I spent years reading applications, and this issue is very real:
Too many students have absorbed the message that their best shot at admission is to hand over their hardest story.
Not their curiosity.
Not their intellectual spark.
Not the small, specific way they move through the world.
Their pain.
And yes, sometimes that pressure is subtle. No one from a college may literally say, please describe the worst thing that ever happened to you in 650 words. But students are not stupid. They watch what gets praised. They hear counselors say “be vulnerable” and “make it personal” and “show resilience.” They look around and conclude, often correctly, that suffering can be turned into narrative currency.
That’s where the problem starts.
As a former admissions officer, let me say something plainly: a college essay is not therapy. It is not a healing space. It is not a safe container for unresolved trauma. It is a selective process run by strangers, under time pressure, inside an institution that is still making judgment calls about who gets in and who does not.
That matters.
When a 17-year-old writes about racism, grief, family instability, illness, abuse, displacement, or any other deeply painful experience, they are not doing so in a neutral environment. They are doing it while trying to seem compelling, mature, resilient, self-aware, but not “too damaged,” honest, but still polished, wounded, but fully functional.
That is an impossible performance.
And I do mean performance, because the essay often rewards a very particular shape of pain:
Something bad happened.
I learned something uplifting.
Now I am stronger.
Clean arc. Palatable ending. No mess left on the page.
Real life rarely works that way. Some experiences do not produce wisdom on schedule. Some wounds are still open. Some losses do not turn into leadership material by application season. Sometimes, to be blunt, something awful happened and it just remains awful.
I think one of the most corrosive parts of this norm is that it teaches students to sanitize themselves. They start trimming away the anger, the confusion, the unresolved pieces, the systemic critique. What’s left is the marketable version. The admissions-safe version. The version that says: I suffered, but don’t worry, I’m still an excellent investment.
That is a terrible lesson to teach young people.
I also want to be honest about the equity piece, because this is where families get understandably upset. Students from more privileged backgrounds often get to write about interests, quirks, travel, niche hobbies, robotics projects, rowing at sunrise, or the grandparent who taught them to bake. Students from marginalized backgrounds are much more likely to feel that they need to justify their presence through hardship.
I saw versions of this over and over.
One student offers a polished meditation on a passion. Another feels compelled to submit evidence of survival.
Those are not the same burden.
And before anyone says, “Well, no one is forcing them,” let me add some insider context: in admissions, what is implicitly rewarded matters just as much as what is explicitly requested. If colleges are vague, if counselors are careless, if the mythology grows that trauma helps, students will respond accordingly. Especially the ones with the least margin for error.
Now, here’s the nuance that gets lost online: I am not saying students should never write about hardship.
Sometimes it is absolutely the right topic.
If an experience genuinely shaped how you think, what you value, what you want to study, or how you move through the world, it may belong in the essay. But it should be there because you want to tell that story and because it reflects something true and important about you — not because you’ve been coached into believing pain is your most persuasive credential.
That distinction matters a lot.
When I advised students, my rule was simple: never write the trauma essay because you think admissions officers want to be emotionally impressed. Write it only if it is the clearest window into your mind, your values, and your voice.
And even then, I’d ask a hard question:
Does this essay give you dignity, or does it just give the reader drama?
If it’s mostly drama, stop.
The better essays — the ones I still remember — were not always the saddest or the most dramatic. Usually, they were the most revealing. A student writing about repairing old radios with her uncle. A kid obsessed with public transit maps. Someone explaining why debate taught him to listen, not just argue. Those essays worked because they felt alive, specific, and self-possessed.
They did not beg for sympathy. They created understanding.
I would love to see colleges reduce the incentive structure here. Be clearer. Say directly that hardship is not required. Train counselors better. Stop using prompts and messaging that make teenagers think their worth rises in proportion to what they have endured. Ask more often about what students want to explore, build, question, study, and become.
Because students are more than the worst chapter of their lives.
And if you’re applying right now, let me give you the advice I wish more adults gave honestly:
You do not need to bleed on the page to be taken seriously.
You need to sound like a real person with a real mind.
That is enough. More than enough, actually.