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<\/figure>Vagueness<\/h2>
One of the most common weaknesses I see is students who try to tell a story without including the who, what, why, where and when.<\/p>
In a personal narrative, as in any narrative, readers need to understand setting, conflict and character. <\/p>
It is understandable, given the task of trying to write their truth in 650 words, that some students default to inexact descriptions and claims, but god is in the details.<\/p>
Assumptions<\/h2>
Two absolute clangers are 1) assuming the audience shares their point of view and
Shared-POV assumptions can lead students to say out loud things they really shouldn\u2019t \u2014 the poor lack ambition, for example, or ethnic minority citizens don\u2019t vaccinate their children. <\/p>
The understanding misstep leads students to leave out the best bit of the story. So many times, I\u2019ve read baffling essays that turn out to have been based on wonderful stories, but the student left out all the stuff they assumed the reader knew. <\/p>
Underbaked ideas<\/h2>
This is especially evident when students are applying to highly selective schools and programs. If a student wants to study, say, literature, at a T20 university, they shouldn\u2019t lead with, \u201cI like reading because it\u2019s interesting.\u201d<\/p>
If they are keen on finance, they need to have sharper comments than \u201crobust economies are key to GDP growth.\u201d*<\/p>
*Neither of those are actual quotes. No students have been harmed in this writing. <\/p>
Second or Third-person POV<\/h2>
Why students think it\u2019s clever to address an invisible \u201cyou\u201d in a personal statement is beyond me. Do they think they know every person, precisely, who is going to read their essay? Do they think that admissions officers are a monolith? <\/p>
The use of the third-person is thankfully rarer, but even more puzzling. A personal essay written in the third person has ceased to fulfil its genre or function. <\/p>
It also has the tendency to make the writer sound like a megalomaniac, which, although current affairs suggest that is sometimes a route to success, is probably not the wisest strategy for undergraduate admissions. <\/p>
AI<\/h2>
This is the quickest, easiest fix: don\u2019t use it. To any half-bright educator or education-adjacent worker, ChatGPT jumps out like Rudolph\u2019s nose.<\/p>
For good measure, educational institutions use high-powered AI detection tools to stay ahead in the fake-brain arms race.<\/p>
Using AI to \u2018write\u2019 an essay or supplement response is basically scrawling across the page: I\u2019m not smart and\/or bothered enough to do this. <\/p>
In which case, no smart school is going to be bothered with the application. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Early deadlines are approach for US college applications, and I\u2019m up to my neck in a drift of essay drafts. And I\u2019m starting to sound like a parrot. Most student essays have the same small set of problems; stuff that\u2019s easy to fix, once they know to look for it. To save some of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-177102017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n