My college counselor had said the essay was “good but needed work.” I hadn’t looked at it since then.
“It’s possible it sucks,” I said as I opened the document on my laptop and swiveled it around for George to see.
“I’ll leave myself open to the possibility,” he said, and then read silently. I watched his face for signs of approval or disapproval, but he kept it studiously blank.
“Well?” I said when he finally looked up.
“It’s a little too long. You need to cut it by about thirty percent.”
“I know. But is it good?”
He leaned back and regarded me. “Here’s the thing. It’s fine. It’s well-written and takes you on the right sort of journey. There’s nothing wrong with it exactly—”
“Wow,” I said. “Stop all the gushing. It’s going right to my head.”
He ignored that. “If you want to use this, you certainly can.”
“But—?”
“It’s just . . . It feels a little generic. Tons of students write essays about being exposed to poverty and having some kind of an epiphany because of it—as if third world countries only exist to expand our rich American minds.”
I flushed, embarrassed because he was right and annoyed at him for the same reason.
“Also,” he said, “how much did that experience really change your life?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you actually volunteer more now? Watch the news and stay on top of global events? Donate to groups like Doctors Without Borders? What did you take home with you other than a, um . . .” He glanced down at the screen and read, “‘A sense that we draw boundaries and turn our backs to keep ourselves from feeling the pain of people whose only separation from us is geographic’?”
I squirmed at hearing my own stupid words. “Okay, that may have been over-the-top.”
“Maybe,” he said. “I would definitely rewrite it. But that’s not my point. My point is, how did that trip really affect you?”
“I think about it a lot.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Shut up.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
I glared at him. “Okay, fine, so what do you want me to do? Add in something about how now I give all my allowance money to good causes or something like that? You don’t think that will sound smug?”
“I think it will sound smug,” he said. “Not to mention that it would be totally dishonest, since I’m guessing you don’t actually do that.”
“So what then?”
“You have a couple of choices. You can sharpen and edit this, and it will be fine. Totally acceptable. Or you could do something completely different.”
“Write a whole new essay, you mean?” I made a face. “Ugh.”
“You don’t have to. It’s your call. But—” He leaned forward. “Ellie, you’re one of the funniest, smartest, most interesting people I know. You don’t think like everyone else and that’s mostly a good thing—”
“Mostly?” I repeated. But I felt a little bit better; George never complimented me if he could help it, and he’d just complimented me a lot.
“Sometimes a good thing,” he said. “And I’m trying to make a point here, so don’t get all full of yourself. This essay could have been written by anyone—well, by anyone rich and privileged enough to travel safely to a third world country with her parents, which is a large percentage of the people applying to liberal arts colleges.”
“So what should I write about?”
“Something only you could write about.”
“Which would be . . . ?”
“I don’t know,” he said a little impatiently. “If I knew, it wouldn’t be something only you could write about, would it? Think for a second: What makes you unusual? What do you think about that most people don’t?”
“How annoying George Nussbaum can be. No, wait—I bet a ton of people think about that.”
“Funny,” he said.
I slumped down in my chair. “I honestly don’t know what to write about other than that trip. The college counselor said it should be meaningful and that’s the only thing I can think of.”
He waited a moment, then said, “So I was reading everything I could find about college essays last night—”
“Of course you were.”
“And I came across this one article by someone who consults about college applications for a living—she gets like thirty thousand dollars per client—and she said the best essay she ever read was about napping. The kid who wrote it just really liked taking naps and he was able to say why in a funny, charming way.”
“I don’t like to take naps. I never know what time it is when I wake up and I feel all groggy and stomachachey.”
He shot me a look. “You may be missing the point here.”
I waved my hand. “I get it. I should come up with something offbeat.”
He nodded, watching me expectantly.
We sat there for a minute and then I shook my head. “I can’t think of anything interesting. My life is boring. I’m boring.”
“That’s it?” he said. “You’re giving up?”
“What was yours about?” I said, almost accusingly.
“About having a lot of older brothers. And about how no matter what I did, I felt like I could never measure up. And a little bit about how I had crushes on all their girlfriends.”
All right, so his was cooler than mine. No wonder he got into Harvard. “Can I see it?”
He shook his head. “Nah, too embarrassing for me to look at it now.”
“Did you have a crush on Izzy? Do you still?”
“If I did, you’d be the first person I’d tell,” he said. “Okay, let’s go over this essay.”
It was painful to read through it with him. I hated every word now that we’d had that conversation. George was right: it was self-satisfied and dishonest. I was trying to make myself look virtuous and caring, when I wasn’t really either.
But the college counselor had approved it and it was safe and I didn’t have any other ideas.
“You’re unusually quiet,” George observed after he’d pointed out some minor edits.
“I’m listening,” I said.
“You sure you’re not getting sick?”
“I am capable of listening quietly, you know.”
He raised his eyebrows but didn’t say anything. The doorbell rang, and I jumped to my feet. “Heather’s turn. Thank God.”
Once she had her own essay displayed on her laptop, I asked if I could read it over George’s shoulder, and she said, “If you want to, but I don’t know why you would. It’s not very good.”
“Stop that,” I said. “You’re always putting yourself down.”
“But it’s not.”
“I bet it’s better than mine. George hated mine.”
“I didn’t say that,” George protested.
“You strongly implied it.” I stood behind George’s chair so we could read Heather’s essay at the same time, George glancing up at me to make sure I was ready each time he scrolled down. Fortunately we read at the same pace.
The essay was about how Heather had found a stray dog when she was ten and helped to rescue it, and that got her interested in animal rights, so now she worked at an animal shelter once a week. She said we all had to speak for the animals because they couldn’t speak for themselves and too many were euthanized or mistreated. The essay finished with “I hope to do something to change this sad situation someday.”
“Well?” she said when we had finished.
“It’s good.” I circled around the table and sat down. “It could maybe be a little less . . .” I stopped. “I don’t know. What do you think, George? You’re the expert.”
“I’m not really an expert,” he said. Then: “You did a good job laying out the issues with stray animals and I can tell you’re passionate about the subject. It’s just . . .” He halted.
“You guys keep stopping!” she said. “It’s okay. I know it’s bad. The counselor at my school said it was fine, though. And my dad likes it.”
“It’s not bad,” George said. “It just needs more of you in it. Why did that stray dog speak to you?”