How NOT to Write About Coronavirus on Your College Essay
In the fall of my senior year of high school, the dog my family brought home when I was 5 years old was dying. He was a magnificent German shepherd—a large, sturdy dog who had been my protector when I was small. In late September, my parents had an event that took them out of town, leaving me to take charge of my once-protector, helping his aged hips up the stairs and cleaning up after him when he could no longer control his bladder or bowel. When I was supposed to be applying to college, that was what was on my mind.
So that was what I wrote about.
I hated my first draft so much I actually deleted the file. Colleges didn’t want to read about my dog! So I was sad—so what? When, some time later, I realized that really was the story I needed to write just then, I had to go back and recreate it from scratch. It ended up being the essay that got me into my first-choice school.
What worked about the essay was not how sad it was that my dog was dying. What worked was the sudden responsibility I had to take, and how the situation highlighted my growing up. Each aspect of the story—my parents leaving me in charge of the dog, the fact that it was happening as I was writing it—was necessary to make the topic work. It was not intended as a piece about “saying goodbye to childhood,” yet that is what it became—both in the actual adult role I took as a caretaker and in the loss of my childhood friend. Yet it is precisely because it was not self-consciously that piece—which would have been maudlin and overly philosophical—that it succeeded.
So now, because college essays are my business, I am watching and experiencing the coronavirus pandemic and knowing that next fall, significant numbers of seniors will look back and say, The strangest/most difficult/most unprecedented experience of my life thus far was the coronavirus outbreak. I mean, of course it is. I am more than twice your age, and this is the strangest and most unprecedented experience of my life thus far.
Some coaches might tell you, Therefore … you shouldn’t write about it. Everyone will do it.
But “everyone” has done many things. (“Honestly, Will, if you write one more romantic comedy, I’m not sure the Globe is going to stay in business.”) If you didn’t write about any of the dozen or more things I’ve read you shouldn’t write about, I’m not sure what’s left in the life of an average teen. Your life is still yours to write about, even if it is not in every particular unique.
That said, you must be smart. What makes it YOUR coronavirus story? What was the MOMENT (or handful of moments) that stand out and make it your story? You cannot write an essay about how strange it was to stay home. You can write an essay about your choices when you stayed home—to observe social distancing or not, to focus on school or not—and how they influenced or were influenced by others. You CAN’T write a vague philosophical piece in which you realized your own or others’ mortality. “I knew I was growing up because I started to understand how significant it all was.” No. But you CAN write about caring for family members, or making difficult choices, or how silent your street became when the neighborhood kids stopped playing basketball. How the grocery store felt when it looked like this:
How anxious you were on reporting to work, if you were deemed Essential, and even more so when you returned home, unsure if you had just been exposed or not.
Now is a good time to take notes on those moments, just in case you want them later. You may not end up writing them—but do me a favor? Don’t throw them out.
You absolutely don’t have to start this story at the beginning. But if you’d like to tell your story and you’re not sure what to include, you might think about where you were when you realized that the world had just changed. How did you find out? Who was with you and what were you doing? How were you first affected? Don’t expect to get the whole story down at once. Just start!
(Photos mine—March 16, 2020)
