Previously on this blog, I’ve explained why your college application will be way, way stronger with an Organizing Principle. In my fifteen years of experience helping students get into their top-pick colleges, I’ve discovered an ironic truth:
Most students’ first-draft applications initially do not have an Organizing Principle.
Yet an Organizing Principle is often THE missing ingredient that will bring a candidate from “rejected” (or “wait list”) to “accepted”!
As that earlier article notes, your Organizing Principle is the shared theme, philosophy, or motivation that brings together MOST (or even all) of your varied activities and interests.
Highlighting that central thread helps you come across to your app’s reader as the authentic human being you really are—and not as a status-chasing, shallow kid who’s shaped their whole application (and high school life!) around trying to “look good” to admissions officers.
Of course, we do want you to look good to an admissions reader…but we want you to do so while being true to yourself. So today I’m going walk you through exactly HOW to locate your Organizing Principle—so you can bring your application from “meh” to “marvelous”!
ARTICLE CONTENTS
1. Video version of this article
2. Why it can be hard to find your Organizing Principle
3. How to find your Organizing Principle: your step-by-step plan
e. Congrats!
4. Conclusion
Watch this article as a video:
Application challenges: why it's hard to find your Organizing Principle
First, I’ll explain why finding your Organizing Principle can be so tough.
The thing is, Organizing Principle qualities are so intuitive and natural to how you show up and live in the world that they might be hard for you to notice! It’s kind of like how a frog doesn’t really take note of the swamp it hops around in all day. Lily pads and hopping are just part of its identity.
But un-swamping the swamp—clarifying the confusing—is what I’m here for.
To continue with the animal metaphors, let’s say you were a sparrow. When it came time to write your main Common App essay, you’d need to brainstorm what makes you “special.” And despite the fact that you’re the first sparrow ever to APPLY TO COLLEGE, you might not know what to write. You’d talk about how your feathers are slightly browner than your friends’ feathers, how you love being part of the team of sparrows that flies South for the winter, or something else equally obvious—and dull.
It may take a friend who’s a little different from you, and an outsider to your application—say, a giraffe—to point out to you that: 1) you HAVE WINGS to begin with, and that that’s interesting because 2) YOU LOVE TO FLY, which not all animals do.
So, that said, finding your Organizing Principle is one of the hardest things to do for yourself. It often takes an objective observer (yours truly, for instance) to be the land-walking giraffe who can tell you that the fact that you move by flying all day is, in fact, special and intriguing to someone who’s never met you—and exactly what you should make sure to focus on in your essay!
Providing that neutral yet knowledgeable insight for my clients is one of the most valuable interventions I offer for their applications (after helping them achieve the test scores they need to get into that highly selective school and creating a custom roadmap so that they make it through the application process without losing their sanity!).
Guide to Making Your College Application More Coherent
That being said, some of the strategies I use to help my clients find their Organizing Principles don’t need a third party/giraffe friend at all—you can try them on your own! So here’s my DIY method for finding your application’s secret pattern.
Step 1: Reflect upon who you are.
Ask yourself the following questions and WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING that comes to mind! You’re just brainstorming here, so don’t worry about writing in full or polished sentences unless that’s useful to you.
A) My strongest academic subject is:
B) Here's an example of my “academic success,” however I define that:
C) Here are my extracurricular interests:
D) Here’s how I’ve spent my last three summers:
E) The college major(s)/future career(s) I might be interested in are:
F) I get excited about:
G) My friends say the best thing about me is:
H) A unique accomplishment (however you define “accomplishment”) of mine is:
I) I’m proud of myself when I:
J) I really care about:
K) In college, I really want to:
L) I chose the activities I’m involved in because:
M) In the future, I hope to:
Step 2: Find the patterns!
Now, look back at your answers to those questions and jot down ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING you notice about what they have in common! Here are some running threads to look out for:
A) Which words/topics make an appearance more than once?
B) What overarching categories emerge, if any?
C) Which personality traits seem to come up multiple times?
Step 3: Name that theme(s).
Now, if you had to boil down this entire brainstorming sesh down to FIVE KEY THEMES, QUALITIES or SELLING POINTS that define you, what would they be?
Quality 1:
Quality 2:
Quality 3:
Quality 4:
Quality 5:
Step 4: Underline the most representative two Themes / Qualities.
Re-read the list of qualities you’ve just written up. Which two seem the most significant? Which are the most frequently-occurring and most powerful patterns, tying together the highest number of bullet points about who you are? If you had to pick just TWO items to sum yourself up to someone you’d just met on an elevator, which would you choose?
Step 5: Congratulations! You’ve just found your Organizing Principle—and the topic(s) you need to focus on in your Common App essay!
Now that you’re equipped with this new self-knowledge, you should also look through your Common App and make sure that your Organizing Principle shows up clearly and often.
Where and how can you highlight this theme in order to let your self-awareness and authentic personality shine through?
Conclusion
FYI, if you’d like some additional guidance to help you identify what the “flying” to your “sparrow” is, you can learn about my college application guidance packages here.
