College Essay Tips: Selecting the Appropriate Voice
The cliche goes like this: Use your own voice when writing the college essay. But what does that really mean? We use different voices in different situations: the voice you use when talking to your math teacher about a missing homework assignment is probably not the same voice you use when chatting with your best friend on the phone. In both situations, the words you choose convey an appropriate level of formality. You greet your best friend with, “hey,” or “what’s up,” but to your math teacher, you say, “Hello, Ms. Smith.”
The college essay is no different. Admissions officers are expecting essays to be written by high school students, so it’s important not to be overly formal. Use words you understand and feel comfortable with; don’t feel pressured to include unfamiliar words because you want to show a complex vocabulary. At the same time, however, remember that you are writing for a panel of adults; do not use contractions like “don’t” or “can’t” and avoid slang whenever possible.
Here’s an example of a very informal voice from Junot Diaz’s short story, “Negocios,” out of the collection Drown.
My father, Ramon de las Casas, left Santo Domingo just before my fourth birthday. Papi had been planning to leave for months, hustling and borrowing from his friends, from anyone he could put the bite on. In the end it was just plain luck that got his visa processed when it did. The last of his luck on the Island, considering that Mami had recently discovered he was keeping with an overweight puta he had met while breaking up a fight on her street in Los Millonitos. Mami learned this from a friend of hers, a nurse and a neighbor of the puta. The nurse couldn’t understand what Papi was doing loafing around her street when he was supposed to be on patrol.
This is a very informal voice, too informal for the college essay. Diaz uses slang words—”hustling,” “put the bite on,” “just plain luck,” —as well as the contraction “couldn’t”—which make this tone inappropriate for the college essay.
At the same time, it’s possible to be overly formal. Here’s an example from Jonathan Swift’s essay, “A Modest Proposal:”
It is a melancholy object to those who walk through this great town or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads, and cabin doors, crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers, instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in strolling to beg sustenance for this helpless infants, who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes.
Swift uses many complex vocabulary words that make this inappropriate for a college essay—”importuning” instead of “begging”, “sustenance” instead of “food.” An essay like this would raise eyebrows in a college admissions office, making the readers wonder whether it was really written by a high school student.
Strive for something in between these two extremes, something comfortable but not overly casual or conversational, more formal than casual speech, but not so formal that you sound like an 18th century satiric essayist.
