Cliches to avoid for essays
Going back over the essays I received during the college essay extravaganza, 50% of the Common App essays I read were about students and their families moving to the US and learning to adjust. Now, Iām not saying that your familial struggles arenāt intense and worthy of talking about; after all, many students wrote about the loneliness they felt being the only new kid in school or having to adjust to American customs, and those are all absolutely valid conversations.
However, if you put all of these āmoving to Americaā stories in a pile and read them one after another, they start to bleed together. The story lines and characters all sound the same. And for you, that means less of a chance to stand out and more of a chance of being labeled āone of those immigrant kidsā. Is it fair? Absolutely not. Is that the way it is? Unfortunately, yes.
2. The āThey Taught Me More Than I Taught Themā Essay
Please for the love of all that is admissions donāt write about the time you went on a service trip to a third-world country and learned from the locals. Not only does it typically come across as condescending and privileged (since most high school students are not aware of how to talk about cultures in politically correct terms), but itās also so overdone and bland.
3. The āSki Slopeā Essay
When many students answer the quintessential ātalk about a time you overcame an obstacleā prompt, they tend to write something that I call the āski slopeā essay. In this scenario, the author was given a physical challenge (like a ski slope, mountain, scary water slide ride, etc.) and was eventually convinced overcome it. Again, itās an essay that Iāve seen over and over (and over) again, and thereās no real way to write these essays well. They usually involve a lot of cliche adjectives and some other person convincing the writer to go down the slope. Inspiring? Not at all.
Look at it this way: Thousands of people learn how to ski every year; itās boring and totally not unique. If youāre going to write about an obstacle, it needs to be an obstacle that only 0.00005% of the world has overcome. Otherwise, youāre just like everybody else.
4. The āLook at How Super Deep I Amā Essay
Kids, donāt try to go on a philosophical rant in your college essays. Not only do you typically sound like a pretentious, self-important twerp pulling stuff out of your butt (and admissions officers know it), but these tirades also tell the reader absolutely nothing about you as as potential member of a college. Donāt get meta. If you want to talk about all the great deep thoughts inside your head, start a blog.
5. The All-Dialogue Essay
Note: Spending half of your 650 words going through a conversation you had with your sister is a complete snore and a total waste of time and space. Cut our dialogue unless itās funny or actually moves the story along. Something like this is just really dull fluff:
āSister,āI said to her.
āYes?ā she said back.
She looked at me with angst. āWhat?ā she asked again.
Three lines in and youāre bored already, right?
6. The Way-Too-Extended Metaphor Essay
What do dumplings, crayons, and hoop earrings have in common? Theyāre all inanimate objects that have been used as extended metaphors in college essays, and all of those essays were not good.
Pulling off the extended metaphor essay is hard, and as youāve learned by now, itās best to go into essay writing with the mentality that you are the rule, not the exception. So stop trying to compare your life to a squashed kumquat you saw on the side of the road and find a different topic.
7. The āLesson about Failure Where You Didnāt Really Failā Essay
Remember that an admissions essay is still a story, and the best heroes and heroines have legitimate pitfalls. If your biggest failure is that you had a hangnail but you eventually took care of it, not only do you look shallow, but you also look dull. Failures need to be actual heart-stopping, āOMG, NOOO!ā failures. Either commit to going all the way or avoid writing this type of essay altogether.
When the Common App prompt asks for something that marked your transition into adulthood, stay away from cultural or religious events that actually mark adulthood, like a bar/bat mitzvah or a confirmation ceremony or something. The best essays about transitions into adulthood deal with unforeseen shifts, not obvious ones (for example, my friend wrote about the different types of boxers he bought throughout high school. Shift to adulthood? Yes. Totally freaking clever? Heck yeah).
9. The Straight Up Cliche Essay
There are many topics that are way overdone besides the ones listed above. Some examples of what I mean:
The āWhat I learned at this academic conference/camp/eventā essay
The āWhat my mom/dad/family taught meā essay
The āHow I felt about moving to a whole new place or being in a new environmentā essay
The āHow I learned to fit inā essay
The āDeath of person xā essay
The āHow my parentsā divorce changed meā essay
The āHereās a very vague essay about my familyās cultureā essay
Again, these are just a few of the many examples of cliche essays.