How narrative wins the numbers game
I recently wrote about the importance of self-narratives to internal achievements like growth, healing and resilience.
Today, let’s look at the role of self-narrative in successes such as winning the elite college admissions game.
For ambitious high school students, getting into a US Tier 1 university, e.g., Harvard, Columbia or MIT is like cleaning up in Vegas while being struck by lightning.
The secret to beating the odds?
Narrative.
As higher education author and expert Jeffrey Selingo writes in Who Gets In and Why:
An elite college now is almost exclusively defined by how hard it is to get into.
A losing numbers game
The year I matriculated at University of Pennsylvania, 1997, it accepted 30% of applicants. Even the most selective Ivies still had double-digit acceptance rates: Harvard 12.3%, Princeton 13.1% and Columbia 14.2%.
The game has emphatically changed. In 2024, these are the acceptance figures faced at five elite universities (source: Shiksha.com):
Harvard: 4.9%
CalTech: 3%
Dartmouth: 6.2%
MIT: 4.5%
Columbia: 6.2%
Yet my essay-coaching clients gained acceptance to each of these schools.
Beyond test scores
Once upon a time, grades and standardized test scores (i.e., SAT, ACT) were effective leverage. I made it into an Ivy with a 4.0 GPA and 1460 SAT.
Now, stats like that are cheaper than the Number 2 pencils they hand out to fill in the tiny ovals on the SAT answer sheet.
Bear in mind the maximum possible SAT score is 1600, the ACT 36.
Per Niche.com these are the average test results for incoming students:
Harvard — 1490-1580 SAT, 34-36 ACT
CalTech — 1530-1580 SAT, 35-36 ACT
Dartmouth — 1500-1580 SAT, 33-35 ACT
MIT — 1530-1580 SAT, 35-36 ACT
Columbia — 1490-1580 SAT, 34-35 ACT
When “average” and “perfect” are near-synonymous the pressure shifts.
If most applicants have identical, unimprovable test scores the challenge becomes how to stand out in the crowd of over-achievers.
‘Extra’ enough?
For most students, the answer is extracurriculars. But again, it is a wildly different competition than 25-ish years ago when my resume featured track, basketball, student journalism and volunteering at a local nursing home.
These days, that wouldn’t merit an admission officer’s second glance at even a Tier 2 school. Extracurricular activities are no longer anywhere near enough; what students need are extracurricular accomplishments.
A brief list of things my application-essay clients/students have done:
Invented a solar-powered water filtration system
Published peer-reviewed research on breast cancer genetics
Patented a gun-safety device
Synthesized a new antibiotic
Founded a non-governmental organization
This in addition to the de rigueur stack of AP classes, internships, summer programs, national-level math/essay/science/music/debate competition wins, athletics and community service commitments.
After reading their resumes, I needed a lie down.
Ingredients don’t bake the cake
Admissions officers review countless flawless transcripts and unimpeachable test scores; read thousands of resumes, activities lists, recommendation letters.
Every student is a humble leader, generous competitor, future hero.
Don’t want to be a faceless line item or another digit on a spreadsheet?
You gotta turn those ingredients into a delectable story.
Surprisingly or no, this is the hurdle where brilliant young minds stumble. They have been asked or told to do a great many things but crafting compelling self-narratives is not necessarily one of them.
Often, at the beginning of the application essay process, students struggle to do anything but recite a list of achievements.
Initial conversations tend to run:
Me: What do you want the school to know about you?
Student: I’m captain of the varsity hockey team, have a 4.5 GPA and bake cookies for the intellectually disabled.
Me: Great! Those are terrific things. But what do they say about you?
Student: [blank stare]
Sometimes, I wonder if anyone has ever asked them: why?
Why do you practice for two hours a day, six days a week?
Why do you take three AP classes a year?
Why the intellectually disabled? (And why cookies, not cupcakes?)
Many students are so used to being rewarded for merely doing a thing that when asked to explain its significance and contextualise it as part of a narrative, they resemble recently anvil-involved cartoon characters.
It’s poignant how many of these kids have no measure of their own refulgence.
Successful self-narratives
Which of these essay topics helped students gain admissions to a Tier 1 university?
Manicures
Favorite pens
Skin-care regimens for acne
Wikipedia rabbit holes
Forgetting how to speak a language
If you said, all of them, you’re correct.
An application essay doesn’t have to focus on a success to be successful. What my students learned in the process of brainstorming, drafting and revision is that content matters less than form.
Any interest, memory, achievement, failure, pivot point, has the potential to yield an eye-catching, admission-worthy application essay if it delivers as a narrative.
Being able to craft a compelling, authentic narrative identity is, in a real sense, a tool to build a beautiful future.