How bored do admissions officers get when they read college essays? originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

As a student applying to universities, it is often hard to place yourself in the shoes of the admissions counselor. It’s easy to get wrapped up in your own “lens” of your life: the childhood growing up in Maine, your family moving to Ohio, losing your grandfather in 5th grade, joining debate team to overcome your tendency towards shyness. But to successfully navigate the college admissions cycle, it is a smart idea to consider the perspective of the person on the other end of your admissions essay.

When I was an admissions counselor, I always gave the advice to “see your essay through the eyes of the reader.” This doesn’t mean your English teacher who is helping edit your essay, but the admissions counselor, or Honors committee at your chosen colleges. I find that once students have a peek behind the admissions curtain, they have a new perspective on their essay.

Depending on the college, admissions officials can wear many different hats. Their job is not all centered around reading applications, otherwise they would have nothing to do from May through October. The structure of admissions counselor’s day often includes a quota of applications to review, but also attending a recruitment event, joining multiple meetings each day, sitting on a department committee of some kind, and answering 30+ emails from students in their assigned region.

The admissions counselor reading your essay is not bored, they are tired and looking for something original. “Seeing your essay through the eyes of the reader” means reading your essay through this lens: This is the last essay you have to read today before you go home, you’ve read 20 bland essays and received an irate call from a parent about why their child was rejected. Now, I ask you, Does your opening line still pop?

Admissions counselors are rarely bored, but they do keep an internal count of how many essays fall into their “cliche categories.” Responsible for reading so many essays, it is no wonder that patterns begin to emerge. To avoid falling into this trap of having the admissions counselor merely skim your essay, I always tell my students to avoid the following cliche essay topics:

* Death of a grandparent or someone else in your family. Grandparents are the most common. Tragedy is hard to quantify, and rarely allows for an uplifting ending, leaving admissions counselors with a depressing read.

* Overcoming an injury. Unless this inspired you to publish a children’s book about Physical Therapy or found an app that helps track injury recovery time, this topic is just too common to stand out.

* Winning the big game. Imagine reading this essay: “I escaped a war-torn country and started a non-profit to help other survivors!” and then, “My team worked very hard, and we won the state tennis tournament.” Unfortunately, your essay will most likely fall short, only because of the comparison to weightier topics.

* Learning you were more creative than you thought during English class. Once again, this essay will fall short when compared to deeper essays. I would suggest leaving anything about “what you learned in class” out of your essay altogether. You can find a deeper topic.

* Why you chose that school or that major. Unless there was a sudden life-changing moment to describe, like witnessing someone almost dying before paramedics arrived, prompting you to pursue medicine, these essays tend to ramble. “First I wanted to be a nurse, but then I found out I’m queasy around blood, so then I chose Engineering but then I realized I hate math, so now I’m choosing Architecture” is less than a thrilling read. If the school truly cares about this, they will ask for a Why Major or Why Us essay. The admissions essay is the time to share how creative you are, and tell a story about a time that built character.

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