What to Do About Clichés

For the most part, I am going to encourage you to avoid clichés. Pretty much any good college strategist will. However, sometimes you’re going to have an idea that has been said before. In fact, you’ll have expected ideas pretty often. It would be a HUGE ask to get you to write only and exclusively 100% unique statements in your essays.

So, do you do?

I think clichés are all about the proof. Let’s say you wrote in an essay, “One time, I was talking to my grandma, and I realized that it’s harder to be kind than clever.” Well, that does sound pretty cliché. But it doesn’t have to be totally useless. Check out this story about Jeff Bezos:

When he was a young boy, Jeff Bezos was with his grandparents, both of whom were smokers. Bezos had recently heard an anti-smoking PSA on the radio that explained how many minutes each cigarette takes off a person’s lifespan. And so, sitting there in the backseat, like a typical precocious kid, he put his math skills and this new knowledge to work and proudly explained to his grandmother, as she puffed away, “You’ve lost nine years of your life, Grandma!”

The typical response to this kind of innocent cheekiness is to pat the child on the head and tell them how smart they are. Bezos’ grandmother didn’t do that. Instead, she quite understandably burst into tears. It was after this exchange that Bezos’ grandfather took his grandson aside and taught him a lesson that he says has stuck with him for the rest of his life. “Jeff,” his grandfather said, “one day you’ll understand that it’s harder to be kind than clever.”

With just a little bit of backstory, the cliché takes on more meaning. It’s still a cliché. But, you could craft a college essay around something like that.

Often, with Life Lesson types of questions, students get really stumped trying to find something perfectly unique, never before said. And it’s totally possible to do that. But, you can also support many clichés with a strong anecdote.

For more examples of this, check out this article.