Thomas Jefferson never had to give advice…

…about writing admissions essays,  for when he wrote, “Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom,” he never could have imagined the unhappy lengths to which some students will go in their personal essays to make themselves stand out to the admissions committees. Yes, you want to be forthright, yes, you want to differentiate yourself  from the multitudes of other applicants–but you can accomplish this without resorting to the kind of unintentional self-sabotaging self-revelation that you can read about in this terrific article from the New York Times:  http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/15/opinion/sunday/frank-bruni-oversharing-in-admissions-essays.html