The University Admissions Quest?

To stand-out in a university admissions essay, you need to creatively connect with our common humanity through the narrative archetypes.

The first of the American Common Application?essays 2017-2018 prompts?literally ends with the instructions to 'share your story’. The British UCAS Personal Statement?is - not uncharacteristically - a little more utilitarian, a tad more prosaic, in inviting you to take 'your chance to describe your ambitions, skills, and experience’. But,?either side of the Atlantic, whether stiff-upper-lipped or gushing zeal, what admissions officers do want to read is your narrative; what they do want to see taking shape on the page is you. And sometimes, that involves going to the darker, less conventionally successful places, en route to the light. In this short article, drawn from my experiences guiding students through various successful admissions essays, I will suggest that Carl Jung's narrative archetypes may be central to unlocking the door to those selective universities. But, moreover, I would like to suggest that unlocking the storyteller in you, that unlocking your creativity and bringing the dark into the light, may also be central to enduring success and happiness - within and beyond the walls of selective universities. In contemporary psycho-educational parlance, we might say such sublimation is emergent from, and supportive of, a growth mindset.

In traditional psychoanalytic theory, Freud described sublimation as the process whereby we turn deep, repressed anxieties and pressures into lighter, artistic or ideological material. Freud also tells us that 'sublimation?is what makes it possible for higher psychical activities, scientific, artistic or ideological, to play such an important part in?civilised?life.’ For sure, Sigmund, but what does this actually look like? How do we bring structure, form and content to such bold aspirations? And, for that vast majority of us mere mortal writers, film-makers - or university admissions hopefuls - for whom giving artistic form and shape to anything, least of all the darkest corners of our psyche, requires a somewhat more workmanlike scaffolding: isn’t there anything like a structure, a blueprint, to guide us?

There certainly is a useful structure for such narrative sublimation. And, his historic disagreement with Freud on this point notwithstanding, Carl Jung tells us that it forms part of our collective unconscious. It comes in the shape of the narrative archetypes.

Christopher Booker offers a useful break-down of Jung's narrative archetypes in his volume The Seven Basic Plots.?Despite becoming a bit reactionary in the later third of this large volume, Booker provides the reader with a wonderfully lucid application of the seven basic narrative archetypes. Comprising something of a whistle-stop tour of the Western literary canon, he breaks-down the manner in which all storytelling uses one, or more, of these common narrative structures.

When I used this model to introduce new IB Diploma students to the university admissions essay at our two day IB Retreat earlier this year, we made reference to that most demonstrably successful narrative form: the Hollywood blockbuster. After introducing the seven narrative archetypes to our students, we played the following movie clips asking: Which of these plot structures is at work here?

Which of the seven basic plots can you see at work in these movie clips?

In conversation, scaffolded by the Lord of The Rings exemplar timeline below, we decided that?The Quest, at the ‘Encounters Troubles’ phase of the story, was a good fit for narrative archetype here. The Cuban economic migrant struggling without capital or education on arrival in the US, the aspiring pro-boxer battling a paternal void and lacking the street cred to be accepted in a hard knocks LA gym, the British-Indian footballer who is (in her family’s eyes) the wrong gender to be a professional sportsperson - they’re all facing challenges en-route to realising their true mission, their true quest. But - I hear you cry - the final scene of?Scarface is hardly one where peace is restored - Tony Montana goes down in a blaze of glory, introducing us to his little friend! Yes, but peace is, ultimately, restored. And, moreover: yes, it certainly is a tragic cautionary tale - the dark side of that American Dream quest.

This makes for a useful conversation sidebar: many of the narrative archetypes follow an identical trajectory until a key moment, or further to a key characteristic, that differentiates it from the other archetypes. Here, it is Tony’s hubris. That’s why the studios almost invariably choose the same moments in the narrative trajectory for their trailers: at this point in the narrative, we could have a Quest, a Journey from Rags to Riches… or indeed a tommy-gun toting Tragedy.

And in the midst of these blockbusters, we also have an excerpt from Barrack Obama’s Dreams from My Father, and an excerpt from a former student Cece’s video admissions essay. As we were dramatically reminded at the last election, The White House is sadly not won on the long-form narrative, and even prior to the inauguration of the incumbent Tweeter-in Chief, even way back in the good ole’ days of 2008, it probably had far more to do with reductive identity politics and a very clever use of the word Change that the electorate chose such?an intellectual African American as their president. But?Obama’s first autobiography is a brilliant piece of writing, and embraces the concept of change in a manner both personal and political, candidly sharing, like Creed, his paternal void: his challenges growing-up without a father, smoking dope and dropping out of college; then finding personal change and political conviction working in the community, en route to a commitment to a career driving political change at a deeper level. The long form narrative here, a beautifully-written and thoughtful autobiography, accompanied the more reductive posters, paparazzi and press-conference oriented iteration of Obama’s quest?for change in his life, and our world. Needless to say, if you really are serious about writing brilliant narratives-of-self - in admissions essays or any other medium - you need to spend time curled up with great books like Obama's first autobiography.

If film is your medium, then spending time deconstructing great video essays like that of The Glossary's adaptation of David Foster Wallace's This is Water Kenyan College commencement speech, as Cece did in our film class, should be part of your quest.

Cece's emergent admissions essay, All that Goes Up, embraces similar self-doubts to Dreams from My Father, en route to ultimately rejecting the crude binaries by which she falls short, and instead concludes with a beautiful moment of calm contemplation as she embraces her own identity. The mission still lies ahead, the narrative trajectory of the quest?is only invoked, not completed and - the implication for the (university admissions) audience is - wouldn’t you like to be a part of it? So here is another roadmap for success, as part of the growth mindset: embrace your challenges and reframe your 'failures' with your successes: they are all part of the unique, growing story that is you.

The conventional wisdom of the university admissions essay is to list-out as many extra-curricular initiatives, service activities and club memberships as you can: to bombard the reader with so much detail, with so many credentials that they simply have to take you. It makes for a victory of quantity over quality: what do these mechanistic lists of accomplishments actually inform the university about you, apart from that you are desperately ambitious, but perhaps lacking in self-awareness and the ability - so crucial in the information age - to make intentional (quest-oriented) decisions about how you use your time??In differentiating ourselves, perhaps counter-intuitively, we must turn-back to what we all have in common: the narrative archetypes. Go deeper. Awaken to your own narrative, then tell the story of your life, of which others can be a part... if they are lucky. Embrace your narrative, and the world will embrace you.

Further Reading

Booker, Christopher.?The seven basic plots: Why we tell stories. A&C Black, 2004.

Dweck, Carol.?Mindset: changing the way you think to fulfil your potential. Hachette UK, 2017.

Freud, Sigmund.?Civilization and its discontents. Broadview Press, 2015.

Jung, Carl Gustav.?Collected Works of CG Jung, Volume 6: Psychological Types. Vol. 6. Princeton University Press, 2014.

Mysers, Scott, 'Writing Reflections of Carl Jung'

Obama, Barack.?Dreams from my father: A story of race and inheritance. Canongate Books, 2007.