, especially for career-oriented parents, to view the essay as an opportunity to highlight the student’s many accomplishments. However, this can easily backfire. “College admission counselors don’t seek to be impressed by students,” says Laura Stratton, Director of Admission at Scripps College in California. Instead, she says, self-reflection is key. “The best quality a student can bring to the admission process is a sense of knowing themselves, their strengths, goals, and what they will contribute to their college community.”

Ducorsky echoes this, saying, “I’ve had a number of parents tell students I’ve worked with to ‘include the time you one that award’ or ‘tell them about how you won first place in that competition.’ While those accomplishments are impressive, their place is in other aspects of the application, not the essay. The essays should reveal how the student thinks and why their experiences matter, not what they’ve done.”

It’s easy to attempt to turn the college essay into a resume, a litany of all the students’ many great accomplishments and activities. This, however, is a waste of a golden opportunity. The essay should relate things that can’t be found elsewhere in the student’s application, but those achievements and activities shouldalready be included in the application. An essay that reads like a resume isn’t compelling to the reader, and it won’t impress admissions officers.

Creativity and authenticity are key ingredients.

College admissions officers consistently cite authenticity as one of the most important elements of a great essay. The number one mistake that students and parents often make when approaching the college essay is worrying about what admissions officers want to see.

In fact, when asked what admissions officers want to see, Courtney McAnuff, Vice President of Enrollment at Rutgers University, had this to say: “Colleges want to know what makes you unique. The essay is a critical component for our holistic review. Express yourself honestly.”

In an interview with the Hold Me Back podcast, Duke University Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Christopher Guttentag discussed the pitfalls of worrying about what admissions officers want to see, noting that his office sees far too many students who try to “craft their high school experience specifically with what they believe admissions officers want in mind.” But, he notes, “The students who are the most attractive candidates to colleges are those that care about the admissions process the least…The students that stand out are the students who are driven by what matters to them, what’s important to them, what moves them, and how they want to spend their time.”

One way to encourage a more authentic approach to college essays is to think outside the box. Students don’t have to have a big transformative moment in their lives to write about. Some of the best essays are actually about mundane things—riding the bus, cooking with friends or family, and other seemingly everyday things that can reflect a deeper meaning.

Kelly Nolin, Director of Admissions at the University of Montana, says, “The best essay I ever read was about all the green garments a student had in her closet.” The student discussed what each garment represented and closed by saying that “the only green she didn’t have yet was the one representing our school.” Fifteen years and countless essays later, Nolin still vividly recalls that one student.

Supporting Students through the College Essay Process

Parents should play a significant role in the college essay process—but they shouldn’t try to dictate essay content or style. For an essay to be a unique and authentic representation of the student, the student needs to remain in the driver’s seat at all times. Here are our tips for parents to help their students with college essays:

• Start early. Students and parents often underestimate the time it will take, the steps needed for a great essay, and the amount of iteration that goes into writing a college essay that stands out.
• Help make a plan for addressing essays. “Realistic expectations are important, and everyone needs to be on the same page,” says C2 teacher and College Essay Specialist Tiara Hess. Students applying to multiple colleges will likely have several supplemental essays in addition to a main Common App essay. It’s important to identify the number of essays early so that parents and students can work together to create a timeline for completing the work.
• Seek professional support when needed. The college essay is a unique writing task. Even skilled writers struggle with this unusual assignment. The best people to help students with brainstorming and revising essays are those who routinely work with college essay students.
• Let the student guide the process. “Sometimes parents steer students away from writing anything too personal or creative for fear that such an essay will appear unprofessional,” says Elizabeth Loughnane, Academic Content Specialist and College Essay Review Service Administrator at C2 Education. “College essays should be personal. If I come away from an essay feeling like I understand who the student is as a person, I know the essay has hit the mark.”
• Keep critiques constructive. This is a very personal experience for students, and they can often be sensitive to criticism. By making sure that any essay feedback is constructive and actionable—and balanced by plenty of praise!—parents can ensure that students stay on track with the revision process rather than becoming discouraged.

The college essay writing process can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be. By getting to know the college essay, familiarizing yourself with the process, and seeking expert support as needed, you can keep your child on track to earn admission to a dream college.