Note: this article is a deeper analysis and explanation of my previous guide on Reddit, which covers “college essay cringe.” You can find this guide on the A2C subreddit here.
On August 8, 2022, I created a post on Reddit about “college essay cringe.” Specifically, I created this post to discuss where and why students think their college app essays are “cringe.” If you notice every draft sounds cringey, it’s likely due to 2 things: anxiety and perfectionism.
So, this article will dissect how anxiety and perfectionism lead to cringey college essays. And, I’ll also discuss some solutions to this.
Let’s get right to it.
Table of Contents:
- Reddit Post by PenningPapers: Why Your College Essays are Cringe.
- How Anxiety Leads to Perfectionism in Your College Essays.
- Why Perfectionism Leads to Cringey College Essays.
- How to Make Your College Essays Feel Less Cringey: Suspending the Illusion of Control.
Reddit Post by PenningPapers: Why Your College Essays are Cringe.
Given how Reddit prefers more short-form articles, I couldn’t be as comprehensive in my post as I would have liked. (Yeah, yeah. I know. I had to write a shorter post for those sweet, sweet “updoots.”)
Here’s my post below for reference.
“This post is going to be shorter than what I usually do. I hope it helps though!
When I was little, my brother gave me his old iPod. In it were Naruto vs Sasuke Linkin Park music videos and, roughly speaking, they were the best. I don’t listen to them anymore. But, even when I’m editing essays and writing articles, I still listen to some of the old songs I listened to then. Avenged Sevenfold, Linkin Park, Skillet, and all the quintessential edgy Hot Topic-esque goodies.
I had a lot of friends who liked the same cringey things I liked too. It was weird to admit it to them, and a lot of people were embarrassed to like it. In fact, back in my time, it was something you could easily get bullied for.
Then, Anime and Kpop suddenly became socially acceptable. So, it’s okay to talk about it now, right?
Once everyone has given permission to like it, it’s okay for me to like it… right?
When I worked with students, I realized a lot of them had similar experiences. They’d think their unusual interests were too cringey to talk about in college apps. Or, they’d think anything they wrote about was too cringey. Social Justice is too cringey. Old classic movies are too cringey. Books written by dead old white people are too cringey. Learning guitar is too cringey. Chess is too cringey.
What a lot of them didn’t realize was that if they actually looked at their interests from afar, if they really looked at the big picture, there’s nothing too weird about what they like at all. If anything, there was a part of their mind that taught them that everything they did was too weird.
It’s a common pattern I see in students. Everything is weird. Everything can be made fun of. So what’s the solution? Don’t have a personality. Don’t be anything. Then, no one can judge you.
But, this is no solution. Instead, here’s a solution I’d like to propose.
Do not write your college essay with the hopes of avoiding cringe. Instead, learn to avoid cringing.
The anxious part of your mind may search for any possible reason your college essay is cringey. That’s what fear does. It’ll look for reasons to justify itself even if it makes no sense. “Oh my god! They’re going to think I’m a total weirdo and the admissions officers are going to laugh and I’ll get rejected because they think I’m “that guy!” Oh no!!!”
Come to accept that, as a student, you’re most probably cringey no matter what you do. Once you accept being cringey, you can start to understand yourself more and therefore write more honestly about yourself in college essays.
I hope this helps!”
PenningPapers –Reddit A2C
Now that you know where cringe comes from, we’ll discuss anxiety and its role in college essay cringe. Let’s dissect this further.
How Anxiety Leads to Perfectionism in Your College Essays.
First, drill this rule into your head: anxiety is an emotion. College essay anxiety is the emotion of fear. It’s the fear of making mistakes.
Specifically, the fear of writing something potentially falls short of perfection. When you’re feeling anxious, you self-correct everything you write during the drafting process.
In particular, you’ll catastrophize all possibilities that may occur. You’ll conjure different scenarios about what your admissions officers will think about your writing.
“What if they think I’m too nerdy?”
“Or, what if they think my extracurricular topic isn’t rigorous enough?”
“What if my wording is too awkward?”
Now, these questions might sound logical. But, they’re not. Recognize that these thoughts are your anxiety masquerading as logic. You may be asking seemingly logical questions and making logical assumptions about your writing. But, these thoughts are predicated on fear.
Think of the anxious mind as an overactive immune system. Normally, allergens in the air are harmless; but, an overactive immune system would get irritated by otherwise harmless material. The same goes for an anxious mind. An anxious mind would make you see most writing as cringey whether it’s truly the case or not.
Tip: if you’re not sure whether your edits are based on anxiety masquerading as logic or true logic, do this test. Replace every word, phrase, topic, and sentence in your essay with multiple versions. Use multiple permutations of the same paragraphs over and over. If you notice that your mind finds every single version cringey, your essay is most likely not cringey. Rather, it’s your anxious mind being overactive.
When your anxious mind sees every topic as “cringe,” your mind does something interesting. It tries to compensate by having a perfect or “bulletproof” essay. In other words, the anxious mind tries to make a cringe-proof college essay immune to criticism.
So, your anxiety will lead to perfectionism because a perfect essay will protect you from criticism. It acts as a shield from negative emotions. This is also why you keep rewriting your essays: you’re not WILLING to ACCEPT anything less than perfection. Your anxious mind is not willing to accept anything short of bulletproof from cringe.
Why Perfectionism Leads to Cringey College Essays.
As mentioned in the previous section: perfectionism starts from a feeling of anxiety.
When you’re writing your college essays, your anxious mind will make you seek perfection. Perfection gives relief. It’s comfort from the dreadful thought of criticism from the admissions office.
On a deeper level, the perfectionistic mind is unwilling to accept any possibility of weirdness or criticism.
This mindset is a non-starter.
Any topic, sentence, or word can be interpreted in a negative light because there are an infinite number of possible interpretations in the world. So, trying to write a “perfect” college essay that is immune to any criticism is impossible even from a Mathematical standpoint.
Funnily enough, the perfectionistic mind is also inorganic. A perfectionist mind cannot write a genuine essay because it’s more concerned with CONTROLLING the narrative rather than SHARING the story. And, ironically enough, this actually makes perfectionistic essays cringe!
The best example of this is flirting.
Imagine you’re speaking with the opposite gender. You want to flirt. But, you are afraid that they’ll judge you. So, you do everything in your power to control what they think of you by trying to look cool. At that point, you’re not focusing on the person, you’re focusing more on the result. And, this inorganic interaction makes it… drumroll please… cringe!
How to Make Your College Essays Feel Less Cringey: Suspending the Illusion of Control.
To make your college essays feel less cringey, you need to let go of perfectionism. And, to let go of perfectionism, you need to suspend the illusion of control.
Remember: college essays will ALWAYS feel cringey if you can’t let go of the sense of control. When you’re anxious about what admissions officers think, you’ll try to control the narrative. You’ll shape your language to make admissions officers think differently.
It’s exactly this sense of control that prevents you from being genuine in the college essay. When you try to control the narrative by making admissions officers think you’re impressive, social, LGBTQ+ friendly, and a whole host of other things, you remove any autonomy from the reader’s perspective. There’s no openness to interpretation; and, the AOs can see that you’re trying to force them to think positively of you.
This, in itself, is cringe.
So, to truly be genuine in your essay, you need to let go of that perfection. To let go of perfection, recognize that you don’t truly have control over what admissions officers think of you. You might be able to wow them with fancy language and impress them with purple prose. But, you can’t TRULY force them to accept you. Your essay is a reflection of you, and just you. That’s it. There’s nothing else you can do to FORCE admissions officers to accept you into your school with your essay. Recognize and accept the futility of control. For, there is no “making ” the admissions officers accept you with the perfect combination of words. It doesn’t exist. This misconception is bred by your yearning for college acceptance and an inability to accept failure.
Once you understand this principle, you will start to write more genuinely. You’ll be able to write yourself as you are; and, this will be more genuine and open. It’s this openness that will truly make your essay shine.
Accept that you, as a teenager and young adult, are going to be at least somewhat cringey —that most people your age are somewhat cringey by default. And, that’s okay! Said people still get accepted into great, prestigious schools.
If you’re still wondering whether you’re writing a cringey college essay, don’t worry. It’s a common feeling; and, it doesn’t hurt to get some extra help from professional eyes. Consider speaking with a professional college admissions consultant. We’ll get back to you within 24 hours to discuss the quality of your essays, and we’ll refurbish them to maximize your chances of acceptance.
