Getting Personal: The Edits of Stuyvesant’s College Essays

“I feel like I just left my meeting with my English teacher feeling worse about myself. I was having trouble picking out an idea for my personal statement when my teacher suggested that I write about my unusual name. I told him I could do that, but it didn’t feel authentic since I didn’t actually care if people mispronounced my name or not. I don’t even correct substitute teachers sometimes. He said I can easily use that as a starting point, because it’s such a good example of me being a people-pleaser who doesn’t think I’m worthy enough to interrupt attendance for a second. Then, he said that I must be afraid to speak up since I have 10 siblings so I don’t get attention even when I want it anyways. Kind of hurt.” —Cald Aut

“When I was writing my essay, I saw a lot of people on TikTok say that it was a bad idea to talk about your trauma, so I tried to steer away from that. I focused my essay on playing basketball last season instead and I felt pretty good about it. But when I went to meet with my English teacher she was so shocked. She told me that she read my SSR and knew I had better material. I think her exact words were, ‘You are insanely underprivileged, use it. If you have a life that you can make into an inspirational movie, then you need to trauma-dump to the admissions officer.’ Now I’m writing about how I found my biological parents in the sewer system after falling into a manhole, and how that led me to my passion for urban infrastructure. It was either that or geology after all four of my grandparents fell into volcanoes.” —Pijjin Hold

“My teacher said that I was ‘trying too hard.’ I was just trying to be original. Have you ever read a personal statement that’s written as if it was an Instagram caption? I didn’t think so.”  —Delilah Ousional

“I had one student who wrote their entire essay like it was an Instagram caption. Including emojis and hashtags. I had to take a lap after reading that one.” —Ty Red, English teacher

“I originally wrote my essay about my grandparents, but I wanted to pivot to my breakup instead. My teacher hated the idea, though. Apparently, founding a non-profit to help visually impaired elderly across the country is more important than getting dumped. Have they ever made a shared Spotify playlist with anyone? Ben, if you’re reading this, I still miss you and we can start over.” —Aubrey Sessd

“I do tend to give harsher feedback when it comes to college essays, but it’s only because I want the best for my students. The only thing I hate is when students lie to me. Every year, almost every student sends me their essay and calls it a ‘very rough draft.’ Every time they say that, I check the version history and I can see that they’ve been working on it for the past three months. Pretty much every student does it, but it’s pathetic every time.” —Rawling Ei-Ehmohje, English teacher

“I actually barely got any feedback on my essay, which was more offensive than if they just tore it apart. I panicked right before my one-on-one meeting with my teacher, and I just ChatGPT’ed a quick draft. She said it was the best writing she’d ever seen from me. She even suggested that I submit it right now with zero edits. It was nice to finish my application so early, so I don’t get why everyone is always against using AI. What’s the worst that can happen?” —Lohst Kaus