Hey there.
It’s Dr. Bernstein, the president and founder of Get Yourself Into College and in this video,
I’m going to help you start understanding what college admissions officers are really
looking for when they read application essays that respond to the new essay topic that asks
you to “describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve.
It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma—anything that
is of personal importance, no matter the scale.
Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution."
So stay tuned.
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So let’s start by getting really clear about what you’re being asked to do in this essay.
First off, you need to focus on a problem - either a problem you’ve solved or a problem
you’d like to solve.
This can be any sort of problem—an intellectual problem or difficulty, a research-related
problem or question, an ethical problem where you had to make a difficult choice or really
any problem that is personally significant to you—no matter how small or how big.
You also have to explain why this problem is significant to you and describe your process
of identifying a solution to it or the steps you could take to come up with a solution.
When reading an essay on this particular Common App topic, admissions officers are really
looking to see how you grapple with difficulties, questions that are not immediately answerable,
things that are perplexing, challenges that cannot be quickly resolved.
Why do they care about how you grapple with these kinds of problems?
Well, in college, you’re going to be faced with lots of intellectual and academic challenges.
Professors and departments and colleges in general are looking for students who are going
to engage with these challenges—with these “problems.”
They’re looking for students who are excited and intrigued by problems—who know how to
start grappling with them, exploring multiple viewpoints on them, collaborating with others
to understand and possibly solve them.
In some ways, the actual problem that you decide to focus on is not as important as
the way you handle it.
Right?
In college, you might not come across the same problem, but you’re going to come across
other problems and admissions officers are curious about your process of grappling with
them.
However, you have very limited space in your application package to really help admissions
officers develop a vivid, compelling image of you—of your academic interests, your
extracurricular experiences, and your character, so you have to think critically about WHY
you feel admissions officers need to know about your particular problem.
Why would be helpful for them to learn about it?
How is it going to help them understand you as a thinker?
How is it going to help them situate you academically?
You’ll notice something about the language in the Common App essay topic.
They aren’t mentioning a lot of the common personal problems that a lot of high school
students used to focus on in their essays.
They’re not asking you how you handled your parents’ divorce or anything like that.
They give more intellectual hooks—an intellectual challenge, research query, ethical dilemma.
Yes, they do tell you that you can write about any problem that is “of personal importance”
and you could possibly come up with an amazing topic about some sort of ethical dilemma you
faced during your parents’ divorce, but in general, they’re indicating an interest
in a different direction.
Another very important thing to keep in mind is that you don’t have to focus on a problem
you’ve solved.
As the Common App points out, you can also focus on a problem you’d like to solve.
They don’t say this, but you could also write a great essay about a problem that you’re
in the process of solving—what you’ve figured out and done so far and what the next
steps are for you.
I have a number of students who’ve written very, very impressive—very interesting,
insightful, and revealing essays about how they’ve come to terms with certain intellectual
problems.
It’s not like they were presenting an overly simplistic resolution to their problems—like
“ah, once I figured this out everything was clear and my life was totally changed.”
That’s not actually the kind of thing that appeals to college admissions officer because
as you get older life gets more complex and solutions are often provisional or don’t
necessarily work in all situations.
I know when you’re writing a college application essay and especially towards the end—you
want to come up with a tidy conclusion.
But sometimes that can work against you.
So my students who’ve written great essays about how they’ve come to terms with certain
problems also talk about how it’s an ongoing process of coping and refining and rethinking
and staying engaged.
That is very, very powerful—more powerful than the magical solution type of conclusion.
Want to learn more strategies for coming up with great angles on this Common App essay
topic and access case studies where I give you examples of students who have written
great essays on this kind of topic and break down the strengths and weaknesses
of them so that you can write your own amazing college application essay?
Visit my website — www.getyourselfintocollege.com—and join my program or book a private consultation.