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We at CEA love pizza. It is one of our greatest passions and our favorite fuel for advising brainpower. It is no surprise, then, that we were brimming with joy when we saw that a High School Senior scored acceptance to Yale with an essay about Papa John’s. With an acceptance rate of just 6.3%, Yale obviously has taste for the finer things in life (pizza).
High School senior Carolina Williams told Business Insider, “When I saw that the prompt was ‘Write about what you love to do,’ my very first thought was order pizza from Papa John’s. I order pizza from Papa John’s once a week — it’s my absolute favorite! I thought for a while about if I should actually do that and if they would take it seriously, but I decided to just write it because it was so easy and my passion came through.”
Passion is one of the most important qualities you can communicate to admissions officers in your college essay. After all, colleges want to find students who are committed to whatever it is they choose to spend their time on, be it academics, community engagement, or food appreciation.
Williams wrote in her essay, “Accepting those warm cardboard boxes at my front door is second nature to me, but I will always love ordering pizza because of the way eight slices of something so ordinary are able to evoke feelings of independence, consolidation, and joy.” This line is a crucial part of the essay’s success. One thing all winning college essays have in common is that the stories and subjects connect to larger themes that convey how their writers relate to the world around them, define success, and/or prioritize goals. Williams was able to make an essay about pizza double as an essay about independence and finding happiness in simple pleasures.
When we say you can write your essay about almost anything and be successful, we’re not kidding! So order your fave slice and get that fresh document open: it’s time to write.
