Cracking the College Essay: Tips for a Stellar Personal Statement

Webinar Transcription

2024-02-07 – Cracking the College Essay/ Tips for a Stellar Personal Statement

Hello, everyone. My name is Anna Vande Velde. I will be your moderator today. I’m a senior advisor at CollegeAdvisor. I’ve been with the company for a couple years at this point. Just to give you a bit of my background, I completed my bachelor’s degree in psychology at Carnegie Mellon and went on to Harvard Law School, where I graduated in 2021.

So in addition to my work with CollegeAdvisor, I am a non profit attorney. Um, that’s a bit about me. Welcome to this webinar, Cracking the College Essay Tips for a Stellar Personal Statement. We’re really excited to have you here. To orient everyone with the webinar timing, we’ll start off with a presentation.

Then at the end, we’ll answer your questions in a live Q& A. On the sidebar, you can download the slides that you’ll see and start submitting questions in the Q& A tab. Now, without further ado, let’s meet our panelists.

Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where you’re located. I am Aya Waller-Bey, and tonight I’ll be talking to you about how to write and develop a stellar personal statement. So a little bit about my background. I am a proud Detroiter, born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and also a proud first generation college student.

Just in case you don’t know what that means. I was the 1st 1st person in my family to attain a 4 year degree. I went on to go to Georgetown University, which you see on the screen in Washington, D. C. where I study sociology, um, shortly after graduating. I became an admissions officer and coordinator of multicultural recruitment, where I read for students in the Midwest, but also some of our diversity, um, students, diverse students or students from diverse backgrounds.

Um, shortly after I received a scholarship to go to Cambridge, where I got my master’s in philosophy of education at the University of Cambridge, and there I became a alumni interviewer where I interviewed Georgetown. applicants. I’m now finishing my PhD in sociology at the University of Michigan where I study the college personal statement and particularly how students talk about their stories and narratives in the college essay.

I’ve been with CollegeAdvisor for several years now and I’m super super excited to answer your questions and talk to you about how to navigate the personal statement process.

Thank you, Aya. We are so lucky to have you here. Before we get into our presentation, we’d like to pull the audience to see what grade folks are in, so if you don’t mind answering that. If you’re a parent or an educator, feel free to just select other. And while those answers come in, Aya, I wonder, sorry to put you on the spot, I wonder if you remember and would like to share a bit about what your personal statement was about when you were applying to colleges.

Yeah, that’s an interesting question, actually. Um, so I’ve had actually several versions of a college personal statement, which is actually a bit uncommon. Um, so the personal statement, my first personal statement, uh, it was called jumping for joy. I still have a copy of it. Um, and I talked about, um, how I responded to receiving at the time we received decisions.

for opportunities via snail mail. And I talked about how I felt receiving like this golden ticket to participate in this summer program at Princeton and how that program like changed my life and was part of the reason why, you know, I was applying to Georgetown and University of Michigan and all these other cool schools.

So I really talked about like why that opportunity was significant, what I learned and how important that like small envelope was and how it truly changed my life. So that was one of my essays and it was called Jumping for Joy. I’m more light hearted. Essay, I would say. Yeah, I love the title. It really encaptures your story.

Um, looks like we’ve got a decent number of responses in. Uh, 52 percent of folks here are in 11th grade, 11 percent are in 10th grade, about 7 percent are in 8th and 9th grade, and then around 30 percent answered other, so probably parents and supporting folks. Thank you for your answers, everyone. I will close that and turn the floor over to Aya.

Fantastic. Thank you. And so excited to see that there’s so many folks in the audience. It’s such a diverse audience. And great job to you, juniors. This is a perfect time to really kind of dive into thinking about the personal statement in the college admissions essay. So, to start, we should discuss, you know, what types of essays you have to write for college, right?

So, there are three primary essays that students find themselves writing. The first is the college personal statement. It’s the essay you probably hear most about. It is that one essay that’s submitted to multiple colleges and universities. It still, it showcases your voice, your writing skills. It reveals depth and adds context to the application.

If you’re applying using a college submission platform, such as the common app or the common application platform, you are writing one essay and then submitting to all the schools that you add on that application, right? Uh, there are institutions like my alma mater, Georgetown, which are still not on the common app, so they actually have their own application.

Well, most students who applies his common app schools will also use that essay to write their personal statement for Georgetown and other schools who are not on the platform. You also have supplemental essays. Now, these essays tend to be smaller, not always, but they’re typically essays that. You know, schools are inviting students to write about variety of topics, but they’re often more specific to the institution, right?

So those could be your typical, why essay, why Dartmouth essay, right? Why University of Michigan essay? Um, they also, unlike personal statements, you know, they’re only required by some colleges and they really are used to demonstrate fit, show you’ve done your homework, showing you’ve done your research.

And just show that there’s an alignment between your personality, um, with the institution, right? Some of those essays can get very quirky. The essays could ask, name your five favorite books. Columbia is known to have essays that require students to make a short list. An essay could ask, you know, give us one word to describe how you feel right now.

So they are, they really vary in size and length, but again, they’re not required by all schools. And then you have the scholarship essay. Again, um, it’s not as common, um, but students may be asked to write additional essays to be considered for merit based scholarship to grant. So you might submit your application and then you get that link and that email to create your own, like, your portal.

Um, and then in there, you might realize that you are eligible for certain opportunities and they might invite you to write a scholarship essay, right? And then you also have scholarship. Essays that are external to any institution where you find on one of those larger scholarship platforms and you might write an essay there So those are some of the kind of three types, uh, primary types of essays you might encounter, right?

Now, what is the significance of the college essay? And this question has increasingly become Uh even deeper than I think this this the prompt here suggests as we think about What’s happening in the transformation and higher education. But as it stands, the college essay is there to add a unique touch, right?

It’s one of the few opportunities in the application for admissions officers to hear directly from you, right? They get to hear directly from you as a student. It also provides an opportunity to tell your story in your own words, right? It adds qualitative information to the application. So they’ll have your grades, they’ll have your test scores if you submit them.

They’ll have extracurricular activities, right? Your activities list. They may have a resume. They’ll have your letters of recommendation, right? But your essay, they get to hear from you. You get to answer the question, you know, what about your future aspirations, about your goals, right? It also, in some institutions and in some cases, serves as a writing sample, right?

How well can you develop a cohesive, Uh, essay, a cohesive statement, how’s your grammar and punctuation, you know, it also can occupy or serve as, um, a writing sample in some cases. So, when thinking about factors that make a great essay, it’s a very popular question, as you may imagine. Um, students are also thinking about how can I stand out, right?

And as you imagine, colleges and universities are reading thousands of essays, right? And of course, there’s going to be some similarities, right? You know, students write about, you know, tend to write about similar topics, whether it’s in sports or service opportunities and etc. But what you cannot control is what other people write about.

So you just need to focus about you and your story, right? So a great essay is presenting information in a focused and thoughtful manner, right? So it’s clear that you’re telling one singular story. It uses specific, emphasizing that on purpose, concrete examples to convey points. And it’s focusing on the present and the near past, right?

Instead of stating qualities are right, you should illustrate through anecdotes and descriptions, right? You know, demonstrating actions and behaviors, creating a more vivid and memorable impression. You also want to tell again the admissions officers about who you are. You know, it could be about triumphs or challenges.

It could be about leadership. It could be about experiences outside of the classroom, and it should demonstrate good use of grammar. Your essay should be a story that talks about who you are, that really shed some insight into your personality, your background, your identity, your passions. It doesn’t have to be very serious.

It doesn’t have to be, you know, jovial and light hearted. Write the story you want to tell that you feel like is answering the question first and foremost, but capturing, um, who you are and what you want the university to know about you. Now, the factors that make a great college essay, you know, again, it’s clearly answering the question, cannot, emphasize that enough.

We read so many essays and you get to the bottom of it and you’re like, what was the question? Uh, so, and this is critical in supplements, right? When the supplemental essays are asking a question, you really want to make sure you’re responding, right? So if they’re saying, you know, why do you want to study computer science and you go on a, you know, a random tannin about, you know, well, I like ice cream, you know, it.

And you don’t answer why computer science or you don’t talk about why computer science at Carnegie Mellon, right? So you really need to make sure you’re answering the question again. You want to effectively kind of describe experiences, detailing them, you know, talking about that personal growth, your understanding, uh, open mindedness, right?

So that that’s what they really want to hear. They want to make sure it reflects your student voice. Now, naturally, it should be polished, right? Um, it should not have, you know, obvious errors, of course. Um, but you really want to make sure you are kind of talking in your voice. Um, so often students pull up with thesaurus and they say, I have to use the biggest word I can find.

And that’s not what makes a great essay. You know, you need to use words that you understand the meaning of them, but also making sure it sounds like it’s coming from you. And again, you want to use specific and concrete examples. We often say show don’t tell. So what are some common mistake, uh, mistakes we see , uh, there are a lot of common mistakes, right?

When admissions officers, when we read essays, we again, we get to. See what what’s happening. And one is writing essays that focus on other people. Now, you might say I am the prompt asked me who inspires me the most. So I’m going to write about, you know, my grandmother, right? That she inspires me the most.

Well, that’s fine. Right? However, you also need to make sure that they’re the essay centers, you and your connection because the university is not trying to admit your grandma, right? They’re trying to, you know, Amid you. So, you know, when students kind of talk about their why and their motivation, sometimes they want to be physicians because their parents are physicians.

And it’s okay saying, see my mother come home from work. You know, she was a surgeon. I was really inspired by her. That’s great. But to then continue the story about, you know, your, your mother wanted to be a doctor since age five and then detailing her story. It’s, you know, you have to write the essay about you, okay?

Um, you also want to avoid writing essays about overly common or controversial topics. Now, this is a, uh, a very kind of contentious topic. We get questions about this all the time, and I don’t expect anything different today, uh, during the Q& A. Um, but one thing, uh, that happened, um, you know, for example, let’s talk about sports.

A lot of students play sports. I think it’s fantastic. Consequently, admissions officers re registered. Hundreds, thousands of essays about sports and sports injuries, um, missing the winning shot, getting cut from the swim team, trying, you know, working hard all summer, you know, so for some students, sports is so important to who they are and their identity.

So they want to write about it. In that case, write about it, okay? However, just know that admissions officers read a lot of them, okay? So, will it be, you know, the first swim essay that they read, that application cycle? It won’t be. But if you are committed to telling this story in a thoughtful way, you think it demonstrates your personal triumph, you think it captures who you are, your sense of community, your identity, write about it, okay?

But just, you know, keeping in mind that They read a lot of essays about sport. Volunteer trips. Now, this is an interesting one. You might say, wow, universities, especially like Georgetown, service, right? Committed to service. They want to see students who are involved in service. Service is a beautiful thing.

However, they’re also very common when students talk about going abroad, um, to help students in villages and those types of things. Um, uh, types of trips. Those those come up quite a bit too. So again, if it’s transformative, if it has deeply impacted you, no one is going to say you absolutely cannot write about it, right?

Just know that it is a common type of narrative that admissions officers will read. You also want to avoid writing essays that really, like, a college professor or your parent wrote them. So, you know, just being, keeping in mind that, you know, you don’t need a thesaurus to write a thoughtful essay, okay? Um, mention the experiences without describing them.

So if you say, you know, when I was, uh, 14, my parents relocated to Detroit, Michigan. And I had a great time. And then you just kind of go on, but you don’t talk about why you had a great time when you relocated to Detroit, Michigan. What about that experience was significant? How did it impact you? Right. You also want to avoid naming a university and college in the personal statement.

Again, you’re submitting this essay to multiple schools. So if you say, I really want to go to Michigan State University, and then you submit that essay to Dartmouth, University of Michigan, Grand Valley, Ohio State, it’s like, no. Use the supplements to, you know, make those school specific, uh, essays. When possible, avoid complex sentences.

Um, I’ve seen essays where the first paragraph is literally one sentence and it’s like six lines long. Put some periods in those and some semicolons. Break up those sentences. Take a breath, you know, I shouldn’t have to hold my breath to read the sentence, right? So just try to write, you know, You don’t need complex sentences that are, you know, 20 lines long, okay?

Um, again, avoiding cliches, um, whenever possible. Life is like a box of chocolates. You know, you miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. Again, we know those. I mean, I love a good quote. I quote all the time. I could write off 12 quotes right now. But there are some of them are just cliches that we hear often.

So another popular question we, we encounter is how students can write creatively about themselves while still being clear and concise, you know, again, being specific helps, right? So using concrete examples, you know, instead of, you know, uh, with Abraham Lincoln, you know, four stories and four scores ago, etc.

Like you really want to just get to the point, right? And I think there’s a way to be creative. I think sometimes students here being concise. And being exact and think that means zero creativity. That’s not what we’re saying here. But sometimes students take a little long to get to the point. Okay, um, so sometimes there’s so much abstract and flowery language.

I’m just like, I don’t even know what the essay is about anymore, right? Um, you can also, in thinking about being creative, incorporate elements of culture, including language expressions that reflect distinct cultural experiences. And I’ve worked with a lot of students from South America, whose, uh, first language is Spanish.

So they’ll talk about, you know, a funny tidbit their parents would say in Spanish. Of course, they’ll include the translation. Um, but just think about what’s distinct to you and your background. I sometimes hear students say nothing is distinct or special about me. I grew up in the suburbs. Everybody looks like me.

All our parents work in the same place. We all went to the same school. Yet there are, there’s no one like you. There’s no one who shares your exact same routine, who has your DNA, who has your exact same lived experiences. And again, the important piece of this puzzle is focusing on yourself, right? You only have control over your essay and what you write.

Please, I cannot emphasize this enough. Do not become so concerned about what other people are writing and talking about. Tell your story in your own words.

Now I’m thinking about editing, um, your essays. This is important, right? Um, one thing you should not be writing. Your essays for the first time, you know, uh, the night before it’s due, okay, that’s just, that’s not going to work, right? If essays, if you’re applying early action or early decision and your applications are due November 1st.

You know, you can start drafting those essays in August, right? You don’t, do not, you know, drive everyone in your house or your teachers or your counselors mad by waiting till Halloween to start writing an essay. Okay? So to edit your essays effectively, you want to make sure you review prompts and guidelines to ensure that you are answering the questions.

First and foremost, most important thing, answer the question. Second, I love this feature. If people still use Microsoft Office, the read aloud feature. I do this all the time as someone who’s writing a dissertation, and there’s thousands of words. And sometimes I just need someone to read them back to me.

I click on that button and it reads it. And I get to capture like, oh, wait, that’s wonky. Or, woo, that sentence was long. So, use that feature. Proofread, okay? This is a really good example of why proofreading matters. So, uh, this is a funny example. So, someone says, you know, I enjoy torturing animals. I volunteer torturing animals at a local shelter since 8th grade.

And the experience has solidified my desire to become a veterinarian. Now torturing is used multiple times and it’s spelled correctly and your brain, if you wrote it, will readjust to read it in the way that you want it to, want it to write it, right? So your brain will read it, you know, I enjoy, you know, training animals, but it says torturing and torturing is spelled correctly.

So imagine a mission officer reading that a student wants to be a veterinarian and enjoys torturing animals. No bueno, right? So you want to make sure you take a second look, a triple look, right? To make sure you are, uh, and the read aloud feature is great for this, right? Because it will catch that. So just making sure you’re proofreading.

You want to also, to edit, cut unnecessary information, such as repetitive sentences or irrelevant information. I see a lot of this where you read essays and it feels like a student is trying to fill the gap, right? So for the common app, you get 650 words. So some students are like, okay, I got to get 650 words.

And then you get to, you know, 600 and you’re like, there’s these words. It’s like, you just said that three times in different ways. Cut it, you know, cut unnecessary stuff. Um, also after finishing a draft, take at least 24 hours before reviewing it again, review it with fresh eyes. I have to do that too.

Sometimes I finish an essay or a fellowship application and I want to submit it because I’m like, please, I don’t want to see this again. I have to force myself to take time before submitting it because when you’re tired, you’re, again, you are bound to make mistakes. And finally, have teachers, a counselor, or someone you trust review the statement, okay?

Get some feedback. It’s going to take more than one draft. It should take more than one draft. Your first essay should not be your final essay, okay? This takes time. It’s a process, okay? So have a teacher or counselor or someone you trust review the statement. And I use the word trust here because you might be writing about something that you don’t want everyone you’ve ever met to know, right?

So make sure you share it. Um, so this is a really popular question and it’s often hard to answer because there’s so many essays and Um, but I think the qualities of essays, um, that often I feel like resonate are essays that are reflective, right? So, essays that reflect student ambition and growth. Like, I love hearing about students why, like what motivates them.

That’s important to me. Um, and I feel like it shows a lot about a person. Right. I mentioned earlier in this conversation, I’m a first generation college student, right? So education has been incredibly important to me. Part of the reason why I’m on my fourth degree that I work so hard that I’ve done so well.

And I’m motivated because I want to make college more accessible to other low income and first generation college students, right? I’m motivated by that. Uh, essays that highlight student tenacity, right? And this doesn’t mean a trauma narrative. Again, that’s my particular area of research actually. Um, but it’s just showing growth, right?

Saying, you know, at first you don’t succeed, you try again. So just showing how students were tenacious. Essays that paint colorful photos of a human experience. Those are also some of my favorites. And I think about students who have jobs, which increasingly students do. It could be a summer job, maybe you’re doing swim lessons, um, or you’re working at, you know, a local coffee shop or donut shop to, you know, just have a little extra money, uh, for senior expenses, if you will.

Um, and soon to write about, you know, being working the drive through window at Jimmy John’s and we’re talking about the customers who came into, you know, old Navy while they were working and just talked about what they learned from those interactions, right? I think those essays and stories seem to be beautiful or the students and parents are farmers and they talked about picking, you know, tomatoes with their family members and what they learned about such grueling work again.

These paint painting colorful photos of the human experience. I love those types of essays and those are some of the ones that have stood out to me. So, final tips. As we are kind of thinking about, I know it’s been a lot of information and again, I anticipate there will be quite a few questions. Uh, what, how can we kind of really make this essay stellar, right?

So again, show, don’t tell. So one example is, instead of saying, I learned a lot volunteering at the Cleveland Animal Shelter and just that’s it, full stop. You know, it’s like, okay, that’s good. You just. You just told me you learned a lot. Tell, I’m sorry, show, right? Show a little bit more. So, an example is While feeding the sick puppies with the other shelter volunteers, I learned the importance of teamwork.

Right? So you are, you are, uh, not only talking about the qualities that you learned, but you’re showing through what needs, right? You, you learned, uh, the importance of the teamwork and compassion because you were working with other volunteers and you were feeding sick puppies, okay? So you really want to, you know, Be more specific, okay?

And tell, show, show us. Paint a picture for us. We’re not there. Otherwise you’re going to, you know, force a reader to make assumptions and you don’t want that to happen. You also want to share lessons learned. You know, detail how the experience or experiences you wrote about informed your future and the type of student you’ll be in college, right?

You don’t often say, I mean, you don’t have to say in your personal statement, you know, given this, when I go to college, I plan to do these 12 things. That’s not how it’s appropriate. That’s probably, that doesn’t have to be your story. However, if you talk about experiences, if you did talk about, um, volunteering with the Red Cross over the summer and doing blood drives and et cetera, if you tell, if you, you know, write that story, then you also need to Tell us what you learned about it.

Uh, what you learned about yourself, what you learned about other people, what you’ve learned about the world, how has that been informing the person you are and the person you plan to be or the work you plan to do? Okay. So making sure lessons are lessons learned are shared. Very important. Okay. Can I emphasize this enough proof read.

If you have a semicolon in the wrong place, or, you know, a word is You know, out of whack, perfectly fine. I don’t think in my years and working in higher ed and college admissions, someone was like, Oh, that semicolon is wrong. Throw in the trash pile. Now, however, if there are glaring errors and it looks like you just Type that up with your eyes closed and press submit.

Not a good look, okay? So you want to proofread. Again, share it with a parent, share it with a teacher, share it, you know, a roommate, etc. Share it so you can get some feedback. And remember to tell your story. Okay, write about your own experiences, not someone else’s. And again, I’ve read some really great essays where a student talked about tutoring, right?

That they love tutoring, when they met, you know, a student while tutoring and teaching them, you know, helping them with their math. And the entire essay is about the student they are tutored and not about them, right? So just recognizing that you are telling your story and only you can write your story, okay?

Um, I don’t think I don’t recall mentioning this in this conversation, but with the increasingly use of artificial intelligence as well, we are also seeing the collapse of narrative and storytelling. I want you to know, I have already read essays That were clearly written by ChatDVT, and I could tell, and my colleagues increasingly can tell, okay, is a particular, uh, style that ChatDVT produces.

So, I just want you to remember that as well. Tell your story in your own words, and you have all the devices that you need to be capable of producing a stellar personal statement.

Oh, my goodness. Thank you. I, uh, for all of those gems. Really grateful to you for sharing your expertise with us. Um, so that brings us to the end of the presentation part of the webinar. I hope you all found this information helpful and please remember that you can download the slides from the link in the handouts tab on the side of your screen.

And now we’re going to move to the live questions and answers section. I’ll read through the questions you submitted in the Q& A tab. I’ll share them in the public chat so you can see them, and I’ll read them out loud before Aya gives you an answer. As a heads up, if something’s wonky and your Q& A tab isn’t letting you submit questions, just double check that you joined the webinar through the custom link in your email and not from the webinar landing page.

So, Aya, the first question that came in is would using Grammarly to fine tune your essay be considered acceptable or taboo? And the student emphasized for fine tuning only, not AI composition, which you just talked about. Yeah, I think it’s acceptable. I use Grammarly all the time. You know, sometimes it catches things, and I don’t always agree with Grammarly, actually.

Sometimes I recommend things, and I was like, no, I meant to say it that way, but I think that’s fine. It’s primarily proofreads. I know they’re developing more technology to do more of that composition stuff, but I think I have it literally right now as a plug in, so I use it to catch things that I might not otherwise catch.

So I think that’s fine. Great. Thanks. I had another question. With the very selective colleges, can students still get rejected, even if they follow all of your fabulous tips? Absolutely. Absolutely. Uh, it’s called holistic admission. So the essay is just one part or one piece of the puzzle. So they’re not looking solely at your essay.

They’re not looking solely at your test scores. They’re not looking solely at your grades. They’re not looking solely as your activities or solely as your letter of recommendation. It’s part of a larger puzzle. And I’ll tell you this, That you can write a brilliant essay, but the most important part of the high of college application is your transcript.

It is your achievement over a period of time over your 4 years in high school, or 3 years in and all you finish early and that record. allows, um, admissions officers to see, you know, to demonstrate your proficiency in core areas again over a period of time. They can see if you trend upward, if you trend down, if you stayed the same.

If you chose rigorous classes, what types of classes, etcetera? So, um, the essay is important. It is a part of the larger picture and broader picture for the schools who do practice holistic admissions. So, yeah, in some cases, um, I say the essays is they’re supposed to help you, right? Um, and it’s supposed to help to strengthen the application and show those personal again qualitative out of components um, but it is uh, it is just a part of the application process and You could do you can write the best essay and unfortunately still be deferred or denied from a selective institution.

Absolutely. Thank you. You mentioned in your presentation, um, to not write about overly common topics and talk about some that have stood out to you. Um, a question came up. Do you have other examples of topics that are too common or uncommon topics that officers don’t read about all the time? Well, it’s I guess the uncommon ones would be common.

Um, we know. Right. But I think, but I mean, I think sometimes students don’t realize how beautiful the mundane is. And what I mean by that is there are, there are day to day experiences that we have all the time that we don’t think are exciting enough and don’t think they’re important enough. And I think sometimes we miss out on telling really beautiful stories and like I’ll use myself as an example.

I take a daily walk every single day and I live in Michigan, so it gets really cold here. But I think it could be snowing, raining, hailing. I’ve never walked through a tornado. We don’t really get that many, but if it was safe to walk a safe distance around the block, I probably would. Um, and someone might say like, that’s boring.

You’re just taking a walk. Like, that’s not exciting. That doesn’t show your character, your strength and et cetera. But I can talk about what I see, what I smell. Um, you know, activate the senses, right? I can talk about, you know, people I encounter or how many steps I get and how that’s impacted my health or my, the importance of mobility and like how we should.

Take a walk in the value of taking a walk. Right? So what I just did, I just turned to mundane experience, something I just do very commonly every day. Nothing too exciting. And I can paint a picture that shows why it’s meaningful. Like, why do I take that walk every day? You know, I know, you know, if you, if you’re one of those people like me, I make my bed every morning.

I am one of those people. My bed is made up every single morning. Again, that is a, just a regular day, but it’s important to me. And I can write an essay about why that’s important to me. Um, so I, again, when I think about topics, I’m thinking about just you, both examples I gave were just based on my experience.

Now I might, I know I’m not the only person who makes her bed every morning. And I know I’m not the only person who takes a walk every day. But those people don’t live my life. They don’t walk in my shoes. They don’t walk my block. So again, I want you to think about how can you focus on your own story?

Okay. What do you see in your neighborhood? You know, what type of breakfast that you eat every morning, right? Maybe you eat toast and eggs every single morning. Why do you do that? Is it habit? Is it cultural? It’s what about it? What makes it significant to you? Um, and thinking about other common topics, um, You know, we hear about, you know, divorce sometimes.

We hear about, uh, the passing of a grandparent and that motivation of, you know, pursuing medicine. That’s very, that’s common. Um, you know, again, divorce is really common. Um, service, missionary, like mission trips. Uh, are common, particularly for those who have more resources. That tends to be a topic we see for students who might be come from more affluent backgrounds.

Um, and then also there’s the pervasive trauma narrative where a student might write about a very, very traumatic experience, unfortunately, and kind of. Reveal that. Um, so, so those are some of the common ones that we encounter. And again, I used to have a hard line about like, don’t write about this, don’t write about this, but through my own maturity and also reading more essays from topics that might be common.

Um, I, I just want students to prioritize authenticity. I really want students to think about being authentic and less about, let me write this because I think this is going to impress them. Write from your own point of view and be authentic. Absolutely, great advice. Um, would you say it’s better to write about multiple activities you’re involved in or to go deeper into just one?

Well, I guess it depends on the question, right? So, um, I don’t know what the prop would be, but if you wanted to talk about one essay, you very well could do that. Or if you wanted the essay to be about, you can say, you know, I, although I love math and I’m interested in pursuing like a STEM major, um, the essay can be like, yeah, I’m still really physical.

Like I’m still like an athlete and I love. rock climbing and I love rotorblading and I love playing basketball and you can talk about like how there’s a contrast there, right? So it really just depends on what type of story you want to tell and what the prompt asks. If the prompt says tell us, you know, what’s your favorite sport and why you like to play it, then, you know, it’s asking for one thing.

So there’s no hard line in that. You just wanted to make sure it’s cohesive. Um, you want to give us enough depth so we understand the significance, but there’s no like hard, fast rule about going deep with one or talking about many. I’ve seen both done very well. Great. Thank you. Um, another question is about the word limit.

Do you think it’s okay if an essay has fewer words than the limit, and how much fewer would you say is okay? Yeah, fewer is fine. Um, you know, when it comes to the Common App, I think it’s 650. I wouldn’t go less than 500. Um, you do want to, you know, try to maximize it. You can, there’s a visible, um, disparity when you go too short.

So if it’s 650 words and you write a 300 essay, literally half the page is going to be empty, and it just won’t look like you took it seriously. Great. Um, and then you have instances where you have small, like, supplementals, they tend to be around 250 watts. So you want to get, you know, at least a 200, right?

Sometimes I find students often it’s hard to cut, so they’re fighting for each word, you know? Um, but you definitely for the common app, at least do 500. And then for 250, at least do 200, right? You don’t want to see this glowing disparity about if it says, A hundred words and you only write 50. It just looks empty.

It didn’t look like you tried, you know, to really, um, address the, the, the question as robustly as possible. Absolutely. What’s your advice for students considering writing about, um, some part of their identity, maybe a disability or race, ethnicity, um, With the framing of, you know, this is a way they can bring inclusiveness and diversity to the table.

Yeah, I mean, right about it. Universities increasingly have diversity prompts, and particularly in response to the most recent Supreme Court decision last summer. about affirmative action. So, uh, I think there are more conversations about how students are writing about their identities, backgrounds, and, um, you know, how they show up and, and I think there’s some questions that explicitly asked about diversity, especially in the supplements, like schools have created more supplemental questions that are asking about how would you contribute to an inclusive community?

What do you bring that will add to our diversity? And I say, write about it. For sure. I agree. Um, what are your feelings on metaphor essays? Do you think those are overdone? Are readers tired of those? I think they could be, uh, interesting. Um, they are overdone in my opinion. You asked about my feelings, so I’ll use I feel that they could be a bit overdone.

But I don’t, again, there’s no, there’s no like rule, like do not, you write about this, it gets thrown in the trash. Now, but I think it needs to be clear. I think sometimes when things are so metaphorical or abstract and it’s like, where are we going with this? So it needs to be, the so what needs to be clear, okay?

Like, why should we care? What do you want me to learn from this? So don’t run with the metaphor so long or uh, to the point that your reader is left feeling confused. So you just want to make sure that it’s still clear, um, and cohesive. So again, in short, I feel like they can be a little bit overdone, but if they’re clear, cohesive, and they answer the question, write it.

Absolutely. This is a question about international college applications. Is the format of the personal statement the same in other countries, Dina? So that’s an interesting question. Um, I think there’s the other countries have different processes. I’ll say this. Um, I’ve never applied to a school, uh, um, internationally.

I’ve worked with students who applied to Canadian universities, and I applied to Cambridge as a graduate student, uh, and I felt like those processes were slightly different. So I am not an expert in the international essay experience. So I think. By all means look at the applications for the schools that you’re interested in flying for.

Um, but I, I think they often take more of an academic statement of purpose format. In my experience, I think in the United States, we write. We do a lot more personal narrative sharing than other countries do in my experience, but I will strongly encourage you to visit the admissions website of the institution you are interested in applying for and take a look at their application so you can get a better, uh, and a more accurate depiction of what, what they are expecting from, from your students.

Great. Thank you. You’ve been giving us so much good, uh, information. I’m going to give you a little break here, um, just so I can talk for a minute about CollegeAdvisor. Um, so for those in the room, if you are not already working with us, we know how overwhelming the admissions process can be. At CollegeAdvisor, I think now we have over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts.

And we are so ready to help you and your family navigate the admissions process, um, by meeting one on one and advising sessions. At this point, we’ve helped over 6, 000 clients, um, in their college journeys, and that number keeps climbing. It’s very exciting. We recently took a look at our data going back over the past couple of years and found that our students are more likely to get into prestigious colleges like Stanford, Vanderbilt, Harvard, the list goes on.

So increase your odds. Take the next step in your college admissions journey. And sign up. If you want to learn more, I suggest signing up for a free 45 to 60 minute strategy session with an admission specialist on our team. If you scan the QR code on your screen, it’ll take you to the site to do that.

Remember, you can also download these slides, which will have this QR code in them, in the handouts tab. Um, in that initial free meeting. You’ll review your extracurricular list, application strategy, discuss how it aligns with the college list that you’re putting together for yourself, and outline the tools you need to stand out in what we know is a competitive and sometimes stressful admissions world.

So please check it out. With that said, the QR code is still on the screen and we will go back to the questions and answers. So, Aya, one student asked, is the prompt for the personal statement the same every year, and if not, when does it become available? And then same question about the college specific questions, when are those available?

Yes, so, great question. So, I’ll answer the second one first. So, um, Colleges really vary, uh, when they choose to, like, update those prompts. Generally, the common app, like, the platform refreshes, I believe it’s August 1st, so by that point, that’s when universities tend to have their most updated questions.

School specific questions. But again, you want to just check the school website to be absolutely sure. Okay. Um, as far as like the common app essay, uh, questions, they have pretty much been the same for the past several years. The common app has seven prompts and the seven prompt being choose your own. You can just write whatever you want to write about.

Um, so those seven prompts have been very similar for the past several years. So you can literally go on like Google common app essay questions. Um, and the 2023 to 2024 questions will be. They will be very similar to the questions next year. But again, all fails August 1st. Those, uh, that platform updates.

So then you’ll get to see the questions. But every year they’ve had the question number 7. Choose your own. So also if push comes to shove, we see a lot of this happens. If you feel like an essay that you really, the story you really want to tell does not fit any of the six prompts, just choose the choose your own prompt and you’ll be fine.

August one is usually, um, the updating happens. Um, so in, in most cases, universities are using very similar prompts year to year, or, I mean, there have been cases where, uh, universities have Stopped requiring supplementals. So they’ll say actually there are actually no supplemental essays this year, etc But just again always when in doubt go directly to the source, which is the university’s college admissions website.

Awesome. Thank you Do would you say that admissions officers look at all pieces of an application first or are they You know, cutting back on their list based on transcript first and then looking at other pieces like that say it depends on the school, frankly. So, uh, I would, you know, say that institutions, particularly large public universities that are receiving 50, 000 70, 000 applications.

Most likely have a filtering system. Um, they may have an unplugged, unpublished GPA cut off. Um, that might indicate that if a student doesn’t have at least a 2. 5, that they are just not, they won’t be able to be successful based on the rigor of the university. So they might have their own internal cut off.

Um, I will say also, if a university might not think a student is competitive because of what their grades and test scores reflect, they might spend less time on the application. Um, they might, you know, have their own internal ranking system and might allot less time to an applicant that they don’t think is as strong.

Um, so yeah, I, universities have to find a way to cut down applications somehow. So they’re, each university has their own kind of process internally that they do. Um, they may have unpublished cutoffs, if you will, but, um, that doesn’t mean they don’t read, uh, the other parts of the application. Um, they just might look at those now, like the, the grades first, and then decide how much time to spend on the rest of the application because in order to be successful institution, they’re going to look at the grades.

Um, and in some cases, the test scores for a baseline to see if a student could perform or be successful. It’s all about, can a student be successful here? Um, and also we often like to say in admissions, and I think this is true, I really do, that universities are looking for reasons to admit you. So, um, just keep that in mind.

Great. Thank you. Would you advise students to focus their essay more on their past journey or their goals for the future? How would you balance? Well, it depends, once again, on what question you’re responding to, right? So, it depends on what story you want to tell. That’s a really, that’s a me as in you question.

Um, if you feel like, um, you want to talk about your future, you often need to set the stage on why that’s the particular pathway you’re interested in to begin with. So, if you say you really want to be a, um, I don’t know, an ambassador, Uh, or let’s use lawyer if you really want to be a lawyer, like Anna here, you have to kind of talk, you know, why, you know, from where does that stem, where does that motivation lie?

And it could be what you see on the news, it could be about, you know, what you see in your community, it could be about something you read, something you watched, right? So that’s going to force you to talk about maybe your past and your present to talk about your future. So, um, there’s no hard, fast rule.

Again, it’s again, it comes. down to what part of your story you want to tell and your motivations for telling it. And then what is the prompt asking you, right? Is the prompt asking you to talk, to forecast in the future? Um, so the, that would be the advice that I give. Great. Thank you. When do you think is the best time for students to start writing their essays?

Fantastic question. I mean, some students start drafting actually in their junior year because they might be, it’s like a required assignment in like an English class. You know, some students might be a part of college access programs where they start, you know, in their junior year or in the summer. I participated in one of those programs where I wrote my first essays, personal statement in the summer before my senior year.

Um, but I would say If you, the summer before your senior year is a great time, even like in July, when you, if you, especially if you have more time, that’s what happens is August rolls around, or for those students who start at the Labor Day, September rolls around, and it is a mad dash to get counselors letter recommendation request in, to write those essays, to develop the college list, the Common App platform, college tours, fall high school, I mean, it becomes AP classes, homecoming, just trying to adjust.

It just, it’s wild. So I always say folks, if you can get stuff done in July and August, like if you can have a full, at least a draft of that personal statement written, do it. Okay. Because I, I wish I could have some of my students that I work with, talk to you all and share their lessons because I, they will tell you.

September to like December or folks who apply to January, it’s just a mad dash. So as much of stuff you can get done in July and August, I would take advantage of that time. Now you cannot, because you have a summer job, you have to work, you might be traveling, visiting family, et cetera. That’s okay. Even if you started, you know, in September, like no one is going to be like, you’re so behind.

I meet students who because of resources, they, they, it’s October, November. Um, that’s not ideal, but, you know, if you have the capacity and the means to do so, I would start as soon as you can. So, like, in July, if you’re a junior, you know, you might do it in class. That’s okay. Um, but in the summertime is a really good time to start.

Totally agree. Um, You talked a bit about supplemental essays. How, how would you answer a question about why you’re applying to a specific college? What sorts of things do you think you should reference in that? Yeah, great question. Um, yeah, so you want to answer honestly, and you I put an asterisk there because some students, their motivation is just oh, it’s prestigious and I want to go to a prestigious school.

Do not write that. Um, you want to answer, you want to be able to demonstrate you’ve done some homework and some research. So I have to say two ways to respond or talking about people in place. Right? So, for an example, if you’re really interested in research, and you go on to like, I don’t know, the sociology department, and you see that professors are conducting this particular type of research.

Right. You can mention like, oh, professors there are writing about housing inequality and neighborhoods, and I’m really interested in, in that particular type of research, and I hope to work with Professor Waller Bay, right? So, you can talk about people. You can also talk about like where a place is located.

So, again, I was in D. C., so a lot of students had interest in being in like, uh, government and policy, right? So, you can talk about the access to internships and certain types of jobs based on where the school is located. Um, you want to talk about schools, ethos and values. So there’s some schools whose mission is like to serve the global community.

So they do a lot of study abroad. There are a lot of study abroad opportunities. So you can talk about like your love for travel, your love of language. And like, you may want, you already speak a second language. So you want to learn another language. So you just want to demonstrate that you’ve done some homework and connect the school ethos, the values, the people, the place, but what, who you are and like what you hope to kind of get out of that experience.

So I think, again, and you want to try not to, um, reference easily, like, please, like, please share, like, you know, Oh, I went to the campus and it was beautiful. There are a lot of beautiful campuses all over the world. Okay. So that’s not, not enough. Um, or my best friend went there. That’s great. Um, you know, if you say you, your best friend went there, so you spent time on campus and therefore saw these things, that’s different.

I, I do see. Students who parents might be alum or older siblings or cousins or something. So they’ll say while visiting my brother, right? That’s fine, right? You’re also establishing some connection there for schools who do consider siblings for their various, you know, missions policies that actually might not be a bad thing.

So you can reference also any business you’ve taken. So, you know, Your why might be when you visited on a college tour, you fell in love with it, or these three reasons, and you talk about those reasons again, culture, climate, uh, resources, programs, research, location, those are the things you want to talk about in your why.

Great, thank you. If a student is writing about something difficult they’ve been through, their question is how much is too much to share? Great, So, how personal can it get? That’s a fantastic question. Have you read my research? Whoever asked that question. That’s a fine line. This is one thing I want the student to think about.

Would they feel comfortable if the essay that they wrote ended up in the hands of a professor at their university? Would they feel comfortable if the essay that they wrote, not only was read by the admissions officer in their region, but the dean of the university? Of the emissions office. I think if the question is they would not feel comfortable.

I think it’s too much. I think sometimes we don’t think about what happens when we press send. You might think it’s a 1 on 1 like, oh, you is the emissions officer for. For the metro Detroit area. I she’s my admissions officer. So she’s going to be the only person who reads it. That may not be the case.

Okay. A lot of universities have committees admissions committee. So it’s not just them. It’s Anna. It’s Rachel. It’s, you know, the professor is a student. So you just want to be mindful of that. Um, if you feel comfortable with sharing that and you wouldn’t, if it ended up in the hands of another admissions officer and you will feel okay, then, you know, I’ll share.

Um, but I just want more sense to think about what happens when you press submit. Like, does that story still belong to you? Um, will it bring you shame? Um, if you press submit. Um, and I think there are opportunities to tell very difficult stories in ways that don’t expose us. Um, in, in ways that may be unhealthy.

Not because of the exposure. Uh, not because of what we wrote, but how the hands that it might end up in. So I just, I’m posing those questions because, um, It’s not always a one to one when you press submit. It’s not just one person who might read it. It might be multiple people and if that would bring you shame or discomfort, I would think twice about writing that essay.

Thank you so much. I know that’s a big question. In general, how much weight would you say essays are given in the application process? And, we had a few questions about this. Do you think the weight given to essays varies drastically based on what schools you’re applying to? I’ll answer the second question first.

Yes, it varies because not all schools practice holistic admissions. So, fun fact, you might not believe me, but I was on a call a few months ago with someone who works for the Common App. The majority of the schools on the Common App do not require an essay, any essay, person, statement, or supplement. So, for schools who don’t, you know, require it, it doesn’t matter.

If a school requires it but does not practice holistic admissions, It’s less important. For our liberal arts, um, our more selective institution, it matters a bit more, um, because they’re trying to look for things to distinguish their applicants because most of the applicants have all A’s and near perfect SAT scores, so it is more important.

I’ll show you this also. For my research, I interview admissions officers from private universities from across the country, selected ones, probably many of the schools you would want to apply to. And when I ask them how important that college admissions essay is, I say from 1 to 5, 5 being of greatest importance, 1 being of least importance.

All of them say three, they said all of it. It’s right. It’s number three, right in the middle. So that is what they told me. So that’s what I will tell you. Interesting. Thank you. I know we’re close to time. I’m hoping we can get one more question to you, Aya. What are your thoughts on referencing COVID related experiences?

In student essays, I, um, at one point there was the Kobe question, um, on the common app where there was an actual specific like, uh, question or prompt rather that students could use that to apply or to submit additional information. I don’t know if that question is still on the comment app. I will have to triple check that.

Um, because if that question doesn’t exist anymore, I think there’s opportunities to talk about it in your personal statement. Um, as much as we would like to say that COVID is behind us, it has deeply affected the world. And a lot of us live with the remnants of COVID, whether we lost a loved one, we got sick.

Our lives have changed, but it really depends on the essay. It’s really hard to answer that directly if I don’t know how it’s going to be written about because if you say it was disrupted to your educational experience, if you’re in high school now, you were probably in middle school that that’s an experience that happened quite a while ago.

So I don’t know if it would be the best. you know, framing to write about COVID. But there’s other really, you know, ways that it might impact you that actually might be more salient. So it’s hard to say directly without knowing how the COVID will be addressed. And I would need to triple check to see if the Common App still has that question, because if they have the question, you want to use that in the other additional information space.

Yeah, I believe they took it out this year, but I’m also not 100 percent sure. So I totally agree with your assessment. Um, thank you so much Aya. Thank you for all the wisdom you shared with us. Thank you everyone who came out to listen. Um, please check out um, our future webinars for the rest of this month.

Um, you can find them on our site. Um, you notice we cover a variety of topics. Um, so I guarantee you there’s some that are, will be interesting to you. Thank you so much. And that’s the end of our webinar. Have a good night.