What Admissions Experts Get Wrong about College Essays

Recently, a parent and longtime essay tutoring client of mine texted me a question: "Do you know anything about keywords in college application essays?"

She also linked an Instagram reel of two educational consultants discussing the "game plan" for getting their students into the University of Michigan. Here's an excerpt:

Consultant 1: ...How do we get students into Michigan?

Consultant 2: Basically...putting all those keywords in there that [Michigan is] looking for.

A tidy, achievable strategy like this "keywords strategy" is no doubt appealing for parents looking for a sure path to get their kids into school.

However, such a claim is highly misleading if not downright false—a kind of snake oil.

The truth is that all seven of the COMMON APP ESSAY prompt options ask for personal narrative writing.

These personal narratives are a unique part of the college application process—and here's what won't work when writing them:

❌ Approaching personal narrative like a resume. These prompts ask for STORIES—not key words, not resume writing, not a list of achievements.

❌ Using AI. AI writing is often vague and non-specific. As inconvenient a truth as this may be, there's no hack for our own human voice—and its capacity to meaningfully express our stories.

❌ Any hack that makes the writing process seem easy. It's not easy, nor should it be.

So what actually works? The time and effort of a three-stage process of writing and revision I call the Messy Model!

My Messy Model strategy has gotten my students into places like Stanford, UC Santa Barbara, CU Boulder, UT Austin, NYU, and many more.

Here’s what it includes:

✅ Using questions ("mini-prompts") to generate ideas and voice—two of the six total traits of writing.

✅ Creating organization and sentence fluency in the middle stage of revision (two other key writing traits!).

✅ Polishing at the very end—once the big pieces are in place—with focus on conventions and word choice (the final two traits of writing).

Creating great writing that gets kids into their dream schools is never quick and easy. Instead, it takes time, effort, and vulnerability.

I know, I know...wouldn't it be so much easier on these kids if they could just churn out an essay with a tried-and-true hack?

Easier, sure—but college essays remind us of a startling but hopeful truth:

Despite our fast-paced world, there is no substitute for the power of telling our story with authenticity and excellence.