Essays: Death By Committee

Some years back, too many really, I wrote an article on college essays for the US News and World report. You can read it here:  Sound Advice From An Expert. 

A Google search under my name and 'college essay' will demonstrate that at least according to social media I know something about the topic.  It has been flattering to know that many high schools here and abroad, use this piece as an introduction to the college essay. I am not sure how many languages it has been translated into but Belarusian was the last one I heard of.

In addition, I have done hundreds of workshops here and abroad on essay writing. Whether this makes me an expert or not I am not in a position to say but I have read untold thousands of essays over the years and have some idea of what works and what does not.

Periodically, I will attempt to give gists and piths (a borrowed phrase from Ezra Pound), from my treasure trove.  I prefer to do it this way, because I think a systematic guide to good writing is oxymoronic at best. 

I will start with one of the more recent phenomena I have observed in essays that come from students’ application essays.  Despite all the forces being brought to bear on college essays, including special English classes in high schools labeled as creative writing (or the newest morph, creative non-fiction), much help from private counselors, and others I do even yet know about, I have to say that essays, on the whole, are not qualitatively better than they used to be. The phrase we use in my part of the world is “good not great.” These generic essays are well-formulated, contain some details, and occasionally an inspired turn of phrase. But something is still flat about them.  And yes, the worn chestnut of ‘voice’ seems to be at fault.  

So few essays have a voice today. Why? If I had to guess (and I am guessing here) I would say that by the time an admission office actually reads a student’s essay it has been given a makeover that would make a reality TV show proud. It has been prodded, compared, contrasted, and commented on by a bunch of handlers. These often go by the names of teachers, counselors, parents and friends. Unfortunately, most people don’t remember that committees very often don’t often come up with something new or don’t reward anything innovative. Committees compromise, take the irrational howl out or make sure the political jibe at a president stays safely away from the likes of me.  Committees stifle creativity.  Most of the time at any rate. 

Writing is, despite our media age, a lonely business. Good writing needs solitude and a trustworthy editor. But now the editors come in the form of handlers, the kind that get to try to make sure that mistakes are not made.

This leads to safe forays into what the folks who read books on writing college essays think will sound good.  This also means that the days of the really bad essays have passed. There are so few essays that we call bulletin board essays anymore. These are the ones that are so horribly bad that they are wonderfully funny and admission offices post on a board (yes, this is really true). It is a lost bad art I am afraid. The handlers have read and reread everything so that things like: “Jay has grown up very wealthy and takes his wealth for granite [sic],” don’t prop up much (and if you really think about this line from a student essay, there are some interesting things going on here that the writer may not be aware of, especially the depth and heft of the metaphor—gravitas perhaps is the right word).

Anyway, in the economy of politics, when gridlock is best in order to avoid blame or praise, essays have become the centrist ground of safety. No one is writing about taking the leap into financial doom and no one is writing about about Blakean visions of Dante’s desire. Essays are almost all safe, correct, and filtered.

Don’t say anything about politics or religion or even Modern Family. It’s dangerous ground. So goes the standard advice, at least.

So, when parents look over an essay they are looking for the sweet wonderful child they have raised who has accomplished wonderful things. If a teacher reads it over they are looking for coherence, balance, and a voice that will appeal to guys like, well guys not like me at any rate.

Faulkner or David Foster Wallace or Gertrude Stein did not give much of damn about committees. They wrote from and about their hearts and minds and I think if you want to win hearts and minds, you as students should to the same. More cliché for the mill, no doubt, but sometimes clichés have some underlying meaning that strikes us long after the words have passed.

I would not show your college essay to a group. Each reader will come back with suggestions. The more you take the more your voice evaporates. Find a mentor or a trusted reader and stick with that one. A Virgil for your Dante (I doubt we will get many Beatrices so heavenly and ethereal is she).

Good writing surprises. Or better yet, it does what Joyce in Finnegan’s Wake coins for something else: “sinduces us into the fallen world of words”.