Essay Test: Are There Right Answers? Yes

The following admission essay was submitted to highly selective colleges and universities.

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The Surgeon

The apron drooped to my knees. I was emblazoned with the ʻHi, My Name is Jamieʼ sticker, coupled with a scarlet employee-in-training hat. The ʻFresh not Frozen, Grilled not Friedʼ motto resonated in my mind. It was July 2011. I had taken the plunge and secured my very first part time job. I was flipping burgers, and I was excited.

I was accustomed to academia, to the sports field, to the stage, but this was an entirely fresh paradigm. Anuj, the staff trainer and joyously friendly employee tasked with the rather unfortunate challenge of having to teach me hamburgerological cuisine greeted me with a firm handshake. This guy meant business.

The familiar fast-food funk wafted through the tiny store like cologne in an airport duty-free store – overpowering, faintly nauseous and all-encompassing. The filing cabinets in my mind usually reserved for physics formulas, economics jargon and debating cases were tipped out and crammed with permutations and combinations of burgers – Otropo, Chicken Wrappa, Bondi. Exceptions to French conjugations were momentarily replaced with extra topping combos. The till became my new graphical calculator.

With surgeon-like precision Anuj modeled how to wrap a burger in four swift motions – place burger in the dead centre, pull wrap from left to right, then right to left, then roll the corners. He gestured towards his demonstration model and motioned for me to take to the stage. It was show time! Unfortunately, my burger ended up looking like the after-effects of Hurricane Katrina. Anuj patted me on the back, said ʻyouʼll learn fastʼ – and smirked.

Suddenly the barricades were overrun and an influx of jandal-wearing, sun-glass toting beach-goers charged into the store. The orders came flying faster than budget cuts at a Tea Party convention. I heard the petrifying three words ʻchicken tenderloin comboʼ. This was it, the Everest of my culinary career. It involved delving into the bossʼs prized stock of ʻsucculent tenderloinsʼ as he had described, ʻthe highest quality meat we sell, expensive to buy and delicate to cook, we canʼt afford any mistakesʼ. I was handling meaty gold. As the first tenderloin slapped onto the grill with a satisfying sizzle, I could imagine the bossʼs scorching eyes scrutinizing my every action from behind the prying lens of the staff security camera. Sun-glass toter number two, the tenderloin culprit, then muttered ʻExcuse me! Sorry mate, my fault, I meant the chicken nuggets.ʼ

Silently, I screamed. I grimaced, pirouetted and pleaded with the security camera.

Anuj saw my face, contorted in anguish, and took to the rescue with business-like efficiency. He rolled his eyeballs. In one graceful movement he scooped the tenderloins and flicked them into the cooler with one hand, and in perfect synchrony, removed the emergency chicken nuggets with the other. His eyes glistened with intensity. With consummate mastery his arms flicked from grill to cooker to table to bread to wrap. In less than ninety seconds, the order was complete. The bossʼs eyeballs returned to their sockets. The day was saved.

I worship the Anujs of this world. Certain jobs may look simple but that simplicity masks years of expertise. My skills in the rococo art of burger flipping paled into insignificance beside the master. I learnt more than burger flipping that day. I learnt humility, respect and the value of a good chicken tenderloin.

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Questions

Rate this essay from 1-5 with 5 being the highest.  What rating did you give it and why?

How would you describe the tone of this essay?

Do you find this essay funny? Why or why not? Should applicants refrain from humor in an admission essay?

Can you tell this person’s politics based upon this essay?  Defend your answer. Should students avoid mentioning their political views in an admission essay? If you said no, do you think most admission readers would look objectively at an applicant who is a fervent supporter of Donald Trump?

What have you learned about the person who submitted this essay that would help you decide to advocate for this student to be admitted to highly selective schools?

Where is this student from? Should where a student is from matter when evaluating an essay?

Should working at a fast food restaurant counted as a positive in the admission evaluation? Should it be as or more important than school activities, leadership positions, or athletics?

Is this student smart?

How would you describe the student’s use of simile and metaphor throughout the essay?

What kind of university would be a good fit for this student?

Would you want this student to be your roommate?

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I would like to thank Jamie Beaton  for letting me post his essay here. I first came across his essay when I was reading up a bit on a wunderkind who had accomplished some things in his early 20 that most of us don’t in a lifetime.

A few stats that might convince you he is not the typical 20something:

Jamie attended King’s College, Auckland and was ranked first in his year group for all five years, culminating in the award of Dux. He sat 10 CIE A Levels, receiving 8 A* and 2 A’s, including a Top In The World in A2 English Literature, Top In The World of IGCSE English Language, as well as multiple Top in New Zealand awards. He obtained 9 NZQA Scholarships. His final score was equivalent to the Australian ATAR of 99.95.

Jamie applied for 25 of the top universities around the world and was the first New Zealander to be accepted to all of them. He achieved 5 perfect scores on SAT Subject Tests, SAT Maths and 750+ in both Critical Reading and Writing. The top-ranked institutions which accepted Jamie included: Harvard, Cambridge, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, University of Pennsylvania’s Huntsman Program, Columbia, Melbourne and Monash among other schools.

Jamie chose Harvard, and recently graduated with a degree in Applied Mathematics-Economics and a Masters in Applied Math in May this year, two years ahead of schedule. At the age of 20, he was also one of the youngest people in the world to be admitted to Stanford's Graduate School of Business.

This information comes from one of the webpages for a business he started while still at university. His business, which helps students from around the world apply to universities, is the stuff that young entrepreneurs dream of:

And in just three short years Crimson Consulting, which mentors students to help them get into the university of their choice, has attracted backing from a number of leading US and Chinese-based hedge funds and angel investors, and reached a valuation of $82 million.

The dollar amount quoted here is Australian dollars but this ends up being over US$60.000.000.  He and his team hope to create ways of helping students that cross borders, times zones, and nationalities.

In talking with Jamie I am lucky to be able to observe a mind working at full speed. He’s smart, articulate, and funny. His essay shows us all these things. His essay did not, however, get him in to all his schools. But it helped.  The essay backs up his numbers  but it also makes him approachable and insightful about life. One would expect the top in the world English Lit and Language scores to do a pretty good job. 

But I’d be willing to bet that some of those who read this essay may not have given it top marks. Does the information I have shared alter your interpretation? Generally speaking, this does not happen. People, once they have made an assessment, usually  stick with it.  It’s true when it comes to rating essays, politicians, and, all too often,  virtually all of the people we meet in life. 

Do you think there are “right” answers about evaluating writing, politicians and people?

Jamie Beaton

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Post Script

A long time ago I used fast food to begin an essay I wrote on writing admission essays for the US News. The essay has been around for quite some time but there are many schools that still use the piece to guide students.

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Fast Food. That’s what I think of when I try to draw an analogy with the process of reading application essays.

The bad. Ninety percent of the applications I read contain what I call McEssays – usually five-paragraph essays that consist primarily of abstractions and unsupported generalization. They are technically correct in that they are organized and have the correct sentence structure and spelling, but they are boring. Sort of like a Big Mac. I have nothing against Big Macs, but the one I eat in Charlottesville is not going to be fundamentally different from the one I eat in Paris, Peoria or Palm Springs. I am not going to rave about the quality of a particular Big Mac. The same can be said about the generic essay. If an essay starts out: “I have been a member of the band and it has taught me leadership, perseverance and hard work,” I can almost recite the rest of the essay without reading it. Each of the three middle paragraphs gives a bit of support to an abstraction, and the final paragraph restates what has already been said. A McEssay is not wrong, but it is not going to be a positive factor in the admission decision. It will not allow a student to stand out.
 A student who uses vague abstractions poured into a preset form will end up being interpreted as a vague series of abstractions. A student who uses cliché becomes, in effect, a cliché. If we are what we eat, we are also what we write.

Not only does a preset form lead to a generic essay, so does a generic approach to what is perceived as the right topic. Far too many students begin the search of what to write about by asking: What does my college want to hear? The thinking goes something like this: If I can figure out what they are looking for, and if I can make myself look like that, then I’ll improve my chances.

Several years ago we asked students to describe an invention or creation from the past that was important to them. Our No.1 response – at least a thousand people – was the Declaration of Independence. This might make some people think that our college bound students are wonderfully patriotic, but given that my institution was found by Thomas Jefferson, I have a better answer. My guess is that a significant portion of the people who chose the Declaration did so because they thought we would want to hear about how much they admired Thomas Jefferson. While this may be a noble sentiment or, in some cases, a cynical maneuver, it ultimately meant that we had a thousand essays that sounded pretty much alike and therefore did not affect the admission decision. We are not looking for students who all think the same way, believe the same thing, or write the same essay.

Too often, however students who want to avoid sounding generic with respect to form or content choose exactly the wrong remedy; they think that bigger topics – or bigger words – are better. But it is almost impossible, in 500 words, to write well about vast topics such as the death of a loved one (see excerpt: “the bad”). I am not advocating longer essays (just remember how many applications admissions officers need to read); I am advocating essays with a sharp focus that allows for detail. Detail is what differentiates one essay from another, one applicant from another.

Instead of detail, however, students try to impress us with big words. In trying to make a topic sound intellectual, students resort to the thesaurus and, as a result, end up sounding pretentious or at least insecure about using the voice they would use to describe an event to a friend. The student assumes that these “impressive” words intensify the experience for a reader rather than diminish it. Before students send off their essay, they should always read it aloud to someone who knows them well; let that person decide if an individual’s voice comes through.

The good. A good essay is not good because of the topic but because of the voice. A good writer can make any topic interesting, and a weak writer can make even the most dramatic topic a bore.

Students need only to recall the difference between two simple concepts – showing and telling. A good essay always shows; a weak essay always tells.

By showing, a writer appeals to all of the senses, not just the visual. To show means to provide a feast for the eyes, ears and, depending on the essay, the mouth, nose or skin. But rather than telling a reader what show is, it is much easier to show what showing is.

The student whose essay appears below, an example of “the good,” has undertaken the task of describing – that is, of showing, in detail – the deterioration of her father as he gets treated for cancer. I do not know of a single member of our staff who was not deeply affected by this essay, the whole of which is as well done as the excerpt. What is impressive about the essay is the willingness of the writer to carefully notice everything that is happening. She opens with a sound, that coughing, and then creates a visual scene that we can see clearly. I said before that writing about death and sickness is perhaps one of the most difficult topics to tackle in a college essay, but here we have an example of why this topic can demonstrate not only writing ability but the courage to face a terrible situation head-on with intellect and power. Compare this with the other essay about death. There, even though the writer was saturated with emotions, he was merely telling us, in abstract terms, what he felt.

A writer who shows respects the intelligence of the reader; a writer who tells focuses on the ideas, or the perceived ideas, behind the details. He or she is more concerned about demonstrating the ability to be abstract then the ability to be precise. In a short, personal essay, precision is power.

The risky. Any student who has already learned the basics of showing should think about taking a risk on the college essay. What kind of risk? Think about starting an essay with: “I sat in the back of the police car.” Or, as in the example (below): ” The woman wanted breasts.” These first sentences use what journalists call a hook. The sentence reaches out from the page and grabs our attention. It creates a bit of controversy and an expectation that the writer might be willing to take academic risks in the classroom. A good hook does not mean that a good essay will follow, but it does mean that a reader will look forward to seeing what will unfold.

A risky essay can border on the offensive. In some cases, as in the excerpt, it is possible that a few readers might write off an applicant based upon questionable taste. That is the danger of taking a risk. People wonder if they will be penalized if they do take a risk in an application. They want to know, in other words, if there is any risk in taking a risk. Yes, there is. I can say, however, that my experience in the admissions field has led me to conclude the great majority of admissions officers are an open-minded lot and that to err on the side of the baroque might not be as bad as to stay in the comfort of the boring.

The best essays are crafted not from a formula for success but by a voice that is practiced. Those who are willing to take a risk, to focus on that part of the world that matters to them and to show the passion and the practice it takes to write about it well, will help their chances of admission through their essay.

Excerpts from admission essays.

—The bad: From an early age, we accept death as the inevitable, but do not comprehend its actual denotation. Death is the impending future that all people must eventually grasp. In my early teens, my grandfather tragically perished. As a youth who did not identify with such a cataclysm I was saturated with various emotions. Initially, I was grieved by the loss of a loved one and could not understand why this calamity had to befall upon my family. I always considered death to have a devastating effect, but was shocked by the emotional strain it places upon an individual.

—The good: The coughing came first, the hacking in the middle of the night. Then there were the multiple doctor visits, each one the same: the little white rooms with magazines where I tried not to stare at the bald, gaunt woman across from me. One of the white coats finally said something, steadily, forecasting an 80 percent change of rain. The list of second opinions grew too long to count, looking for someone to say the right thing. Finally, there was relief in hearing the name of a kinder killer: lymphoma.

—The risky: The woman wanted breasts. She had fame waiting on her like a slave, money dripping from her fingertips and men diving into her being. Yet she wanted breasts because the world wanted her to have a bust. She looked at the big black and white glossy of herself arching on a silken carpet and knew that the world would be satisfied with her airbrush deception.

————This woman is us. My family has been in existence for nearly 20 years now, and we are aging and losing our own breasts and tight face – the giddy happiness of a child’s unconditional love for his family, the young family’s need for each other. Yet, we are constantly pressured by society’s family icons into compromising our change and age instead of accepting it.