The first thing to realize is that Pennsylvania contributes a significant number of kids to the Ivy League annually; hence, the notion of writing a paper as if it is going to be read by nobody except yourself is simply not true. The admissions officers at universities like Penn Princeton Yale, and Cornell have already gone through thousands of applications from students not only in your zip code, county, or sometimes very high school. They are well-calibrated.
Such calibration however serves two purposes. On one hand, a truly compelling PA essay can be instantly identified as the reader understands the context to which the writing responds. On the other hand, it also means that the typical essay writing strategies are no longer secrets. The cheesesteak essay is a typical essay. The "my grandfather worked in the steel mill" essay is a typical essay. The Amish country reflection is very much a typical essay.
Of course, if you really want to be a PA applicant who is looked at differently, then you ought to figure out honestly which part of Pennsylvania you belong to and at the same time not fall into the trap of writing about the postcard version of your state.
Just step into the Guidance Office of a PA high school and you'll spot a shelf displaying samples of "successful" college essays that have, over time, subtly influenced what students in that particular school imagine a good essay should be like. This genre has almost reached a point of consolidation over time. Maybe about six different essays are continuously written by PA students, and admissions officers are familiar with all of them.
The Philly food essay, for example, mostly focuses on cheesesteaks or soft pretzels, with the essay being a sort of reflection on the writer's identity and neighborhood. A Pittsburgh student writing about his/her steel mill grandfather is a kind of essay that ponders on the meanings and changes of the steel mills. Taking a trip to Valley Forge or Gettysburg and writing an essay on how the experience has made one think about sacrifice and nationhood is another example.
Besides that, we also have the Amish country essay which is mostly written by a suburban Philadelphia student who has been to Lancaster once and is thinking about the simple life in a complicated digital world. The farming essay written by central PA students. The 'my small town is secretly complicated' essay from the Poconos or Northeast PA.
PA kids' essays become more interesting when they represent a Pennsylvania that is not portrayed in tourism advertising. PA is among the states with the greatest internal diversity. For instance, a student from Chester County experiences a very different America than a student from McKean County. A child from Northern Liberties has a different lifestyle than a child from Scranton who, in turn, has a different lifestyle than a child from Lebanon.
Your particular PA is of great importance. The Turkey Hill a couple of miles from your house. The distinctive way your town's Friday night football game is run. Your family car rides forty minutes to the nearest real grocery store, or your high school parking lot has more pickup trucks than cars, or the closest other Asian family lives two townships over.
These are the nuances that admissions officers fail to witness in typical essays. Nor do they appear in a Common App essay where the student chose to write about cheesesteaks simply because their college counselor mentioned Philadelphia as a "rich topic."
The challenge with PA material is that details have to carry the narrative. It's not sufficient to say you are from Reading or that your high school is in the Lehigh Valley. The detail needs to make sense and reveal something about you that the reader wouldn't have been able to guess.
A student who grew up in a mainly white rural PA town and writing about her experience of being one of two Black kids in their grade has a PA story that is really effective. A student from a Philly magnet school describing the exact three-block walk from the subway station to her school, which goes through three different neighborhoods with three different vibes, has a PA story that is really effective.
A student stating "I'm from the suburbs of Philadelphia, which showed me the importance of hard work" is not doing any work at all. The state is just the backdrop, not the reason for the story. It is your task that the backdrop tells something about you that could not have been the case in Ohio, New Jersey or California.
This is where working with someone who reads a lot of essays helps. A strong advisor can tell you, in the second paragraph of your draft, "this could be set anywhere." That feedback is almost impossible to generate for yourself. A coach at College Essay Mentor or a similar service can push you to either make the PA-ness actually matter or drop it and write about something else.
A bit of a different scenario for Pennsylvania high schoolers who want to enroll at Penn. The university could definitely spotlight the home-state figure but it's not the deciding factor. Besides, PA candidates get read with special attention since the school is very aware that these students have had a real chance of visiting the campus and the city.
The hazardous area "I used to go Penn football games with my family", or "Penn has always felt like the right school for me" are very common. Penn reads thousands of such essays. They don't help. Penn knows you live an hour away. What Penn wants to see is whether you have actually engaged with the specific institution rather than with the generic concept of an Ivy League school that happens to be nearby.
By referencing in your Penn paper the name of a professor whose work you have read, the mention of a particular program that you would be interested in for specific reasons, or highlighting the way Philadelphia has influenced your thinking about the subject you want to study, you are differentiating yourself quite a bit. On the other hand, if your supplement can be sent to Cornell after making a few replacements, it is not quite enough.
One of the most frequent errors PA students make is turning their essay into a declaration of what it is like to be from Pennsylvania, as opposed to an essay of themselves, set in Pennsylvania. The state is not your identity. The state is just context.
The best essays mix local details the way a great novel uses a setting, i.e. those moments that are grounded in a particular world. You do not have to explain PA to the reader. You don't have to refer to Pittsburgh or Philadelphia by name in the opening sentence. You may simply write in great detail about your life and the reader will be able to sense the PA-ness without it being explicitly pointed out.
A great essay about playing the violin in a county youth orchestra does not need a paragraph explaining what it means to grow up in the Lehigh Valley. The Lehigh Valley is present in the essay whether you name it or not, as long as the details are accurate. This is typically the best option.
