“I wasted time, and now time doth waste me.”
Richard II, Act V
Even an aspiring Stanford applicant with perfect test scores, a GPA of 4.46, research referenced in the New England Journal of Medicine, and the captain of her varsity golf team, started procrastinating when it came time for her application essays. Procrastination knows no bounds. In fact, recent research indicates three out of four college students label themselves procrastinators (Thriving in College, p326, Cuseo), of whom 25% have chronic tendencies. It’s a serious problem
Two leading theories explaining essay procrastination include:
The ‘planning fallacy’, in which the overoptimistic student underestimates the amount of time the task will require. Students, many inexperienced in breaking down efforts into manageable pieces of work, have no idea what a task actually entails. Consequently, they are incapable of setting self-regulating deadlines, let alone approaching the task with a meaningful plan.
“Student Syndrome,” one that occurs with great frequency, is when the students don’t even think about applying themselves to the tasks until their deadlines are directly upon them. Unfortunately, as with any task left to the last minute, mistakes are magnified and almost impossible to recover from.
Ironically, most essay procrastinators know how to manage their time, they just elect not to. A lot of procrastination is tied to underlying emotional issues like self-image. Students decide to procrastinate so that their ability to perform the task is limited, meaning, should they fail, they can account for it by their self-handicapping, “there just wasn’t enough time to fully treat the essay…” Many of the underlying psychological factors affecting essay procrastination include:
Avoidance of stress-many students cannot tolerate the deadlines and unstructured nature of the essay prompts, which leads them to avoid the task altogether.
Perfectionist tendencies- students don’t want to risk something being accomplished in a less than a perfect manner—especially if all other aspects of their candidacy are almost flawless.
Indecision-even the best students aren’t sure how to approach essays and are not keen about bringing structure, for which they are responsible, to the task.
Fear of Failure-if they fail that is a blemish on their character and record.
If the task at hand is writing the college essay, and you dislike writing them (and don’t distress there are legions of us), here is how to get past the ‘getting started’ stress and its compatriot, procrastination:
Find out the specific essays required for each of your schools and place them all in one document to get a sense of the work at hand; figure out which essays are similar and estimate how many will need to be written from scratch and which ones, with little effort, can be reused.
Get all the deadlines and determine the order of attack. Then develop a plan to write the essays. Break writing sessions into manageable blocks. It’s better to work in short sessions on a daily basis. Additionally, note when your most productive time of the day often is then allocate that time to do your most demanding essay work.
Believe that the essays are meaningful and important, because they are. They speak of your interests in the school, and, in many cases, force you to research your potential major’s department and the special qualities of the campus. More importantly, they tell the school who you are.
Get organized. Get your due dates loaded on your calendar, use a program such as Evernote to collect your notes and data, and get rid of any distractions on your desk or work area.
Find a quiet place with little likelihood of interruption, and where you feel focused.
Writing the college essays is a task often subject to the wrath of procrastination. Break its grip by setting your goals, allocating your time, and acting. Many college presidents, when they were asked to respond to one of the essays on their applications, took weeks to go through multiple drafts before arriving at a finished product. Note: that is for only one essay. Most applicants, these days, write 7-10 original essays over the course of their admissions process. (/imported-20110121194859/2009/5/12/college-presidents-write-an-admissions-essay.html) None of the presidents procrastinated (as far as I know). Neither should you.