Dear College Admission Expert,

A lot of my college applications have an essay question simply along the lines of: tell us about yourself, or, what’s interesting about you? To me, those questions seem ridiculously open-ended, and I haven’t been able to write one word yet. Help!

Tamara
Los Angeles, CA

Hey Tamara,

We understand the difficulty of those open-ended “tell us about yourself” questions; however, you can also view these questions as a wonderful opportunity to showcase your creativity, and give the admissions officers a reason to be intrigued by you. The best way to go about this essay so that you don’t ramble on and on is to frame it with an anecdote from your life; some interesting, funny, or bizarre experience you’ve had. You can describe the situation, how you acted in it, and how it ultimately affected you. That way, the admissions officers will get an idea of how you handle certain situations, and hopefully, a broader perspective of you as a whole person. The story device is helpful in that it gives you a more specific frame to work within. Most importantly, don’t try to sound overly verbose, and don’t use a thesaurus! Just write with your own unique voice, and let your creativity and personality flow!

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