Why Students Think Their Lives Are Too Boring for a College Essay

“Nothing interesting has ever happened to me.”

“My life is just really normal.”

“I’m too boring to write a good college essay.”

These are some of the things students tell us every year as they try to come up with topics for their essays. They’ve usually read college essay examples online and feel intimidated by the traumatic stories they encounter. When they compare themselves to these examples, they conclude they have nothing to write about.

This classic misunderstanding stems from a false idea of what makes a college essay interesting. Here are three reasons students mistakenly believe their lives are too boring to write a good college essay.

Students Confuse “Interesting” With Dramatic

When most students set out to write their college essays, they assume they have to draw on extraordinary experiences: traumatic moments from their childhood, major accomplishments that distinguish them from their peers — in other words, exactly the kind of over-the-top stories that go viral and circulate in sample essay collections.

But there’s a big difference between going viral and getting into college. Yes, every year a few college essays attract a lot of attention, but most students admitted to top colleges don’t write about dramatic events. Viral essays tend to highlight a very narrow range of experiences, and if you browse collections of “essays that worked,” you’ll quickly notice the same patterns appearing again and again.

There’s the trauma essay, where the student writes about a major hardship such as the loss of a parent, a serious illness, or fleeing a difficult situation. There’s the humble brag, where the student describes founding a nonprofit organization, conducting high-level research, or winning a major national competition. And there’s the dramatic epiphany essay, where a single experience — a volunteer trip abroad, a leadership role on a sports team, or a moment during a community service project — supposedly transforms the student’s entire outlook on life.

When students compare their own lives to these dramatic narratives, it’s easy for them to conclude that nothing in their experience is worth writing about.

But this isn’t the case. In reality, most successful college essays are built on far more ordinary material.

Admissions Officers Aren’t Looking for Extraordinary Lives

In the current admissions climate, you may actually be taking a risk if you focus your essay on a dramatic experience. Why? Because admissions officers are very familiar with these types of submissions. They read thousands of essays every year, and when they pick up the next one on the stack, they categorize it very quickly.

“Oh, it’s another trauma essay,” they think. “And this next one is… another high achieving student essay.”

Of course, if you’ve actually experienced something dramatic in your life and you have something genuinely interesting to say about that experience, by all means write about it. The admissions officer will almost certainly pick up on the authenticity in your voice, and they won’t find your essay off-putting. But if you’re just writing about something dramatic because you think that’s what you need to do, you’re entering a danger zone. In all likelihood your essay will be written off as generic.

What should you do instead? Pick something quieter to talk about. A minor event, an unusual observation, or a small personal insight — anything that genuinely matters to you. If you do this, the admissions officer will likely keep reading because you’re already going against the grain.

There’s an endless number of things you could write about. One of our students last year told us about how she missed a plane connection and spent the night at a family friend’s house she didn’t know. Another, who was a champion swimmer, mentioned that he was bored whenever he got in the pool. The first was a minor episode, and the second was a minor observation — but both went in directions you wouldn’t expect, leading to highly successful essays.

No matter what you pick, keep in mind that the topic you discuss in your college essay isn’t enough on its own. Admissions officers don’t admit students to college because they’ve had interesting or dramatic experiences. They admit them based on how they interpret those experiences. 

What Makes a College Essay Interesting Is Reflection, Not the Event

Ultimately, the event you describe in your essay isn’t really that important. Events are just raw material, and they say next to nothing about the student submitting the application.

But how the student then reflects on that event — well, that’s everything.

Let’s go back to the student who missed her plane connection and had to spend the night at a family friend’s house. This experience was significant to the student because she’d barely spent a night away from her parents until that point. Now she was connecting with her Uber driver in Spanish as they drove an hour to an unfamiliar location.

Suddenly she was struck by how sheltered her existence had been. She reflected on how many opportunities she’d missed out on by putting up a wall in front of other people.

In other words, a minor mishap — a missed plane connection — spawned all sorts of questions about her identity.

For another person, a missed plane connection would be totally insignificant. They’d have absolutely nothing to say about it. But it was important to this student because it touched on her whole understanding of herself, which is exactly what the Common App prompts are designed to uncover. That’s why it was a successful essay. Not because it told a story about a minor event, but because that event led the student to reflect honestly about her own strengths, weaknesses, and insecurities.

Ordinary topics work particularly well for college essays because they force students to focus on interpretation rather than drama. A student who picks an ordinary topic won’t be tempted to think that the topic itself will get them into college; instead, they’ll be forced to do the hard work of reflection that’s essential for any successful college essay.

So if you’re nervous about the fact that you’ve led a more-or-less normal life, don’t panic. Instead, pick an experience that meant something to you and reflect carefully on why it mattered. If you do that, you can write a successful college essay — and stop worrying about whether your life is “boring.”

This article is part of the College Essay Misconceptions Series, which examines the most common myths about college essay advice.

If you’re working on your own college essay and want one-on-one guidance, learn more about our college essay coaching.