A.I. CounselorA.I. Counselor educates on how to stand out in high school, the college admissions process, and beyond.

College Essay Secret: Why You're NOT the Hero #shorts

20 Aug 2026 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:11

In this YouTube short, the speaker explains that portraying oneself as the already‑successful “hero” in a college essay backfires because admissions officers (and readers in general) are psychologically wired to root for the underdog, the David in a David‑versus‑Goliath narrative. By positioning the applicant as the Goliath, the essay triggers subconscious resentment, making the applicant seem lucky or unearned. The speaker cites the universal appeal of underdog stories in movies—Rocky, etc.—to illustrate the bias and warns that this hidden bias can cause admissions committees to be less supportive of the applicant, even if unintentionally.

Chapters

That makes a horrible college essay. Yes, the reason is because we are hardwired to root for the David in the David versus Goliath story. So when you put yourself as the champion, the person at the top, we are identifying that person as the Goliath. We're just hardwired to do this, but we are hardwired to root for the David in the David versus Goliath story. If you think about Every movie you've ever seen, you'll recognize this theme over and over again. We root for Rocky in the Rocky movies. We root for the underdogs. We root for the people who are overcoming something. We don't usually root for the person who's up on top. And it's just one of these subconscious things that we come away hearing these stories of somebody who's up here without the climb, that this person was lucky. Something was given to them. That they didn't earn it, right? We are— we feel this sense of resentment even if we don't mean to, and it puts us in a way, in a light, that admissions committee officers don't really root for us. They may do it subconsciously, but it's just the way we are hardwired, and it's the reason why every movie is written a certain way.