Sometimes A Common Application Essay Is Hard (Very Hard!) To Find

Rebecca came to me after a long phone call from her parents. They told me that they had started working with another college application essay consultant but it wasn't the right fit. Rebecca never sparked to her, several meetings had failed to produce a strong Common Application Essay topic, and they were worried.
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Rebecca came to me after a long phone call from her parents. They told me that they had started working with another college application essay consultant but it wasn't the right fit. Rebecca never sparked to her, several meetings had failed to produce a strong Common Application Essay topic, and they were worried. Before they could hire me I told them I'd have to speak with Rebecca to see if she wanted to work with me. Two minutes into my phone call with her it was clear she liked me and wanted to find a great topic.

We did an initial one-hour phone chat, I got to know her, who she is, what drives her. Rebecca was fun, open, and very expressive about her life. But as we neared the hour mark, we weren't finding a topic we both loved. I could hear the panic in her voice, so I did what I always do: I set up a time for us to speak the following day. Her voice brightened, and she agreed.

The next day we had another one-hour conversation. In it I dug deeper, trying to figure out what was fascinating about her. And like the phone call the day before, we weren't finding anything. Also like the day before, Rebecca started to panic. I assured her that there was nothing to worry about and we should just relax and have a good time. Nearing then end of the call just as I was ready to schedule another consultation for the following day, I asked Rebecca what I thought was a fairly innocuous question: "what's the worst thing that ever happened to you?" I could hear Rebecca getting excited as she told me about a recent babysitting experience. "I babysit this 7-year-old girl. And every time I do her parents put out the board games for us to play - but we'd always end up watching television instead." On one recent night the little girl suggested they play chess. Rebecca is a very good player, the captain of her chess team. She was excited to teach the little girl how to play - until she was the one who got taught. "That little girl beat me!" After the game, the 7-year-old started to tease and taunt a now humiliated Rebecca. Then she got silent on me. Clearly this was tough for her. But I sensed something else was going on. "What was happening in your life around that time?" I asked her. Rebecca explained to me that she had just changed schools, had made no friends, and wasn't doing very well in class. This beating had a profound effect on her. Over the next few days she was haunted by this loss. "How?" "Well, she was just so confident. She'd never played chess before and she beat me. And I envied that confidence. I wish I had that for myself." I asked Rebecca how she grew from this loss. "I took so much inspiration from her. I realized that the reason I was so depressed and unhappy in school was because I had such low self-esteem." Rebecca realized that life is all attitude. In the days and weeks after this loss, Rebecca turned it all around. She started making friends, she joined some groups, and found her inner self. "I learned a huge lesson from that loss."

This was Rebecca's Common Application Essay!

Strong Common Application Essay stories are hard - very hard! They don't fall out of the sky. They take great effort, long conversations, and commitment. You need to love your story. It needs to be so honest and true (as Prompt #1 states) "their application would be incomplete without it." Rebecca's parents called and told me that they had forgotten this story had even happened to their daughter. They wondered if admissions officers would like it - to which I laughed. "Trust me," I assured them, "they're not going to read another story like this one. They're going to love it!"

Rebecca is at Yale, Class of 2020.

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