Why Your Teen Asks ‘Can Someone Please Read My College Essay’ (And What To Actually Do)
It’s 9:12 on a Tuesday in mid-October, I’m folding soccer laundry at the kitchen counter, my cold coffee’s been sitting there since 7, and my 17-year-old daughter Lila leans in the doorway with her laptop clutched to her chest. “Can you read my college essay?” she says. “I’ve asked Dad, Ms. Henderson, and Mia, and no one’s gotten back to me. Early action deadline is Friday.”
I pause mid-fold, a neon green sock bunched in my hand. I have a 10-page presentation to finish for my job by tomorrow noon, and if I start this now, I’ll be up till 1. But I look at her: her thumbnail is bitten down to the quick, the same way it gets when she’s got something heavy on her chest, and her shoulder blades are hunched like she’s already expecting me to say later. I remember last year, when I told her that about a scholarship essay, and she didn’t ask me for help on anything for three months after that. I drop the sock into the basket. “Sure,” I say. “Pull up a chair. Give me 10 minutes to read it straight through.”
She’d been working on this essay for three weeks, on and off. It’s about the stray tabby she brought home two summers ago, Mochi, who still hides under our couch when the cable guy comes. She spent 10 nights that summer sitting in the animal shelter parking lot after her shift, just sitting, because Mochi wouldn’t come out from under the shed. Lila’s always been the kid who wants to rush every problem to a solution—she’d redo a whole homework assignment at 10 PM if it wasn’t perfect, push her friends to talk when they were upset just to “fix” it. The essay’s about how waiting, doing nothing, just being there with something scared and messy, taught her more than any of her planned achievements ever did.
When I finish reading, I don’t reach for a pen, like I used to. A couple years ago, I’d have marked every comma splice, crossed out her casual phrasing, told her she needed to add a big ending about how this experience would make her a great biology major or whatever. I did that for her junior year personal narrative, and she cried after, said I’d turned her story about her grandma into something that didn’t even sound like her. I’ve learned since then.
First, I tell her the specific thing that stuck with me. “I forgot you stopped bringing me your daily Mochi updates after the first week because you were scared I’d tell you to just give up and leave her. That part feels so you—you never want to quit on something that’s scared, do you?” Her shoulders drop, and she sits down next to me, lets out a breath she didn’t even know she was holding. “Do you think it’s too boring?” she says. “All the other kids are writing about winning state debate or building houses in Costa Rica. This is just about a cat.”
That’s when it hit me, a couple years back when I started volunteering with our high school’s college application help clinic, what teens actually mean when they beg someone to read their college essay. It’s never just about checking for typos, even if they say it is. It’s the first time most of them have ever had to write a piece that’s just them, for a stranger who gets to decide if they’re “good enough” to get into their dream school. That essay is the most vulnerable thing they’ve ever made public. When they ask you to read it, they’re really asking: Am I allowed to put this version of me out there? Does this make sense, or am I being silly? Is anyone even willing to look at this thing I worked so hard on?
Most of the time, we jump right to fixing. We’re in a hurry, we think we know what admissions officers want, we think our job is to make it perfect. But that’s not what they’re asking for first. I’ve put together a few small, easy things I do now that work way better than my old approach. First, if you can’t read it right then, don’t just say “later.” Name a specific time. I’ve said, “I can’t give this my full attention right now because I’ve got to finish this work thing, but I’ll set an alarm for 6:30 tomorrow morning before work, and we’ll do it then. Does that beat your deadline?” That’s way better than a vague “I’ll get to it,” which just makes them feel like their essay is low on your priority list.
If you do have time right now, put your phone away, close your other work tabs, and read it all the way through before you say anything about changes. Then, lead with one specific thing that feels true to them—not “this is good,” but “I loved the part where you talked about burning the cookies for your youth group fundraiser, that’s exactly the kind of thing that happens to you all the time.” Specific praise proves you actually read it, not just skimmed it while scrolling work emails. Then ask them what they want from you before you start pointing out problems: “Do you want me to check for typos, or do you just want to know if the story makes sense, or both?” Half the time, they don’t want a rewrite. They just want confirmation that their weird, small, personal story is okay to share.
Lila and I walked away from the kitchen that night with only one small change: I pointed out that she’d skipped over the part where she decided to bring Mochi home, so it felt a little abrupt. I didn’t rewrite anything, I just said that if she wanted to add a line there, it would help people follow along. She added the line that night, submitted it Friday.
We don’t know if she’ll get into her early action school yet. She’s got four more essays to write over the next month, and I’m sure I’ll mess up one of them—forget to read it on time, or say something that irritates her, or slip back into my old habit of jumping to fix things too fast. But last night, she brought her second draft of another essay down to the kitchen, plopped it on the counter next to my dinner, and said “I just want you to read this when you’re done eating. I don’t need edits, I just want to know if it feels right.” That’s all any of them are really asking for, when they say can someone please take the time to read my college essay. Just 15 minutes, and someone to see them, before anyone starts fixing.
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