AO Advice: Writing Your Personal Statement for College Applications

Webinar Transcription

2023-08-14 – AO Advice: Writing Your Personal Statement for College Applications

Hello everyone. Welcome to CollegeAdvisors webinar, “AO Advice: Writing Your Statement for College Applications.” To orient everyone with the webinar timing, we’re first gonna begin with a presentation, and then you’ll have the opportunity to ask your questions in a live q and a. Before we get started on our presentation, let’s first meet our panelists.

Hi everyone. Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where you are. My name is Aya Waller-Bey and I am tonight’s panelist. So a little bit about me. I studied sociology at Georgetown University in Washington, DC I. And then I also graduated and became an admissions officer and coordinator of multicultural recruitment in that office.

Shortly after my tenure, I moved on to England to start my master’s program at the University of Cambridge in England, which was a really life changing experience. But while there, I also served as an alumni interviewer for Georgetown as well. After that, I returned to the us and worked at various institutions of higher education.

And now I’m currently earning my PhD in sociology at the University of Michigan, where I also study the college admissions essay. So this conversation is very applicable to the work that I do and very relevant. So I’m excited to talk to you all and to discuss the college personal statement tonight.

Thank you, Aya. So before we get jumping into our presentation, we would love to get a sense of what grade you are in. It allows us the opportunity to speak directly to you based on the grade level that you are in. So let us know,

and I see the responses are coming in. I will give it a few more seconds. Okay. All right. So for this evening’s webinar, evening, morning, afternoon, based on where you are we have 50% of our audience are in the 12th grade, followed by that 33%, 11th grade, 12%, 10th grade, and then we have a small percentage of other.

Okay, so I’ll turn over to you, Aya. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. So a nice group of folks in the audience today. So to start, I wanna talk to you a little bit about, you know, what are the essays that you have to write for the college application? I. So I’ll start with the college personal statement, which is probably most well known essay.

It is the statement that once you write that statement, you’ll submit to all the schools on your list. And it really is an opportunity for you to showcase your student voice, your writing skills, reveal depth, and add context and, and qualitative information to the application. Application. So that personal statement again, is you’ll write that one statement and that statement will go to all the schools on your list.

For an example, if you’re applying to the comp, Applying via the common app platform. You’ll write one personal statement based on one of the six or seven options that they have for you. You also have supplemental essays, and those are additional essays that really invite you all to write about a variety of topics using school specific prompts.

So unlike the personal statements, supplemental essays are required only by some colleges and universities, and they’re really the goal for those is to really highlight fit. And those essays also tend to be shorter than a college personal statement, which is 650 words. However, you do have schools say like University of Wisconsin Madison, which they also require a 650 word supplement assay as well.

And then last you have the scholarship essay. And again, this is less common for college applications, but students may write an additional essay for merit-based scholarships or grants. So when I worked with students with CollegeAdvisor, and there has some of them, once they submitted their application, went on into the portal to see what schools had merit-based aid.

And sometimes those Award programs will require them to write an additional essay explaining why they might be aligned with a certain major or have a certain interests. So there also are scholarship essays, and those are ones that you submit with application with a specific school, or those could be external award letters award opportunities as well.

So those are the three major kind of essays that you may have to write now, what is the significance of the college essay? And again, we talked a little bit about this in the previous slides, so they really give you an opportunity to add a unique touch. So the college essay is one of the few opportunities to.

In the application that admissions officers get to hear directly from you. So it’s a really important opportunity for you to really talk about who you are, your personality, your background, and they get to hear your voice, your perspective. Other parts of the application counselor, letters of recommendations, teachers, letters of recommendations, your high school transcript.

Those are often kind of predetermined. You don’t get to write those. Your, your grades are your grades when you apply. So the essay’s a really great opportunity for you to have some personality and tell the admissions officer about who you are. Again, it provides an opportunity to tell your story in your own words.

It adds qualitative information to your application. And it can also serve as a writing sample as well for institutions who have a more open access model of of kind of access or college admissions policies. But they’re also using that personal statement to really see the style and also the level of writing that an applicant may possess.

Now this is a very popular question and I suspect that we will receive a lot of questions about this. So we often get, you know, what factors make for a great essay and how you can stand out. So a great essay has, you know, certain ingredients if you will. They present information and ideas in a focus and thoughtful manner.

Emphasis on focused, right? So you don’t want to tell 39,000 stories in one asset. You only have. 650 words and there are also other parts of application where you are telling your story in other ways. For an example, in your extracurriculars list, tell us a a little bit about who you are, the types of activities you choose to participate in, the types of activities or leadership opportunities you give your time.

Also your high school transcript can give a little information about you about the types of courses or, or interests that you may have. Maybe you took, you know, ap psychology course and really have a desire to study psychology in college. So your transcript can also talk a little bit about you. So you really wanna make sure that personal statement is focused.

You want to use specific concrete examples to convey your points and focus on the near present or the, the present in the near past. And what we mean by that is you really want to make sure that you are telling stories that are Not, you know, that were relevant to who you are in, in the more kind of your more recent iteration of self.

And by that, you know, we’ll have students who’ve kind of focused on something that happened in, you know, kindergarten. And while there are moments in your past that may signal or contribute to the person who you are today, you really wanna talk about like what’s happening now since then, what has happened, what, who are you now as a high school student?

You also wanna talk about. You really wanna be able to talk about qualities that you kind of possess. And you really should illustrate this through antidotes and descriptions, demonstrating actions and behaviors that create a more vivid and mobile impression. This is very important. We often talk about, You know, show don’t tell, which I believe is, is gonna, you’ll see it on a, a subsequent slide where we want students to really describe experiences and really paint the picture for us.

You, you know, there’s a difference between saying I’m a leader and then giving examples of what leadership looks like. You also wanna tell admissions officers kind of about who you are, your personal triumphs or challenges, your leadership opportunities, experiences outside the classroom, and naturally demonstrate a good use of grammar.

So that those are just some of the many ways to really have your essay. Stand out. You also wanna assure that the essays are answering the question, which is incredibly important. I know the personal statement or the common app rather statement portion has a choose your own topic, which a lot of students, I actually responded to that when I applied to college a thousand years ago.

I, I wrote about my own I wrote a, a essay that didn’t respond to one particular essay question. However, I did have a focused topic, right? So even if you’re choosing your own topic, Essays should be responding to a topic or question, even if it’s one that you’ve created. Again, answering the question is critical, especially in the case of supplements, which I mentioned.

While you do have some schools where there are 650 word essays, you have schools where there are a hundred fifty, ten five, so you really wanna get to the point, right, and make sure you’re adding or responding with substantive context. You also wanna effectively de describe how an experience led to some growth or understanding of belongingness in a way that demonstrates, you know, substantial maturity, character, and open-mindedness, all incredibly important, all things that admissions officers would like to see when they’re thinking about how to create a class.

It’s one thing to just talk about an experience that you encounter or something that happened to you, but there’s another way to also talk about. Okay, so then what, how did that affect you? How did it impact you? Who are you? Who are you now? What did you learn? How did you grow? Has it changed your viewpoint, your outlook, your perspective?

So you’re really thinking about it. You really want to think about that. So you also want to ensure that that. The essay reflects your voice, so your student voice, naturally, essays should be polished, right? You are submitting an essay for an application. So you want to be competitive and you want to be able to show, right?

That you’re a strong writer. But it also, you know, I. It should not look like I wrote it as someone who’s getting a PhD in sociology at the University of Michigan, right? You are, you’ll be writing this as a high school student, so you really want to make sure that it, it does not read like someone else wrote it.

Again, they also should be free of major grammatical errors. And so always, always proofread. And then you wanna, again, you wanna use specific concrete examples that really convey your point. So really provide examples of, you know, What happened, the situation and, and what, what occurred afterwards?

What did you learn? How did you grow? Very important. So what are some common mistakes to avoid in college? Essays? Again, very, very popular question. You want to avoid writing essays that focus on other people. So for example, I often see essays about a grandparent, a loved one that really talks about how the Applicant’s relationship with this person inspired or motivated them, but sometimes they tell the, they, they spend the entire essay writing about the story of grand, of the grandparent or the parent without centering their own personal experiences.

And you’ll often hear admissions officers say, we’re not trying to admit the grandparent, or We’re, you know, the grandparent already has their degrees. We’re trying to admit you, so we need to make sure that you are centered, even if you are talking about how a, a loved one or a relative. Inspire you naturally if you know even in questions that they ask for a supplement essay question that asks you about, you know, who inspires you and why.

You still wanna make sure you’re talking about that person, but also centering yourself. ’cause the story should, at the end of the day, go back to you. You wanna avoid writing essays about overly common or controversial topics. So volunteer trips or sports injuries are very, very, Very, very, very, very, very, very common volunteer trips, especially those abroad.

So you’ll have students say in the US who might have a more means or resources to who have who can then travel, say to the continent of Africa or to the continent of South America and talk about how they, you know, tutor a young person in a village or something along those lines. And they’re very common and also really just.

Kind of signals privilege in a lot of ways. So just thinking about that. Sports Inju injuries are very common essay topics. And those are across sports from swimming to tennis to basketball. So that, that’s very common. You wanna avoid writing essays that read like, again, like a college professor wrote it, right?

Because that might flag something for an admissions officer. You also wanna avoid mentioning experiences without describing them, right? So it’s one thing to say There an example of that, but maybe we were talking about the, the time you won the science fair. So if you say, you know, in, in, in 10th grade, I, I won my school science fair.

And then you move on and say additional activities that I participate. You know, okay, you won the science fair. What happened? Describe that. Like what is, why was that important? Why are you telling us what’s the so what, right? So again, you want to make sure you’re describing experiences in the case of a college personal essay, a personal statement.

You also wanna avoid. Naming a university or college. Right? Because that personal’s statement’s gonna go to a lot of different schools. So you don’t wanna name drop one school and it Yeah. You just don’t wanna do that overly using it. The source, I see this a lot where students are really looking for synonyms and more colorful or vivid language.

I. To the point I am looking at words and I’m like, that does not go or fit this context, or that actually does not make sense, or, I have no clue what this word means. So then I’m looking it up and saying, Hmm, if I don’t know, I, I think, you know, there’s a way to look for other words that may, you know, more beautifully explain what you’re trying to articulate or that may be more eloquent.

However, you don’t wanna overdo it on at the source. Also, I see this a lot and I am, as someone who writes, and I could be a little wordy and verbose. Hence the webinar. I, I do encourage students to try to write in smaller sentences and shorter sentences rather, where instead of having a one sentence that is a paragraph length write, try to break those up.

You know? Oftentimes there’s just way too many clauses. Just try to write shorter synthesis. Whenever possible, you wanna avoid passive voice is not always possible. Sometimes passive voice is actually the most appropriate voice, but try to talk about the action, centering the action in you versus something happening to you.

Talk about what you were doing. So you, you really wanna try to speak and write rather in active voice. And cliches this is a popular one. Life is like a box of chocolates. You know, you never know what you’re going to get. I mean, I’ve seen that in so many iterations before. So you’ve just wanna avoid those cliches.

Now, how can you write clearly or creatively rather, about yourself while still being clear and concise? So you, there’s all about balance, right? You really want to limit flowery and abstract language that does not communicate. Substantive meaning and I don’t say eliminate. I say limit, right?

Because I do. I think a personal statement, there’s an element of creative writing that’s happening where you can talk about things. I have students who use metaphors, right? And, and they’re trying to describe these beautiful moments, you know, using metaphors or, you know, per, you know, personification and some of the other techniques that you actually learned in high school, right?

So that, that is possible. But if I’m reading and it’s paragraph three and I’m like, what on earth are they talking about? Then you might need to go back to the drawing board and say, how can I get to the point faster? Also you wanna incorporate elements of culture, including language or expressions that re reflect distinct culture experiences.

I often enjoy essays that might incorporate language that is not, you know, non-English, which is what the admissions officers will be reading your application in, right, in English. Different Touch points about cultural experiences. Maybe there’s a, a family recipe that they had that they’ve shared it with, you know, over generations.

And I enjoy how that’s brought their family together. You know, these really beautiful moments of talking about cultural and identity and background could be really fun. Also It’s not listed here, but I also think humor. There, there are ways where humor can be communicated that isn’t offensive, right?

Of course there’s a delicate balance, but, you know, I think there’s ways to be fun in your essay. So I think those are ways really great ways to be think about how to be creative. Also, you wanna try to define less well-known terms or expressions in your essay. That’s a part of the clarity piece.

Sometimes we write. As if the other person reading us knows us. And I was literally meeting with a student maybe two days ago and there was something that I repeated in there, essay, and I was like, I have no clue. What you mean here? And they were like, oh, wow. Yes. If you, of course you don’t know the tradition at my high school and, and at my boarding school, this happens, but I was not aware of that.

And I doubt an admissions officer in, in a school and at an institution across the country would know either. So, you know, try to define less well-known terms or expressions or traditions in your essay. Now, how can students edit their essays effectively? You know, one of my favorite tips that I’m currently using as I’m working on a manuscript for a journal, for a journal article is really try to use the read aloud feature or Microsoft Word.

Essentially you put your, you know, you type your document and I know a lot of us you use Google Docs now, but, you know, copy and paste that text into the Microsoft Word document and there’s a letter A with like a little microphone. And that’s what I use to, to, to proofread my assays. It, that tool is actually very effective for something like this example.

So, you know, you can, you can spell words correctly, but use them incorrectly, right? So an example is, I enjoy torturing animals. I have volunteered torturing animals at a local shelter since eighth grade, and the experience is solidify my desire to become a veterinarian Now. Torturing is spelled correctly, right?

That is how you spell torturing. But I’m sure this student did not want to write an essay about torturing animals, right? Because of their interest in being a veterinarian. Most likely they meant training, right? So it’s, it’s just again, thinking about how to make sure you are editing and revising.

So you’re catching those types of mistakes. Another great tip, and this means after finishing a draft, you need to take 24 hours, at least 24 hours before reviewing it. You know what that means? The procrastination. The procrastination needs to come to an end. I mean, if you are submitting things a hour, 10 minutes, five minutes, one minute in, in six seconds, 35 seconds before it’s due.

You don’t have time to review it with a fresh pair of eyes or send it to someone, which again, have a teacher, counselor or someone you review you trust. Review the statement right, and, and ask them. You know, what do you learn about me from this essay? And does that align with how you are, you know, trying to communicate to the admissions officers?

So again, you really want to give yourself enough time where you can finish the draft or, and, and by draft, I mean the final draft, right? Because there’s gonna be several rounds of editing, or at least it should be. So by the time you get to that last round, you wanna at least have someone take a look at it.

You wanna give yourself some time to walk away from it with fresh eyes before you press submit. I cannot. Cannot say how many documents that I worked on and I was like, okay, I’ve read this 3000 times. I checked for it, press submit. Get an email confirmation and there’s an extra SS in the title or something, and I’m like, how on earth did I not catch that?

That’s because when you read something and you wrote, you read it, how you read, you’re reading it as if you know you know what it was supposed to say. So your brain is tricking you, right? Your brain is like, oh, that’s an extra, there’s an extra SS there, but you know, it’s not supposed to be there. So that’s why it’s really important for, you know, for you to have some other folks read it.

Now again, another very, very important and popular question. What are essays that have stood out to you? So I’ve read thousands and thousands essays. I’ve worked, again, I’ve been working for CollegeAdvisor for almost three years now. So I’ve gotten to work with a lot of amazing young people and read a lot of great essays, supplement essays, scholarship essays, and personal statements.

So many essays have stood out to me actually in the more recent years. You know, essays that reflect student ambition and growth. Essays that highlight student tenacity and essays that paint colorful photos of the human experience. Now, that last one I, I really appreciate it. I worked with a student who talked about working with her mom in a nail shop.

And just kind of talked about that experience of working like the telephones or greeting the guest and like what the significance of working in a nail shop was for her mom and for her culture. That was really beautiful. Right. And there’s sometimes he’s taken for granted experiences that we It’s just the day to day, but then when someone writes about them and what they learned, it, it, it’s really beautiful.

And another student wrote about working at Jimmy John’s. As like a cashier for the drive-through. And again, he talked about the different people he encountered and how he had his regulars and what he learned about them and about himself more importantly. And, and that was just a beautiful, beautiful essay.

So again, you know, I just think about those moments and, and I know some students spend so much time trying to be different and trying to stand out and freaking out about. Is this too, is this too common? Is this unique enough? Everybody has a job. Everybody does this and, but not everyone is you. So I always want students to remember.

I want you to remember that, you know, you can only tell your story, right? Because you are, or you, you’ve walked in your you walked in your shoes, right? No one else has. So I really want. Students to remember that, that, you know, instead of focusing on how to be unique and so different, just tell your story in your own words and on your own terms.

So those are some those are the essays that have stood out to me. So as we kind of near You know, at least this portion, again, there’ll be a q and a portion where I’ll answer your questions. Here are just a few final tips. You know, I always again tell students, show don’t tell. So again, instead of saying, I learned a lot volunteering at the Cleveland Animal Shelter, I.

Right. Okay. Try while feeding the sick puppies with the other shelter volunteers and learn the importance of teamwork and compassion. Right. So you’re talking more about what you were doing, you’re talking about, you say specifically what you learned. Right. And then in additionally, this student can then kind of talk about these particular moments where teamwork and compassion were kind of values or qualities that they had to have, they, that they had to exhibit or that they learned on the job.

You wanna share lessons learned. So you wanna detail how the experience you write about informs your future and the type of student you’ll be in college. So you don’t have to say explicitly in college, you know, since I was a class president, I’m gonna be a class president in college. No, that’s not what I mean.

What I mean by that is it’s not enough, as I said earlier, just to tell a story just because. What is the so what, right? So say you volunteered at this animal shelter. Okay. Why are you telling us this story? Oh, you want us to, you want us to know us being admissions officers, that you are compassionate and that you’re committed to service and you love animals.

And why is that important? You know, that could be aligned with future goals and aspirations. That can just be, you know, telling of your character who you are, and also maybe in your, you know, maybe all of your. Courses show that you have a really strong interest in stem or math. However, this is a, a moment of your life where you feel like your, your extracurricular activities and your background may not align with, you know, this particular part of your identity, and you want to make sure that the admissions office can see your full story.

Proofread again. I cannot stress that enough, which again, which means you should not be waiting until the last minute, okay? And again, you want to tell your story and not someone else’s. So you really, really need to make sure that even if you are writing about someone you love, that is your story and not someone else’s.

Okay, thank you Aya. We are now going to move into our questions and answers. So how this portion is gonna work. I will read your question out loud that you have written in the q and a tab, and then Aya will go ahead and answer it. If your q and a tab is not working please exit out of this webinar and try joining.

On the custom webinar link that was sent to you through email. And a reminder, please, in order for your questions to get answered, we just kindly ask that you write them in the q and a and not through the private message. We wanna make sure that we get to ’em. Okay? So let’s go ahead and join. Let’s go ahead and jump into our first question.

When you are writing supplements, does everyone, does every one of your answers have to connect to your theme? Is it okay to go off your theme? So the theme, I’m not a hundred percent sure what you mean by the theme. When you’re writing supplements, the most important thing is to answer the question. So for an example, if a supplement essay question is, tell me about your academic interests and what you want to study while at C College, you know, what has motivated you to pursue this area of, you know, academic inquiry?

So you’re res and, and you have, that’s 250 words to respond to that. You should then dedicate time talking about your academic interest, your why, like what motivated you. Maybe you’re interested in studying sociology. Maybe you took a sociology course in high school, or maybe you took a history course and you learned about sociology and that has inspired you.

And then you looked at the faculty in the sociology department at the school and they were teaching really cool, interesting classes. And you wanna take those classes so you communicate. Why you want to study this particular area. You talk about what motivates that, and you’ll talk about what the university has that corresponds with that.

So again, the more of the story is you need to answer the question. Yeah, the word theme there, I’m, I’m not sure if you’re referring to the actual question or the topic, but in supplements it’s really important that you stay on topic. Okay. Next question. Is it necessary to keep my essay content closer to academic discipline of my interests?

It depends on what the question is. So if the question asks, tell us what you wanna study in college and why that’s, that’s primarily, that’s an academic essay. They’re asking you to talk about academic interest. If the question asks, if you were a tooth, what would you say? I mean maybe you wanna be a dentist, but if you’re not, I mean, you respond to the, the question the best way.

You know how so, so, no, in short, again, you wanna, you wanna just answer the question if it’s asking about academic interests? Yeah. A popular question that I don’t think I addressed explicitly in here that I see often is, should my personal statement talk about my academic interests? And it does not your personal statement, the one you’re gonna submit to all your schools.

Does not have to talk about your academic interests. It does not talk. It does not have to talk about what you wanna be when you grow up. It does not have to talk about what you wanna study in college. It doesn’t have to talk about your favorite subject at all. So I want to say that, so just in case we have some questions out there asking that your personal statement does not have to be about your academic interest.

Good point to cover. Next question is, do you have any recommendations on essays for applying to Ivy Leagues recommendation? So, I mean, there, there really isn’t a difference. Because if the Ivy Leagues, which I believe all of them are on the common app, you’re gonna be writing one essay to all the schools and Ivy League admissions practices and essay.

Questions are very similar to their, to peers that are not Ivy League institutions. So I would worry less about the Ivy League and, and worry less about, you know, the actual kind of school on the other side and worry about making sure that you are telling a story that’s authentic to your lived experiences and that response to the question that you choose.

So there isn’t a big distinguish distinguishing factor unless there’s a supplement assay. Say for example, Yale has a supplemental assay, and I’m not, I’m not saying that they do. If they have a why Yale, why do you want to attend Yale University? Then you need to make sure that you can, you know, communicate and articulate very eloquently why Yale as opposed to another institution in Connecticut.

Right? So again, you really just want to make sure you’re answering the question. And again, in the case of the supplement essays where, you know, there might be specific questions that Harvard asks students, right? Then you want to make sure you’re doing your research and due diligence to answer those questions.

But in the case of the personal statement, again, you wanna be authentic. You wanna be honest, you want to, you know and tell the admissions office about who you are what matters to you, what your values are. You know what quirks you may have. You really wanna tell your story in the personal statement and worry less about what you think they want to read.

Okay. How do you title your personal essay? What are some good examples of titles? Your personal essay does not need a title, so I wouldn’t even worry about it. Don’t, you don’t need a title. Mm-hmm. How do you avoid writing in a passive voice? If you are talking about a past experience that changed you, such as a medical condition?

Yeah, so it, so past the voice doesn’t mean you are talking about in the, that you cannot refer to the past. It just means that the action like where the verb is and the sentence in is in a different place. For an example the, if you said that, you know, there’s, so you could say I was a cheerleading captain in sophomore and junior year.

I was, you know, and then you, you can say and, and that’s fine. That’s technically active voice, right? But it, it is if I, I’m trying to find an example that I often see like have had or you know, just, it’s just like where the, where the action is in a sentence. So you can say I would have gone to the mall and versus like, I went to the mall or, you know I walked to the mall, right?

So you just wanna make sure that you are not just writing in, in a sense of that you are, you’re justing yourself in the action. It’s just so passive voice is really just making sure that you’re writing an act. To avoid passive voice, just write an active voice. Think about where the verb is in the sentence, right?

So just again, thinking about you know, simple. I trained, I ran. So like making sure the verb is earlier in the sentence is often a great way to address passive voice, but yet it, it doesn’t mean that you cannot reflect on. Experiences that happened in the past. I mean, when you’re writing the essay, unless there’s some kind of time traveling thing happening, you’re often reflecting on experiences that happened to you already.

So so you’re often gonna be reflecting on what, what happened, what occurred. It’s just making sure that, that you are not you’re taking out extra wordiness by making sure you’re centering you know, the action and the action that’s happening to you. So, I would encourage you, if you need just a, a quick and dirty, you can literally just Google pass a voice, active voice, how to, you know, make sure my sentence is an active my, my, my essay is written in active voice, but it does not mean you cannot write about past experiences.

In fact, most people are writing about, if not all, are writing about past experiences. Great. Do you have any tips for struggling to think about things to write about?

Yes, great question. Oh, great question. So there’s a lot of different tools to, to do that. I mean, first of all, I go to the, you know, comment. You can Google comment, app application questions or essay questions, and then just see what types of questions that are being asked. So that’s always a great way, a great place to start, right?

And then secondly, I mean, I’ve. I often, you know, encourage students to think about, such as, you know, describe your day. You know, what is your morning routine when you wake up? You know, what is your favorite subject and why? So even these just like regular questions that you might do at some like annoying camp icebreaker.

Often, those types of questions are really great to generate ideas. Also, I mean, there are so many websites now that have just lists of like, questions to think about as you’re writing your common app essay. So I will literally just look online and say like, Hmm, you can literally, you can type in, you know prompts to help me generate ideas for my common app essay.

So those are opportunities, you know, I mean, those resources are already available. But again, I think about. You know, your favorite class and why your favorite teacher, and why your favorite subject and why? Just these common experiences, because the whys and the things that motivate you are often, you know, can contribute to the, the good stuff, if you will, as you respond to a, an essay question, you know?

And thinking about, you know, if, if a question asks if, if, if there’s a prompt and it asks about, you know, tell us what. What motivates you and what inspires you? I mean, just do some. Do some soul kind of reflection, right? And we often forget that we have people in our lives who sometimes know us better than we know ourselves.

So it’s okay to phone in a friend. You can ask your parents, you can ask your siblings, you can ask your grandparents like, Hey, how would you describe me? What type of student do you think I am? How would you des what do you think my favorite, you know, food is or any, like, what, what is a habit that I have that annoys you?

You know, just ask the people in your community, like in your community, be any family, your friends, even teachers that you know, love and respect, because they also can help you as you generate ideas. And then, Speaking of teachers, I know in some cases I know this is not for everyone, that in high schools, particularly in junior year, you might have a class where you actually practice writing a college personal statement.

So also talking to educators at your school teachers, English teachers in particular, and ask them to help you think through some ideas, because oftentimes they have edited review supported students in the college application process. Okay. Our next question reads when typing an essay, how descriptive in detail do you recommend being the how is is is hard to, to answer without seeing it.

I’ll say this. I often, if you find that the, if the like description is just, it’s just. Going and going and going, and then I’m, you know, if someone reads it and say, okay, what, what is happening here? Where’s the substance? I, I’ve been working with students who have been, you know, writing such beautiful, colorful essays, but they’re lacking a little bit of the substance because they’re, they’re painting the picture and they’re not inserting themselves.

They’re not, again, you want to make sure your personal statement is about you, so you don’t have to say, you know, Say if you, say you were, you were lying in bed one morning and then your mom burst into your room and told you you needed to get ready because you had to go to Chilean camp. You know, you don’t have to say, while I was, you know, I was lying in bed with my eyes closed and there was a knock on the door and the white door opened and then my mom stood there with her brown curly hair and it, you know, rolled off her shoulders.

And she was wearing her glasses. And then I said hello to her. And then before she shut the door, I heard my catme out. You do not have to go into that level of detail because you are taking up really important real estate, which are the words, right? You only have 650 words in a personal statement. So all of that detail though, beautiful, and it could be great for a book or a novel or something along those lines, or a creative writing poem or essay.

I mean, you really want to kind of get to the point, so why is it significant that your mom is waking you up? Why is it significant that you don’t wanna get out of bed? Why? You know, what is the point of that? So, I always encourage you to have someone write, I mean, read the essay and then, you know, if they take a look at it like, Hmm, that’s a, you don’t need that level of detail.

Again, I’ve been writing, working with a lot of students lately and I feel like this is a, I’m seeing it more where students are going so deep with details and descriptions that I’ll, I’m almost losing what the story’s about, you know, because I’m, I’m, I’m worried about the, the color of the wallpaper and not like what you’ve learned from cheerleading camp.

So I hope that answered your question. Yes, yes. This question reads how to write a personal statement without sounding conceited. Huh? I mean, that’s a, that’s a, a interesting question. Well, I guess it. Sometimes these questions are difficult to answer if I can’t see the essay or the topic in front of me.

Well, I guess one way to do it to not seem conceited is to not say, you know, I. I’m the, you know, the smartest, the best that ever existed. I mean, I think there’s ways to frame excellence that does not appear to be, you know, ragga braggadocios, right? I mean, at the end of day, you are who you are. So, I mean, if you are, which a lot of students are always students.

You’re class president and have all these awards, which frankly I was one of those students, y’all believe me. Believe me. I was like, What a very high achieving student my entire educational career. So it’s like, you can sound like you’re bragging, but the facts are facts. So you know the personal statement, you are telling a story.

So if you seceded, if, I mean, unless your story is about just everything you’ve ever accomplished, won and seceded, which the personal statement should not be, it should not be a, a resume of achievement. That is, that is not the point of the personal statement. Unless it’s, it’s just you listing off all your awards and calculations.

I couldn’t really see I would have to read it to know like, hmm, I think you might be, you know, playing, there’s a fine line here of being confident. But I encourage students to, to, to be confident. I think sometimes we, we discourage people from being honest about how they feel about themselves and as a very confident person.

Personally, I think people being confident and, and in who they are and what they’ve done is incredibly important. Of course, you don’t wanna be arrogant, you know, and, and hubris and, and those things, but I. Yeah, unless you’re just rattling off all your accomplishments, it would just be hard for me to see.

Yeah, that being an issue, again, the personal statement is a narrative, right? So you are writing in a particular type of style of prose. It is a narrative format. So you should be telling a story, and it can be a story by yourself. It’s a personal statement. So again, it’s hard to say unless I have that particular, you know, draft in front of me.

But yeah, that, that’s, that’s how I respond to that, to that question. All right. Our next question reads about flowery language. Will removing that also make me seem less intelligent? No. No. Flowery language does not equate intelligence. I mean, I’m an academic. We write a lot. A lot of words, a lot of, a lot of words that sometimes I’m just like, this is necessary.

And you don’t necessarily need, you know, if that is not even your style. Some people don’t even write that way. Generally, they, you know, they think they have to perform a certain type of writing style. So no flowery language does not equate intelligence. So I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t worry about that. Okay.

And then do we need to fine tune our personal statement depending on what college we’re applying to and change it? If so, what do we change? No. So your personal statement goes to all the schools that you are applying to if they’re on, on the same kind of say common app. I know certain institutions at least, In the past, my Alma monitor, Georgetown is, has its own application, but I believe it’s also 650 words.

And you can literally use that same essay that you submitted on the common app. It is the supplemental essays, the supplement essays that are school specific that ask different questions, say, you know, why Yale, or why Georgetown, or why University of Michigan? Then you need to, of course, respond to that question and you can’t say, I wanna go to Georgetown.

You can’t say that in your Michigan essay. They’re in different states there. One is private, one is public, one, one is a Big 10, one is in a Big East. You know, they’re just very different institutions, right? One is Jesuit, one is not. So yeah, the personal statement, no, you do not have to edit or fine tune for the schools you that get that one draft done.

And you can use it for, you know, all the schools. You can also repurpose it for scholarship essays and questions if it, if it’s appropriate, right? It’s the supplements that you really have to kind of go in and, and make sure you’re answering the question and make sure you’re showing that you’ve done your research and homework for the schools that you’re applying to.

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Can we approach the essay writing with a enthusiastic tone, like being sarcastic or just keep it simple? You can be enthusiastic in, or, I mean, You can be sarcastic too. I mean, I think sometimes things don’t translate how we think they translate. So in that case, you will want to get some other eyes on it to make sure that the, the tone that you are taking, especially if it’s a sarcastic one, is you know, translating off the paper and off the page.

So maybe someone who doesn’t know you as well could take a look at it. But for sure, you know, we see all different types of styles of writing that that’s fine. Is there any tips for someone with shy introvert personality to brag and express in depth context for personal statement and supplementals?

Well, I mean, shy people apply to college every day. They have been for as long as the application process existed. So, I mean, again, that is, if that’s your personality, that that’s your personality. I often do. Think too, sometimes how we self present in public forums or verbally is not often how we present non-verbally.

So, you know, I know some people who might be shy and introverted in large settings, but you know, when it comes to writing they, they, again, they are amazing storytellers and creatives. So my advice would really just be to focus like, Be yourself Again, it’s about authenticity at the end of the day and telling your story.

And, and I, I mean, students write about being shy and introverted in experiences quite often, frankly. And then about when it comes to the supplements, I mean, you are asked, supplements are really demonstrating your ability to answer questions, to, to show, to show familiarity with the school and their processes, to show that you’ve done your research to show that you’re a good fit.

So you really just want to make sure for your supplements in particular, that you are demonstrating those things, which regardless of your personality type, you know, you know, doing your research and showing how you’re a good fit, that should be irrespective of whether you’re shy or extroverted or introverted, right?

So the, the missions process doesn’t have to be loud one, right? It, it doesn’t have to be this, this large, big process. It can, it can be this. Quiet process if that’s what you want. It could be this, you know kind of a, it could be a slow burn if that’s what you want, right? If you get started in advance, you can take your time, have students who are, you know, finishing drafts right now to apply, you know, in November or December, or in some cases October.

So again, the process is really what you make it and make it align with who you are and your own personal process. And your own personal attitude. So, again, I, I just, I don’t want you to think that because. I think the discourse about college admissions is just like all over the place and there’s like a media frenzy all the time and people are making their toss and YouTube channels and Instagram reels and et cetera about it, but make the process your own, you know, make it, make it your own.

Yep. Next question is how do you recommend starting your personal essay? Yeah, I mean, there’s so many different styles. People use quotes, people use poems. People, as I mentioned, they’ll start with a very specific story. So it’s like the pyramid where they talk about something very specific at the beginning, you know?

You know saying, you know, I was ca. Counting? No. My mom, you know, knocked on the door and I, and I woke up and, you know, told me I was going to summer camp. So they’ll talk about this very specific thing. And then there’s the inverted pyramid style where people talk about a large meta kind of thing, and then they become more narrow, you know, where they say, you know, I couldn’t imagine that, you know, You know, 5,000 miles later, you know that I’ll be sitting in front of, you know, the fountain, right?

So they’ll start and you’ll be like, what fountain? What they talking about? And then they go in and start talking about the miles, the planes or whatever they meant, and the fountain. And, and by the end you’re like, okay, so there’s the inverted pyramid as well. So there’s just different styles, you know. Again, what the question is, some students even might start.

Like in the traditional essay format where you have the intro paragraph, maybe the, the three kind of supplement, you know, paragraphs, and then the main conclusion paragraphs. So I’ve seen students kind of use that to outline. So if the question is again, who motivated you, they’ll talk, you know, you know, the, they’ll just brainstorm, like who motivated them.

And then the first paragraph is like, why? And the second paragraph is like, you know, the second reason and the third part is the third reason, or, You know, so there’s ways to like structure it, but I, I, I, again quotes poems tidbits from like, you know, maybe your mom always said one thing to you, you know, before you went to school.

So there, I mean, there’s so many ways to, to, to start, you know I wouldn’t recommend, at least for the personal statement, and this is my own personal experience, saying like, hi, my name is John and I wanna go to college unless, Unless there’s something like, funny about your name being John. You know, maybe it was like you grew up in a town and like everybody’s name is John.

And that can be fun too. I actually really, like, I’m sure there’s someone that’s like a, a story of theirs. Like I was named, I was a a hundred John in my town. But anyway you know, Besides, like, my name is so and so, and I’m applying to college, which is like, okay, clearly we’re, we’re reading this. There’s, just, don’t limit yourself, just try it out.

Just kind of answer the question, like, whatever the prompt is, kind of get those thoughts on, on the, on the page. And, and maybe you wanna write the essay and then write the intro. Some people start backwards too, where they, they wait to write the intro until they know what the story’s gonna be about.

So, and that, that’s a, a common practice as well. Okay. This question reads, where, where do cover letters come in? Luckily they don’t come in because I personally despise them. But you didn’t have to write a cover letter for undergraduate college admissions process? From my experience, not for like the, the standard personal statement supplement essays.

Now if a business, undergraduate business school asks you to create a portfolio and asks you to write a cover letter, that’s different. But I rarely am not in my long standing. And maybe Lonnie, I don’t know if you’ve encountered, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered a cover letter, thankfully Whoof. Me neither.

Yeah, so me neither. So no cover letter. Is required or even asked of. So next question, since you mentioned the importance of creativity, distinction, individuality, is it imperative that your statement takes in a first person narrative? Yeah. Imperative is, is interesting. It’s, it’s most often they’re right.

They’re written in first person. I mean, it’s about you. And, and it can be, it’s not, again, it’s not academic essay where it’s like, don’t use first person. I, you know, me, we, you know, it, it’s about you. So I would encourage you to write it in first person. There are times where there’s dialogue and people are having small moments of dialogue that I see, but this is your story and should be written in your words.

So I, I, I generally see I mean, I feel like the majority of essays I’ve read were written in first person. All right. Can you use a question as an introduction to your essay? Sure. Yes. Why not? Someone asked, how can we use foreign language in an English essay? Oh yeah. So I actually just had this recent conversation with one of the students I’m working with now, but, okay, so fun fact about me.

I studied German in high school and in college at Georgetown. So ish kind ambition, George Shreen. So I could speak a little German. That’s about as far as you’ll hear me say. But even if I, so say, if I start the essay with like ish kind of ambition, George Re. Maybe that was the first line in the essay. So of course the admissions officer, some of them, some, some of them somewhere might speak German.

But I’m, I’m gonna assume the majority of them do not. Right. So, you know, I might start that, that sentence. I mean, start the essay off with that sentence in German. Right. Which translates to, I can speak a little German. So the next line could be me saying that you know, it could be saying, you know, everybody’s.

In English, everybody stared at me and didn’t know what I was saying and I was just practicing, you know, my German, where, you know, and, and so again, what I’m doing is it’s, it’s like another way to kind of just kind of set up the story, right? It’s like, who’s this person? Why do they speak in German? Why are they starting that I say German.

So that’s what I mean. So people will say, you know, I’ve seen people say I had a student who I worked with who was Vietnamese and she talked about this poem that her papa Used to say to her, and, and that’s how she concluded with the poem, right? She had the translation. But, you know, but so there’s all types of ways that students kind of incorporate different languages in their essays.

The essay should be written in English. Right. And you should, you should tell us what it says if it’s not. But that, that was just an example. Lovely, lovely. How do we write a Y s S A, why do colleges want you to write a Y S S A? Oh, they want you to. So the why, again, those are supplement essays traditionally where they’re asking why, why are you applying to the school?

They, they want to, first of all, there, there’s some weeding out that is happening. They also wanna show that you’re doing your research. They also want to show that there’s a good fit. There’s an alignment between you and the school. I mean, if you write, you, I wanna study journalism and you apply to a school that does not have a journalism program, school major.

What, it’s not a good fit, right? So they also wanna, it also forces you to do some type of research, right? So it takes a little extra step for you to do a little bit of research to see like what programs they’re offered, what programs, activities Cultural tradition, faculty, student life study abroad, internship programs.

It just forces you to do more research so you can also make a more informed decision about whether or not a school is actually a good fit. So it’s, it’s for you as much as it’s for them to be able to determine whether or not you’ve done your homework and whether or not you’re a good fit. So they’re just trying to, again, suss out like who’s done their research, who, who’s a good fit, you know, who If you’ve kind of expressed interest in a particular professor or department, which you don’t have to do like, you know, but if you said, if you’re interested in research, bio research, and there is a professor who’s doing bio research with their undergraduate students and you name them, it’s like, okay, this student’s really gone an extra limb to kind of identify them.

Again, that’s not something that everyone has to do or everyone does, but that was just an example. So again, it is for you to like, Allow you to do some research to make sure there’s a good fit, and it’s also for the school to make sure there’s an alignment and that you’re just not submitting all the same essays to all the schools as well.

So they’re also just trying to like, give you a little bit of extra work to make sure that you’re applying because you truly wanna attend. I. All right. Would you focus a personal statement on a, on one experience or two to three connected? By the theme. In other words, how particular I need to be in the essay to devote it to personal experience only, or can I cover two to three experiences that, so that’s a interesting question.

I, I’m, I believe I know what they’re asking, so I, I often see it done in, in different ways. So there is a, There is the essay that says, you know, my mom woke me up to take me to cheerleading camp. I did not wanna go to cheerleading camp. But the essay is about like, they went to cheer camp, what they learned about themselves and while they, you know, and why it was actually a good idea.

They went to cheerleading camp. So that’s the essay that’s focusing on one thing, right? Then there’s the other essay that focuses on multiple interrelated things. For an example there could be an essay about You know, say you studied abroad in your high school three times, like your, there was some, you know, you were able to do some like exchange programs or maybe you were able to host somebody in your house and they hosted you in their house in Thailand or something, and maybe you were able to do it multiple times.

So you were talking about three different experiences. One in Thailand, one in, you know, Singapore and one in Germany. Right. Different experiences, but they’re all related to like what you learned, like thematically. Doing, participate in these exchange programs. So, so yes, to answer your question, I’ve seen it done well in both ways.

So it, it, you just have to make sure that there’s the, the theme, the web is interconnected and that it’s not going in too many different directions. So you can talk about multiple, inter, you know, related things. Or you could just focus on like one moment. Experience. But this is, it is not opportunity for you to throw in everything you’ve ever experienced, ever done in one essay.

There’s just not enough time, there’s not enough space, and it’s just very distracting to the reader.

Okay. This is gonna be our final question. Can you switch point of view in your essay? For example, you write about a dialogue that happened, but in the middle you make an outside note directed at the mission person reading the essay. You can, but sometimes it gets a little chaotic, frankly, where there’s a lot of dialogue and shifting.

It just needs to be clear who’s speaking and why. You know, sometimes students will, you know, they’ll say, you know, then there was, there was a moment that I thought to myself, and then there’ll be that moment, you know? So there’s a moment I thought to myself, you know, why did I really need to go to cheerleading camp?

And then that, you know, so, and then they go back to, You know what? What’s happening in real time. So that happens for sure. You just need to make sure it’s clear who’s speaking and why. ’cause I do find the overuse of like dialogue both internally and externally. It could get a little distracting and confusing if it’s not clear.

So that’s, that’s my answer. I mean, a lot of the responses today is, it depends because I haven’t seen the essay, I don’t have the draft. But hopefully that gave you some insight about how to at least think through it as you’re, as you’re drafting your essays. Absolutely. And if you are interested in having someone from our team review your s essay to help you with getting started, support you with really bringing out those themes and, and developing a structure please go ahead and scan that QR code and you can meet one of our representatives.

So with that, that is gonna conclude our webinar for tonight. Thank you IA for this well presented information that you shared with everyone and also just answering those questions and providing as much insight as you possibly can. I found to be a value add. I’m pretty sure that our audience did too.

Thank you. And. Yes. And then the last announcement I wanna make is that we do have more webinars that are coming up for this month. So we hope to see you in a future webinar. And with that, everyone, have a great night, morning, afternoon. Thank you.