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Don’t drink and drive! Stripes and polka dots don’t belong together in the same outfit. Oh, and most importantly – never drink orange juice after brushing your teeth (it takes really REALLY gross)!

Sometimes, it’s knowing what NOT to do that puts you on the right path. Here are some topics you should avoid on the personal essay you’re about to submit to Stanford, Oberlin, or U Mich – whatever your dream school may be.

Sex and Drugs

This one is obvious to most people. Admissions officers aren’t interested in these topics (at least not in the context of your essays) – especially YOUR sex life or drug usage. We’re including this warning, however, because we realize that sex and drugs feature in many a teenager’s coming of age experience – and some might be tempted to hint at these topics.

This “no-no” category also includes your significant other. Yes, we know, he/she has made you a better person! Given you a fresh perspective of the world! You might even be in love! On the other hand, essays on romance are often clichéd and might even come off sounding immature.

As for every rule, there are exceptions. We have seen successful applications that included stories about their loved ones.

What if you served as a primary caretaker for your long-term girlfriend while she suffered from and finally succumbed to a terminal illness? What if you learned more about diversity and respecting others’ viewpoints from your other half’s autism spectrum disorder than you could have from any international travel experience? What if you used your personal experience with rape to begin a successful support group for women?

Yes, the above are all real-life examples. All these essays were written from the heart and thus encouraged identification with the authors, marketed aspects of the writers, such as passion to help others and resilience, that made them more desirable applicants, and sometimes even injected fresh humor. What they were NOT is sappy.

Psychological Issues and Violence

This one may not be as obvious.

Overcoming psychological or behavioral issues may have made you who you are today; perhaps you won’t feel like you’ve represented yourself fully if you don’t discuss your unique journey. If your school records or resume show a noticeable dip in high quality activity because of such problems, you certainly need to explain this somehow. However, coming clean about your past does come with certain risks. Your readers will ask themselves if you will have any difficulties handling the academic and extracurricular curricula in university.

The key is to show how you’ve overcome to a high degree the psychological issues that you faced. The last thing you want to do is to cause the admissions committee to question whether or not you’ll be able to benefit from or to contribute fully to the university.  But don’t stop there. Demonstrate how overcoming hardships have made you a more attractive candidate for admissions or better person, and you’ll do be doing yourself a favor.

Keep in mind that if you indicate that your internal issues manifested themselves as violence toward yourself or others, you may inspire a red flag in admissions officers’ minds. Think: the Columbine High School massacre, Virginia Tech shootings, Kent State University murders… Do we need to go further? Many acts of violence on educational campuses have been committed by students with past histories of psychological disturbance.

Rehash of Your Resume

If the admissions officers want to read your resume, they can read your resume.

Despite the number of times we remind our clients, many doggedly retain tendencies to pack as many accomplishments and awards into 500 words as humanly possible. Perhaps this is understandable: Applicants want admissions officers to know why they should be the ones to gain acceptance, after all.

However, the purpose of providing space for a resume or activities list and an admissions essay is to have both an overview of your accomplishments as well as to get to know your uniqueness at a deeper level. Other than interviewing you, the essays are the only ways through which admissions officers can gain a glimpse into what makes you tick – from your own perspective. Most effective application essays focus on one key experience and elaborate.

Save the listing for your resume.

Humor

 You think your funny, your mom thinks your funny – hey, maybe your friends and colleagues even think you’re hilarious! However, will your application reader catch your jokes?

Humor can brighten up an essay, engage your readers, and portray you as somebody the school would like to have around. Keep in mind, though, that cross-cultural, inter-generational, even inter-personal gaps exist in tastes of humor.

One good suggestion is to have somebody who has worked in a university or high school setting (in the appropriate country) – as a teacher or in educationally-related offices, not as a janitor – read your writing.