Curtis WestbayThe college essay is a complicated thing. Can we even define it, by genre? My beloved former colleague Mr. Helland described it as “personal memoir,” and that’s probably the most apt descriptor for a personal statement. And yet, most personal memoirs need a little more space to breath than 650 words. Some personal memoirs can be as succinct as a long-form article, say, 2000 words. Some personal memoirs can be full-length books! Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of verbosity.
Right now, however, I do have the luxury of time with the Class of 2023. For two hours a day (at least), I see every student who will soon be a senior. The College Essay Writing Workshop is now an annual tradition, a time when the College Admission office gets the undivided attention of G11 students after AP exams. Last year, the workshop was two weeks long. This year, I asked teachers to cede class time to me as soon as AP exams ended, and they agreed to make this phenomenal sacrifice for six weeks. It’s the longest workshop I have ever led, but fortune favors the bold.
In the first week, the students and I did a lot of mundane things, like talking about how to do college research and build a school list, looking at admission data and past results, identifying priorities in choosing a college, and setting parameters for things like activity lists. These things were (and are) important, even if they’re not exactly fun.
Now in the second week, we are doing a lot of brainstorming. Today, I picked on some students to ask them to do a mock interview in front of their classmates. And as I did, honestly, I critiqued them pretty harshly. It’s better to know where you need to improve now, from the start, than to find out too late. That culture of willing vulnerability is something that I am trying to cultivate for our students. Vulnerability is often misconstrued as weakness. Vulnerability is an asset in college application. A college is a business and it needs customers and revenue. Oddly, though, it’s a business that turns away paying customers with remarkable frequency. A college wants students that can grow, and recognition and acceptance of imperfection are the prerequisites of improvement. A lot of the questions I have asked this week require students to confront their weaknesses and embrace vulnerability.
As students approach college, I hope they all can feel confident enough to embrace vulnerability, and not only because it will make them appear introspective and thoughtful and adaptive. They will soon be off to college, where no one will regularly intercede on their behalf when they encounter interpersonal conflicts or academic struggles or personal turmoil. They will be adults. And so, the bar for maturity is quite high for colleges. Arguably, the bar for maturity is even higher than the bar for intellect.
As we progress through the workshop, I hope to help students in more direct ways. I hope they can understand narrative arc and word choice to be more deliberate in structuring and delivering their story. At the same time, we have started elsewhere in the time we have with our students— technique can wait. First, we start with genuine reflection, because it’s harder and takes more time than simply examining narrative writing. Some students handle this really well. They’ve asked themselves difficult questions before, like, who do I want to be? and why do I even want to go to college? There’s no answer key for questions like these. The answers only come from within.
In the coming weeks, we will look at strong examples of writing and engage in close reading and self-assessment of essays. Those things are important, too. But we withhold these techniques early on, deliberately, so students learn to express their own ideas and identities instead of simply imitating the cadence and tone of others who have succeeded before them. I have been excited to see how the Class of 2023 is handling this challenging, abstract approach, and in the future, I look forward to this annual tradition and seeing the ways that our students deal with it.