Every year, I see the same college essay mistake. A student has an impressive résumé. Great grades, leadership roles, volunteer work, accomplishments. Then they sit down to write their essay and try to prove how impressive they are. The result is polished, thoughtful, and completely forgettable. The problem usually isn’t that the student doesn’t have a good story. It’s that they aren’t telling it as a story. Admissions officers already have the résumé. What they don’t know is