College essays should go small and deep, not repeat your résumé. Pick one specific moment—like the Tuesday a shelter dog finally let you leash it—and mine it for what it taught you. Admissions already have your clubs and volunteer hours.
An essay's only job is depth. All right, sabotage number 2: turn the essay into a resume in paragraph form. I see this all the time. A student lists their club presidency, then their varsity letter, then their volunteer hours, then their internship, and calls it an essay because it's in sentences instead of bullet points. The admissions committee already has that information. It's on the activities list. It's in the transcript. Restating it in prose adds zero, zilch, nothing new information, and worse, tells the reader nothing about who this person actually is. So here's the inverse: go small and go deep. The best essays I've read take on one narrow moment, sometimes 5 minutes of a person's life, and mines it for everything it's worth. Not, I volunteered at a shelter, but specific Tuesday afternoon when a dog nobody wanted finally let the student get close enough to put on a leash, and what that then taught them about patience. Depth brings breadth every time. Essay's only job is depth.
