Why Do 10,000 College Essays Say the Exact Same Thing?

Vagueness is the enemy of good writing. General words like "things," "stuff," "issues," "good," and "bad" don't help readers picture your story.

"She had a meaningful experience" is vague. "She watched the sunrise over the lake" is concrete (you can almost step into it).

Here is one interesting way to know if you writing is concrete: Can nobody else say this?

For personal writing (especially for college admissions), this means: Does this claim belong to your actual life, or could it belong to anyone?

When you write "I'm passionate about helping others," you've written something that applies to thousands of applicants in the same pile. When you write "I spent three summers cataloging oral histories from my grandmother's neighborhood, and discovered that the street I grew up on had been renamed twice," you've written something only you could write. The second statement is specific enough that it cannot be borrowed, recycled, or claimed by someone else.

If a stranger could read your personal statement and insert their own name without changing a single sentence, you haven't written about yourself. You've written a template. Templates are forgettable. Specificity is not.

Your specificity comes from the irreducible details of your life: not the conclusions you draw from them, but the actual facts. You didn't "overcome adversity." You worked nights at a convenience store while taking the SAT hungover because your mom had the flu. You didn't "develop leadership skills." You were the only person who showed up to the debate team meeting for three weeks, so you ran it alone until others came back. You didn't "find your passion." You rewatched the same documentary fourteen times and started "yapping" about it to friends without being asked.

The stronger your personal writing, the less it could apply to anyone else. Specificity is not decoration. It is evidence that you are paying attention to your own life, that you notice what makes your path different from the standard path. That noticing is what admissions officers actually want to see.

This rule is not a suggestion. It is the minimum standard. Apply them to everything. Not only to college essays.

Be specific!