Making Your Application Essays Work

If working is what you really want your essay to do.

There is nothing worse than staring at the blank screen where an essay should be. Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash

Does your college application essay “work”? What does it mean for a college application essay to work anyway? Do you even want an essay that “works” more than it did anything else? Wouldn’t you rather an essay that's “well-written” or “memorable” or “entertaining”?

To answer my own rhetorical questions: Your essay works if it’s well-written. If it’s memorable enough that application readers remember you, that means your essay works for the admissions process. Regarding what you want to make your essay do, you want an essay that is entertaining more than it “works.”

The reason anybody ever asks whether an essay works or not is because “Essays That Worked” is a common phrase in college admissions. Three schools, Johns Hopkins University, Connecticut College, and Hamilton College, publish “Essays That Worked” on their admissions websites. Yes, that means you can see t…