As an astrophotographer, I track the seasons in the sky. Winter brings nebula season, when iconic sights like the Horsehead Nebula and the Cone Nebula take center stage. Spring shifts to galaxy season, with dark skies perfect for capturing the Milky Way and beyond.
In admissions, we’re entering our own kind of season: college essay season.
When I worked in the Dartmouth admissions office, I read application files for eight hours a day from November through March. After reviewing thousands of essays, I can tell you this: most were bad. Not mediocre—bad. Why? Because students were writing to an imaginary audience. They tried too hard to impress with fancy words, vague reflections, and overused storylines instead of being real, specific, and insightful.
Too many students waxed poetic about some defining life moment they hadn’t actually had enough distance, or maturity, to reflect on meaningfully. At the end of the essay, I still didn’t know who they were, what they cared about, or how they thought.
After a while, I could spot the clichés coming a mile away: the mountain conquered, the buzzer-beater goal, the award-winning music solo. These stories rarely told me anything meaningful about the applicant.
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COLLEGE ESSAY SEASON: A DIFFERENT APPROACH
At Top Tier Admissions, we take a different approach. We’re not just former admissions officers, we’re educators and writers. Our job is to help students dig deep and pull out something real. We push students to show, not tell—to focus on a narrow slice of their experience that illuminates how they think and who they are.
A good personal essay isn’t a life history. It’s a snapshot. Drop the reader into the middle of something that matters. Forget the traditional intro, body, conclusion. This isn’t your English class five-paragraph essay. It’s more personal, more freeform, but it still needs to make an intellectual impact.
Too often, students lean too far into the “personal” side of the personal essay and end up with something that’s trite or cringeworthy. Don’t forget: admissions officers are trying to build a classroom. They want students who will shine in seminar discussions, ask thoughtful questions, and engage professors. Your job is to show that you’re one of those students.
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Details matter. Be specific. Walk us through your intellectual journey. How did your interest begin? What have you done to pursue it at a high level? What have you contributed—and what do you want to explore next? If you’re a budding mathematician, don’t just say you love math, walk us through a complex problem you tackled, research you pursued, a concept that kept you up at night. How did you ask better questions? What did you learn? Where is your academic interest headed next?
There’s no magic formula. But if you’re not being authentic, if you’re not being interesting, you’re wasting the opportunity.
Our team helps students stand out as scholars, and that’s what makes the difference. At our annual Application Boot Camp, we put students through four intense days of writing, brainstorming, and revising. We push them to be bold, take risks, and think like real writers and thinkers. In our one-on-one work, we do the same.
It’s not always easy. But if you want to write a great essay, you’ve got to be willing to go deep. We’re here to help you get there.
Join us.
Dr. Michele Hernández has written the best-selling books: A is for Admission, The Middle School Years, Acing the College Application and Don’t Worry You’ll Get In which she wrote with Mimi Doe. Her new book on hiking all the Northeast mountains over 4000 feet is now available on Amazon.
- I Was a Dartmouth Admissions Officer–75% of the College Essays I Read Were Terrible - September 9, 2025
- It’s College Essay Season: Here’s the Hard Truth - July 16, 2025
- College Admissions Ask Me Anything - October 4, 2024
