You are not the best athlete in the region. You haven’t started your own charity. Frankly, you’ve never had to overcome any significant obstacles in life. So what do you write about that doesn’t seem like millions of teens could have written the exact same 500 word essay? Alas, there is hope, but first, put away your pen and paper, err, keyboard. It’s time for a little introspection.

To help students identify what to write about, I ask them to answer the following question: “What have you done that you are really proud of?” Your answer is not limited to something related to school. Really do some soul searching. Before you answer, here are some ground rules:

Your answer can’t be vague, so an answer like “I’m proud of my grades” won’t really help you, but talking about the fact that your GPA or a grade in a class is much more than meets the eye. due to what could have happened behind the scenes that his transcript does not reflect.

· Be very, very specific. You are 17 or 18 years old, no one really expects you to have climbed Mount Kilimanjaro or won a Nobel Prize. Sometimes, however, a little anecdote about your life can reveal a lot about you. One student told me that all he did extracurricularly was babysit. After some prying, I found out that he took care of her baby cousin so that the baby’s young single mother could continue her college education. That’s pretty powerful.

· SHOW IT, DON’T SAY IT – don’t tell me you’re a worker… SHOW ME. Tell me a vivid story, it will have a much longer lasting impact on your reader and make your story more compelling, engaging and memorable.

Here are some anecdotes that will illustrate these points and demonstrate what works and what doesn’t.

Example #1 Writing about your family – this is not typically a transcendental issue. We all have a family. You haven’t necessarily been through monumentally challenging times together, but how do you uniquely express their importance to you?

Compare these two openers:

My family is very important to me. My younger brother, mother and father are very special to me and I value our relationship. My parents are very supportive of everything my brother and I do.

versus

The phone rings. It’s Tommy calling to say that our friends are going to see the new James Bond movie tonight. I’ve been eagerly awaiting this new movie, but before I blurt out my excited acceptance, I pause. This is the same night my family has been planning to host our Christmas tree. This is always a special event. We choose the tree as a family, we take it home, we decorate it while we consume hot chocolate and my mom’s excellent homemade cookies while my dad sings off-key Christmas carols. I haven’t missed this event in 16 years, and I certainly wasn’t going to start now. The same film would be shown tomorrow night.

the first example He says while the second example shows

Example #2- the supermarket cashier

Suppose you do not have a significant number of extracurricular activities. Maybe it’s because you work hard at your job as a cashier at the supermarket. There are thousands of teenagers doing this same job. How do you write only about this? Here are the stories of two people who did it:

Joe began his 1,000-character extracurricular activity essay on the Common Application by talking about how he missed some meetings with his friends and how he sometimes had to get up much earlier than he would like, but that his job at the Supermarket had taught him a tremendous amount. He learned discipline because absences and tardiness are not tolerated if he wants to keep his job. He learned the value of a dollar, since his earnings take several hours to accumulate, so he spends his money wisely. He has also talked about the friends he has made and how he considers this group like a second family.

Prayed

Another student worked as a cashier at a grocery store and discussed her experiences as a sociological observation. She learned a lot about people based on their behavior while standing in line or how they treated the cashiers. She shared some of these stories and told how they made her more tolerant and more appreciative of small acts of civility and common courtesy.

Example #3 – Community Service – Many students are engaged in community service, and a lot of students who choose to write about their civic involvement tend to employ some rather overused expressions to convey their thoughts. “It was very rewarding,” “I enjoy the feeling I get when I help other people,” or “It makes me feel good to help less fortunate people” are vague and overused. Again, tell me a story that SHOWS me how this work has impacted you. Consider the following example:

Nathan volunteered to help with recovery efforts after severe flooding in a neighboring community. Nathan begins by describing himself as a 6-foot-tall, 200-pound athlete, and amidst the destruction, what struck him the most was a girl’s tiny pink Barbie bag found in a pile of mud. After seeing that, he really realized that a girl and her family had lost so much. He then goes on to describe the work he did, including transporting mold-infested wood to dumpsters and how he learned to sand hardwood floors, install vinyl siding and more. He also talked about learning to comfort people who have lost everything.

No vague and blanket statement could have made Nathan’s story as vivid and descriptive as when he tells us what he saw through his own eyes. Dividing his story into anecdotes is a fantastic strategy and will make his story much more engaging to your reader. Your reader will understand that your little story is probably an example of a larger whole, and your anecdotes will make your story that much more memorable.

I will leave you with a final anecdote that was one of my favorite university essays, but not because anything the writer did was so transcendental, but because I like it because she presented He tells me that she is incredibly hard-working. This is something many of us can say, but how do we show it? Carl was a solidly strong high school student. She was on the track team, but she wasn’t a standout athlete. She was also in some clubs. Her junior year was tough. She suffered from a severe case of mononucleosis (Mono) and missed school quite a bit. She suffered a stress fracture in her leg and was unable to participate in athletics, which was her main social outlet, and then came the crowning glory of her terrible year and she began her essay with this story.

She describes a feeling of nausea. She mentions looking out the window and taking deep breaths to try to keep it at bay, but there was nothing she could do, so in the middle of the SAT, she threw up. She goes on to talk about the jumpsuit, missing school, broken leg, and whatever else went wrong during her third year. She describes how the adults in her life suggested that she drop her AP class because she was so far behind in her work, but she refused. She talks about how hard she had to work to get out of the hole she was in, but she just made it. In the end, her grades were as good as ever and no one would have noticed that something bad happened to her by looking at her transcript. She was even elected a club president for her senior year. Then, in her final sentence, she said, “In case you’re wondering, yes, I did hit the bathroom during SATs.