I witnessed an Aha moment by a parent I spoke with last week about her son's college application essays. She asked what the goal was with the personal essay. After some back and forth, I realized what the misconceptions were. (Totally understandable! She hasn’t been an admissions officer.)

The primary goal is not to show how smart he is, or the cool things he has accomplished. Those things show up in other parts of the application.

Instead, the essay is about self-knowledge. That's why the word "personal" always shows up in what the colleges themselves call the essay, whether it's called a Personal Essay or a Personal Statement or a Personal Insight Question. For any essay topic, focus on "So what" and "Why" more than the "What."

Is that a big ask of a teenager? Absolutely. I know adults who still struggle with self-knowledge. But that's one of the best (and most legitimate) ways for parents or other adults to get involved in the essay process: ask probing questions that help with self-knowledge.

And always remember that the parent is not the target audience. That poignant essay about the winning goal might make you tear up, and absolutely do save it or frame it or put it in your scrapbook. But in the context of the application, the admissions officer might not give a hoot. Maybe yes, maybe no, depending on the rest of the application and how all that real estate is being optimized. (Usually a kid can tell — they don't want to write those essays that are meaningful only to the parent. They often have a better Spidey Sense around that than mom or dad.)

And remember that the essay ideally adds something above and beyond the information that's already covered elsewhere in the application. No admissions office is going to read that essay in a vacuum; it will be read within the context of the whole application. That’s why many sports and volunteerism topics fall short — those are redundant if the activities are already adequately showcased in the Activities section, for example.

In a nutshell: Always keep in mind WHAT the essay should do for an applicant (demonstrate self-knowledge), WHOM they should be writing for (the admissions officer, not the parent), and WHY it can help (above and beyond).