In the coming semester, the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor – one of the top public universities – expects to receive 115,000 undergraduate admissions applications. Because of the avalanche of essays that they deal with, admissions officers might give the typical essay less than a minute. This fraction of time could bring you closer to going to your dream college. Or it could do the opposite. And even if there are multiple readers, consider that simply as part of human nature, opinions tend to converge. If the first reader made a quick appraisal based on a brief scan, the second reader is likely to do the same, if for no other reason than to not undermine the work ethic of the first reader.
You must do everything in your power to make them finish the essay – 3 to 4 minutes to finish a typical 600-word essay. You can’t afford to be typical or conventional.
To grab their attention from the start, consider using the techniques of ancient rhetoric. These techniques can be a very effective way to draw the reader into sensory details in a way that captures his attention immediately.
Here is a student’s essay where he wrote how he had to essentially parent himself and his small brother after his father became emotionally absent:
Sample Essay
My brother, Anthony, was eleven months old when my father placed us in the hands of our first babysitter. I remember being confused at first, wondering where my father had gone and when he would be back, but after a while, I became accustomed to this routine of absence and the never-ending babysitters that filled in for him. These strangers consisted of college students, chain-smokers, senile women, and foreigners—all were technically adults, but not one was a suitable substitute for a parent. When my father was home, he still seemed absent; he was distant both physically and emotionally. He was busy bouncing from one girlfriend to the next, sleeping in until 1:30 in the afternoon, and sitting on the couch watching television. He took us out to restaurants every night and wasted the money he earned on expensive dinners, his current girlfriend, and liquor. This continued for ten years.
Our home was devoid of structure. Schoolwork went unchecked. Bedtimes were unregulated. Dust accumulated in thick layers on the paperwork that overflowed on the dining table. Often times, Anthony and I would spend hours waiting at school for someone to pick us up, and most of our dinners were served well past eleven at night.
Consequentially, and quite unwittingly, I shed my childhood and assumed the role of “parent” for Anthony before my seventh birthday. I memorized the routes we took to school and led Anthony home myself. I watched professional chefs on PBS and learned how to cook basic meals for two. Unfortunately, as I progressively developed into the parent, Anthony took advantage of our lack of true authority and grew into the epitome of a problem child. He became unruly, and his behavior soon bled into his school life. His grades suffered and he seemed to act out more often. His rash temper continued to grow until one day the school called our home because he had tried to throw a chair at his teacher.
Rewriting with Rhetoric
This is well-written, authentic, and heartfelt. But we should take a step back and consider why the student chose to include it. To show he has the maturity to excel in college? To explain a subpar performance in high school as a product of a dysfunctional home?
If the student feels that he needs to discuss this, consider that writing this way presupposes that the reader is willing to invest time into and attend to the developing narrative. But remember that the officer is under time pressure. So, we can convey this same message, but we must write strategically.
To capture attention immediately, we can move directly to sensory details and link this to the underlying paradox – the child must become an adult while the father regresses to childhood:
While my father crawled back in time, I shot forward to manhood. I do not fear college responsibilities because I have had adult responsibilities from age 7 onwards. For 10 years, my father was a badly behaving child, bouncing from bed to bed and couch to couch, spending money on dinners, girlfriends, and liquor, while overlooking schoolwork, bedtimes, and the thick layers of dust on untouched assignments. I memorized school routes, walked my little brother Anthony home, and watched PBS to learn how to cook for us. But no 7-year-old is a father, and one day, Anthony threw a chair at a teacher.
Here, we used lists, rhetorical antithesis, and focusing on the paradox, making the writing more alive and visceral, and likely pushing the admissions officer to finish.
The original version was well written and had something meaningful to say. But it used conventional narration and presumed that the reader would invest time that he likely does not have. By using rhetorical techniques and techniques from literature generally, we can grab the reader’s attention from the start and leave him positively disposed towards the writing and the candidate. And his positive attitude will cascade down to other readers.
Let us consider how we can take your thoughtful narrative and use rhetoric and literature to craft it into something that immediately grabs the readers’ attention. Set up a free 15-minute video consultation, and we can talk about working together on your essay.
