No one sits in front of their laptop with excitement when they finally get to writing their essay. More often than not, the notion of writing your college essay tends to evoke a lot of anxiety and dread. But what if there was a surefire way to write, a strategy that could secure your success?
If you are looking for a secret sauce to writing the essay that will get you in, there is nothing better than storytelling. No, this doesn’t mean you make something up. This means that through your essay, you tell the part of your story that can persuade the admissions officer to take you in.
So, what makes storytelling a vital strategy for ensuring success with your college essay?
What Makes Storytelling the Secret Sauce?
Your college essay is supposed to be fact-based, and with such writings, one would think there is very little space for creative freedom.
After all, most of the content is about what you have done thus far, which makes you qualified, and what you will be doing in the future to make you worthy of the opportunity.
Yet, your essay can’t just be a list of your skills and accomplishments that you can generate with AI, especially since the admission committee will definitely run your essay through an AI checker.
This is why, not just what you write, but how you present your information is crucial to its quality of being persuasive and worthwhile. But what makes storytelling such a key element to a great essay? Here are the three specific things that reading your story does to your audience’s brain:
Evokes Memories
A heartfelt story can trigger an array of memories in the reader. Even if the audience didn’t experience the exact same thing, it can pull memories of similar experiences, making it something they can relate to.
Most human experiences are shared; we all go through similar things. The more relatable your story is, the more affected by it your audience will be.
The stories that resonate will always make an impact on the reader’s mind, and it is often what makes your story memorable to them.
Activates Senses and Emotions
There is no doubt that a story can evoke emotions in you. Whether it’s your emotions or senses, a story can ignite it all.
How many times has it been when you were reading a story and got swept away with the plot? You have laughed with the narrator, felt anger, anguish, and grief.
A story can be visual, sonic, aromatic, tactile, and even savory! It can appeal to the senses of your audience and draw out every emotion.
This journey of senses and feelings makes the audience more inclined towards you and invested in your story. This immersive quality of storytelling makes the audience experience what you are going through alongside you.
Motivates Them to Act
Storytelling creates a connection between you and the audience. When it triggers their senses, memories, and emotions, the audience feels compelled to take action on your behalf.
When they feel invested in you, they will have a desire to engage in your cause. Now that they know your journey and have felt your emotions attached to it, they will want to support you in whatever way they can.
However, your story needs to be authentic. If you are making it up, you will not be able to portray your tale the way it needs to create an impact. The best part is that writing your own story makes you more motivated and makes it much easier to write.
By harnessing the power of storytelling, your essay can become a persuasive tool to help you get into your desired school.
You must remember that the only way to create this connection is by putting the reader in the moment and making them feel the complex emotions of that life-changing experience you have had.
Make the details clear, specific, and vivid. You need to show them, not just tell them, like a summary. Most importantly, you have to make sure that what you write is not a cliche. Generalization makes it harder for the audience to truly connect with you.
4 Steps to Incorporate Storytelling Into Your Essay
Everyone has a story to tell, but telling it the right way matters more than you would think. Your essay is generally the only part(Unless there is an interview) of the application where you get to directly address the admissions officer.
You need to be able to incorporate storytelling into your essay in a way that is effective and doesn’t sound like idle chatter. Here are four steps that can help you craft your essay like a story.
Step 1: Brainstorming
A lot happens to us every day that changes who we are. Some of those events impact what we choose to do in life and who we become. If you want to tell your story, you must first choose what story you want to tell.
Even if you feel like you have a boring and uneventful life, there is still a way of portraying the story in a way that feels relatable and engaging.
Don’t know where to start? Think about why you chose the program you want to get into. We generally choose something we want to study, so grab that thread and pull.
Ask yourself: when did you first start feeling interested in this specific subject? What encouraged that liking? What were the challenges you faced?
People often feel drawn to things that have emotional value to them. A child who lost a parent to illness may feel inspired to grow up and become a doctor. A person growing up watching the sky with a grandparent may want to become an astronaut.
Think about your emotional attachment to your subject of choice and unravel the thread that tells you where it began.
Step 2: Organize the Idea
Once you have found the muse for your subject, you will find the relevant events that occurred that led to the motivation. You need to list down the parts of your story that are relevant and can help create a cohesive story.
Your thoughts need to be organized, and more importantly, your accomplishments should be subtly ingrained into your essay. You need to pick parts of your story that inspired you to gather a certain skill or experience, and organize the ideas before you write the final piece.
Make sure you do not blabber, and your ideas are clear. Explaining artistically doesn’t mean that you have to be ultra abstract. However, you must remember that sometimes absence creates a better impact than presence. In some cases, a subtle hint does more than fully explaining something.
Step 3: Assemble the Narrative
Once the ideas are all there, you need to arrange the sequence. If there is a lot you need to talk about, consider writing in chronological order. You can start from the early beginnings and then end up where you are now.
The skills you have gained along the way can be rearranged according to the timeline. It’s like putting together a puzzle. You need to know where to put each piece, otherwise it will not make any sense.
Assemble the story in a way that keeps the audience hooked and invested, but don’t overdo it. Remember that the premise for this story is still quite formal, and you have to maintain a certain amount of formality.
Step 4: Cohesion is Key
Even if you are talking about different experiences in relation to different achievements, the whole needs to come together. Each part of the story needs to tie together, and to do so, you should pick a running theme. This theme can be related to the program of your choice.
No matter how many pieces you add, the entire essay must feel like a cohesive single entity. Do not add pieces that don’t make sense in the whole. Just like in a movie or a book, you want many small pieces that come together to create the plot; your essay should also be like that.
Final Thoughts
Leverage storytelling to persuade your dream school to accept your application. Storytelling can be the special ingredient that makes your ordinary essay into an extraordinary one.
If you can ignite the memory and trigger certain emotions in the audience, they would be more likely to take your side and help you achieve your goals.
Consider brainstorming about the top, life-changing events in your life that have turned you into the person you are not.
Try listing these special moments while adding the skills and experiences you have gained along the way. Pick the right stories and skills, and bring them together to create a cohesive narrative that makes sense as a whole.
