Vulnerability and the College Essay
Julia Pottinger, author of the novels behind the hit TV series Bridgerton, was recently interviewed by the Harvard Alumni Association about life, college, and writing.
When asked how she got into Harvard, Pottinger (her pen name is Julia Quinn) answered that it was probably her writing.
I had good grades, good scores, took challenging classes…But there was one thing that was different about me, and it was that when I was a teenager, I wrote a romance novel.
From a college admissions perspective, that all makes perfect sense: highlight what makes you unique.
What I found fascinating, however, is what came next. It turns out that Pottinger’s first book was not quite as successful as the Bridgerton series. In fact, when she sent it off to a publishing house,
It was rejected so quickly I know there is no way they actually read it. I mean, no one gets rejected out of a slush pile in under a month. I’m sure someone saw my age and thought — this can’t be any good.
The Bridgerton author? Rejected on her first try? How humiliating — and shocking!
So how did Pottinger deal with this rejection? She took a risk by writing openly about this apparent failure in her college essays, describing the truth of what had happened.
So, I … talked about the experience of writing it and having it rejected.
Counterintuitive, right? And yet it worked; she was admitted to Harvard and graduated in 1992.
The Power of Vulnerability
To me, Pottinger’s story contains an important lesson around vulnerability and how it can be your friend in college essays.
Many high school students struggle with the notion that when applying to college, they have to appear “perfect” — or at least as close to perfect as possible. This feeling is completely normal. After all, the entire admissions process is about putting your best foot forward. We all want to have “perfect” grades, “perfect” test scores, “perfect” whatever.
And while it’s true that achievement is important in college admissions, it’s not the only factor. Your essays, in particular, are where admissions officers want to see something else: the real person behind all the grades and test scores.
Yet an inherent challenge here is that it’s nearly impossible to show who you really are without being vulnerable. No human, after all, is perfect — and if anyone was, they would be immensely boring. In real life we often love people most for their flaws, and when telling our stories, our humanity shows through most clearly in our darkest moments.
When you’re cut from the hockey team, do you quit or do you try harder? When the science experiment doesn’t work out, do you abandon it or do you try to understand what happened? When your novel is rejected, do you stop writing or do you write another — and another, and another?
Each of these topics has been successfully used for a college essay. And in each case, when the writer allowed themselves to be vulnerable by talking openly about an apparent “failure,” they created an opportunity to show the reader something profound about who they really were, what mattered most to them, and what they valued.
Now was Julia Pottinger’s essay truly the deciding factor that “got her into Harvard?” We’ll never know for sure, and the reality is that college admissions are rarely based on one factor alone.
But I have no doubt that her willingness to take a risk and be vulnerable helped her in the committee room. After all, everyone has failed at something. Being bold enough to talk about our mistakes shows strength and maturity, not weakness.
Take a lesson from the creator of Bridgerton: when applying to college, don’t be afraid to talk about your “downs” as well as your “ups.” Your essays will be stronger, your humanity will shine through, and you’ll give the admissions committee one more chance to see you for the fabulous person you really are.
