What Is a College Application Theme?
The student who did everything right
Picture a junior with a 3.9 GPA and four AP classes. She plays varsity tennis, competes in debate, writes for the school paper, and volunteered at a hospital last summer. Her parents said yes to every opportunity and kept her on track for three years.
Then she opens a blank document to write her college essay, and she has no idea what it should be about.
Nothing on her record is weak. The trouble is that the pieces don't add up to anyone in particular. A stranger reading her file would find a capable, busy student and have a hard time saying one specific thing about her.
When we interviewed students and parents while designing Pursiva, this was the problem they described most often. They had the grades and the activities. What they could not do was make it all read as one story instead of a list.
What colleges say they are looking for
No admissions office asks for a "theme" by name. What they describe comes close.
- Stanford says it reviews each applicant as a whole, in context, and that deep experience in one or two activities can show more than light participation in five or six clubs.
- MIT tells applicants to "choose quality over quantity" and to pursue what they care about over what they think will impress.
- Yale says a real person reads every file and that numbers are never fed into a formula.
- Harvard says there is no formula for admission, and that it weighs personal qualities and character alongside academics and activities.
The same message comes from Turning the Tide, a 2016 report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education written with a coalition of admissions offices. It asks colleges to value the quality of a student's involvement over the number of activities.
They are all saying the same thing. They are trying to understand a person, and a longer list does not help them do it.
The question that changes the application
Most families answer competition by adding: one more club, one more summer program, one more award to chase. The question behind every choice is "what else can we add?"
A theme asks a different question: "what does all of this add up to?"
It is not a slogan, and it is not an intended major. "Pre-med" is a plan. A theme sits underneath the plan and explains it. It describes what drives the student and where that is taking them.
You will also see it called an application narrative, an application story or a personal narrative. At Pursiva we call it a Core Narrative.
The same student, read a second time
Go back to the junior with the blank page. This time, look at how she spends her time and ignore the names of her activities.
At the hospital, she ended up at the front desk, walking patients through intake forms they could not make sense of. In debate, her favorite part is cross-examination, where she presses the other side until a vague claim becomes a clear one. At the paper, the pieces she volunteers for are explainers: how the new attendance policy works, what the school budget vote means.
She keeps doing one thing. She takes something confusing and makes it clear for the people who have to deal with it.
That sentence is her theme. Nothing in it is invented, and nothing was added to her record. Look at what it changes:
- Her essay has a subjectThe front desk at the hospital is a story only she can tell.
- Her choices get easierA summer spent writing plain-language health guides for a clinic fits. A fourth unrelated club does not.
- Her recommendation gets sharperHer debate coach now has something specific to confirm.
- Her college list has a filterPrograms in health communication or public policy stand out from the rest.
She is the same applicant with the same transcript. The difference is that a stranger can now say who she is in one sentence.
A test you can try tonight
Show the activity list to someone who knows the student only a little, such as a neighbor or a family friend. Ask them to describe the person behind it in a sentence.
If what comes back is "a strong student who does a lot," the theme is not clear yet. That is where most families start. Fixing it usually begins with a closer look at what is already there, and only later with deciding what to add.
Sources
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