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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm really depressed by everything I'm hearing about the essay.  The thing is that in my family we're pretty boring.  We go to church and we eat dinner together and we eat vegetables and we mow the lawn.

I honestly don't think if you met my kid you'd think "Wow, what a fascinating individual!"  You'd say -- Look, it's a white kid who plays the violin and takes advanced math.  You probably wouldn't find me very fascinating either.  None of us has eleventy thousand followers on Instagram.  We dress in regular clothes -- nobody has dreadlocks or a nose ring or a tattoo.

In my mind, people who are charismatic and fascinating and quirky and funny are  usually extroverts (which we're not in my family), and extremely self-confident (which no one in our family really is.).  We're timid nerds who read books.

It feels a bit like you're saying that being invited to attend your university is like being invited to sit at the popular kid's table in the cafeteria in high school lunch period.  I never sat there, but I always regarded that more as an accident of circumstance than as something I had to or could work on.  Some of us are just less interesting.  Kind of sad that these days you need to be brilliant AND fascinating, all by the age of 17.[/quote]

I have several reactions to this.

First, it sounds like you are accusing others of something you are guilty of yourself. You assume that others will find your introvert timid and boring because you yourself seem to find introverts timid and boring. In fact, IME, introverts often have very fascinating, quirky, and funny observations about themselves and the world around them. People who are timid and read books still can have deep interests and interesting things to say, even if they don't enjoy saying them too loudly or to too many people. Are all introverts brilliant and fascinating? Absolutely not. But the same is true of extroverts as well. Brilliant and fascinating actually has nothing to do with introversion/extroversion.

Second, it is strange to me that you are complaining that your brilliant but boring introvert will be disadvantaged by the essay requirement. This makes no sense. An introvert is not at a disadvantage when it comes to writing a college essay--in fact, one could argue that an introvert has an advantage here. No one reading a kid's essay can see what kind of clothes she is dressed in or whether she has dreadlocks or a nose ring or a tattoo, nor does the reader know how many Instagram followers the writer has or where they sit in the cafeteria. It would make far more sense to me if you were complaining that your brilliant introvert is disadvantaged in the application process because, as an introvert who is more interested in reading than in joining clubs, she doesn't have a ton of activities. Or that she doesn't have glowing recommendations from teachers because she tends to be very quiet in class. But the essay a disadvantage for an introvert in particular? No.

Third, you are looking at a multi-dimensional application (grades, test scores, activities, essays, recommendations) and seeing only the disadvantages *your* child faces. But most kids have weaknesses; few are superstars. Your kid might have difficulty writing an interesting essay; another equally brilliant kid might be a terrifically interesting writer but not have a fabulous GPA. Both kids might thrive at Harvard. There's no "right" decision here on which one is more qualified or deserves it more.

Which brings me to my fourth point: Either kid will also thrive at other schools that are not Harvard. Not getting into an elite college is not a tragedy. So viewing this process as "depressing" is just silly.

And finally, the discussion here has been about how rare the great college essay is. So if your kid can't write a great one, she has that in common with 90% of the other applicants. It's not a disadvantage.

Relax.[/quote]  My child just went through this process.  Honestly, most of the essay prompts are boring as hell and no not lend themselves to anything creative or interesting. W&M, Chicago and Princeton were notable exceptions.  Most of these essays are 300 words or less.  Even if you want to be creative, there simply isn't an opportunity in the works slotted.  [/quote]

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