Making Your Essays Shine

Webinar Transcription

2024-08-21 – Making Your Essays Shine

Lonnie: Hello, everyone. Welcome to CollegeAdvisors webinar, “Admission Officer Advice, Making Your Essays Shine.” To orient everyone with the webinar timing, we are first going to begin with a presentation, and then we’ll have the opportunity to answer your questions in the live Q& A. If you’re interested in downloading our handouts, feel free to by visiting the handouts tab and clicking on download.

Also, while our presenter is presenting, if you are ready to ask your questions, we welcome them by going to our Q& A tab and placing your questions there. And then we will get to it when we go to the live Q& A. Um, if you’re having any technical difficulties at any time, feel free to message me. My name is Lonnie.

I’m going to be your moderator for this webinar and I will gladly support you. So with that, we are now going to go ahead and meet our guests. Our presenter.

Jennifer: Hi, everyone. I’m Jennifer Yu. Um, thank you so much for joining today. I get really excited to talk about essays and writing. That’s what my background is in.

Um, so I’m really amped that you all can join with me this evening. And I know it’s probably something that’s top of mind for a lot of you as we roll into the fall and essay crunch time kind of starts. So hopefully this will be helpful for everyone. Um, just to share a little bit about myself. Um, I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016.

Um, I studied English. That was kind of my bread and butter. Um, and then now I teach at the University of Idaho. I teach freshman year English. I also write young adult novels. So, um, I work with a lot of high school students in my own writing. Um, and yeah, I, I’ve had three novels published, which has been really wonderful.

Um, but always try to bring that experience back to my students, um, whether that’s at the university or students that I work with, um, through CollegeAdvisor.

Lonnie: That’s really cool, Jennifer. Thank you so much for sharing about your background. Um, so with that, we’re gonna, before we get into our presentation, we actually want to get a sense of what grade level you are in.

So please let us know. And as we are waiting for the responses to come in, I’m curious, Jennifer, what got you into writing novels? You said you

Jennifer: Yeah, yeah, this is so, this is so off topic. I did not do this to talk about my novels, but that’s great. Um, I had a book come out just earlier this summer. Um, but my first book I wrote, like when I was in college, um, just for one of my classes.

Um, and you know, I was. I was a young adult at the time. I was a teen and so I was writing about the experiences of these these teenagers and trying to capture their emotional realities. And people always laugh when I say this, but I do think that’s why I love working with like students and working with them on their essays.

Oh, I just got a message, Bonnie, that said someone’s not hearing any sound.

Lonnie: Oh, okay. Yes. Um, I’ll, um, so I’ll put them, I’ll send a message in the actual public chat All

Jennifer: right, so sorry. Yeah, people think this is this is funny when I do this, but I actually do think it’s why I love working with students. Um, this age is, uh, just it takes me back to when I was going through my college admissions or being in college and that really fun and vulnerable time.

Lonnie: That’s awesome. Great. Well, thank you for sharing something personal, which I’m sure is probably resonating with some of our audiences. members today. So with that, let me go ahead and read the responses to the poll. So we have 8 percent of our audience are in the 10th grade, 25 percent are in the 11th grade, 64 percent are in the 12th grade, not surprised by that, and 4 percent are other.

So with that, I’m going to close the poll and turn it over to you, Jennifer, to share with us around the type of essays that students have to write for their college application.

Jennifer: Awesome. Yeah. So a lot of you seniors, you’ll know this already, but for some of you, it might be a good recap. And for juniors, this might be a helpful sort of overview just to start with.

Um, so we talk about the essay and often when we talk about the essay, we’re talking about the common application essay, right? And that’s an essay that gets submitted to our all of the colleges that you’re applying to that are using the common application. This is the essay that people talk about most frequently and the one I’m going to focus on this, this presentation on.

So that one, just some basic information, maximum of 650 words, which feels like a lot until you realize you actually have a lot to say, and it doesn’t feel like a lot anymore. Um, there are prompts that you can respond to, but the last prompt is always Write about a topic of your choice, right? So really there isn’t a prompt.

There are some prompts you can use as thought starters, but if they don’t resonate with you, you can write on a topic of your choice. And most of the students that I work with do choose to write about a topic of their own choice. In addition to that, um, and I’m just saying this to sort of give a layout of the landscape and to specify the second category of essays, the supplemental essays, is not as much what this presentation is focused on.

This presentation is really focused on that big essay. But in addition to those, right, like, in addition to that, If you are a senior, um, you’ll want to make sure you’re keeping up with your supplementary essays as well. And those are really variable by school. They can range from 50 to a thousand words depending on the school and what kind of things they’re asking.

A lot of the tips that I’ll share today will apply just like this. The tips about writing will apply to the supplemental essays, too, like tips about how to choose a topic and things like that, but they are more variable. They do often follow similar themes, like generally schools will ask, Why do you want to apply here?

Why are you planning on studying this right about a time you overcame adversity? Um, so overview of what I just said, sort of two categories of essay, right? There’s the main Common App essay, which is what this webinar is going to focus on, um, and probably what you’ll spend at least the next month or two if you’re a senior focused on.

And then don’t forget also about the supplementary essays for each school. Okay. So with that said, let’s launch in. Okay. I really love working with students on essays and a lot of students say, And I love that because I think a lot of people who are, you know, really worried about it and find it to be this huge source of stress because they don’t know what to write about.

Or, you know, they have this paralysis about needing to generate a whole essay and essay is kind of a scary word. The common app I say is my favorite thing to work on because it’s kind of the one part of the application where you as a student, you are fully in control of your own narrative, right? Just think about for that for a second, because you’re assembling all these pieces of the application and it’s like you’re getting your letters of recommendation from other people.

You’re. Posting your you’re sharing your transcripts with the grades like professor that teachers have given to you. And a lot of it is coming from these other sources, right? Like other teachers, the SAT board. Um, and with the essay, it’s like your voice is front and center, right? And so that’s why I find it really exciting.

And I wanted to encourage you all to also kind of think of it as an exciting opportunity to control your own narrative. Your own narrative as like a person and as an applicant. Okay, so when I say that it’s an opportunity, what do I mean by that? So the first thing I’ll say is I think it’s an opportunity to emphasize things about your personality or about your experience that aren’t captured in the more quantitative sections of your application, right?

So you’re submitting things like transcripts and test scores and numbers, right? Like number of AP classes taken or Yeah, what you got on this, this test or this class. Um, but we are all people, right? We are not numbers. And in the essay, I really encourage people to think about what are things about me that aren’t captured in all of these numbers, right?

So just some traits that I love to see in my students um, essays come out is the number. Empathy, right? Like, that’s not something that gets scored from like a zero to a hundred. But in your essay, you can really show that you’re a person who connects with other people and who will add, who will be additive to like the colleges and the college campuses you’re applying to.

Intellectual curiosity, right? An essay is going to make that point. If you can tell a good story about something you were curious about or something you researched on your own, an essay is going to make that point so much more compellingly than like the course load, right? Which is just a list of classes.

Um, originality, um, no essay is the same as any other essay and A lot of students see it as an opportunity to write something that they feel like is really unique for themselves. Um, and to communicate something where they’re like, yeah, I don’t think anyone else applying to the school is, is going to write this essay.

Gratitude is like another trait that, um, I often see in essays that I appreciate, which is like, you know, it doesn’t have to be the whole subject of the essay, but nodding to, you know, Things or people that have shaped you into the person that you are today, and taking the time to acknowledge those things, I think often comes across really well in an essay.

So all is to say, not, all this is not to say you need to write about those things in your essay, but just to encourage you guys to start thinking about, oh, what are the things about myself that I really like about myself or that my friends really like about me or that my teachers tell me, um, is awesome to have in class, but may not be coming through in my essay.

resume, transcript, list of extracurriculars, um, test scores, and start thinking about those like fluffier, softer traits. Um, okay, another thing I really encourage my students to do is to write in their own voice, um, because you don’t want your essay, like I said, To sound like, um, other people’s essays. Um, and so really, when you’re writing, write organically.

Like, an exercise I often have my students do, if they’re struggling with an essay, is to start their essay in their Notes app, because it kind of takes the pressure off to like, have it sound like an English class essay, and it can sound more like yourself. Or to dictate, even, into their phone, like voice recordings, can be a good way Way to start just like brainstorming and getting a sense of like, oh, how do I make sure my personality is represented in this?

You know, statement that I’m writing. And then, um, my last thing that you can do in this essay that I really encourage you guys to do is to use like storytelling, um, techniques to connect with your readers. So these are things that you’ve probably talked about in your English class. And some of you were like, I’m never going to use this again, but here’s an opportunity to use those things, right?

Like, This essay is a chance to, like, use a metaphor to really bring your reader into the story that you’re telling, to use figurative language, to use analogies, to tell a story, you know, rather than just writing, like, a five paragraph essay, like, here are three times that I showed, you know, this trait, right?

So getting almost more creative with the language and the structure that you use for your essay. Okay, so that’s kind of why I see the essay as a great opportunity, um, for my students. Okay, some common mistakes, um, that I see my students making, having said all that, um, the first is writing an essay that’s overly generic, right?

Um, sort of you want your essay to be something that only you could have written, um, and so that means staying away, I think, from general, um, topics that you feel like everyone is going to write about, um, or everyone may have an experience with. I think kind of related to that is the second one of like writing an essay that only functions to tell, um, the, the readers how awesome you are.

Of course you do want to tell the readers how awesome you are, but it should also read as like a story and it should be insightful beyond, you know, I accomplished. a list of these amazing things between my freshman and junior years. Um, so making sure there’s more substance than just, I am, I’m great. Even adding in specificity of like, oh, here are the specific things that I did that I think are valuable, or that I think were valuable to this community, or this group of people, or this person.

Okay, and then my last sort of thing to avoid, um, writing an essay based on a topic that doesn’t actually tell the admissions committee enough about you. So oftentimes when I talk to students about their essays, they’ll say, oh, I want to write an essay about baseball. And I’ll say, okay, like, why do you want to write about baseball?

And they’ll say, oh, I really like baseball. Um, and really I have, I, you know, I watch baseball. I watch every game that the, Boston Red Sox play. And I think that’s, that’s great, right? That’s a great starting point, but what you really want to get at is what is it telling other people that like, I have this relationship with baseball, right?

And so you might think about a list of subjects that you really like, or you’re passionate about, but the writing of that essay doesn’t help communicate something about you to the audience. Now, if you said, you Baseball is meaningful to me because with my dad, I watched baseball every day between when I was six and when I was 17.

Okay. Then you’re starting to tell your readers something about yourself. You’re starting to tell them I’m a person to whom family is important, right? I’m a person who, um, like structure in my life. I like to do this thing every evening. I’m a person who sticks to my commitments. Then it starts to become sort of more meaningful, right?

And more three dimensional, but you want to make sure. And when you’re choosing a topic, you’re going beyond like, I care about this thing, or I like this thing, um, to, oh, this is telling, um, this is telling the reader something about me that I think is important. And we’re going to get to more specific ways to do that, um, in a couple of, of minutes.

Lonnie: Okay. Thank you, Jennifer. Um, I can definitely tell that you’re an expert in writing space. Um, our audience are getting some really good information from you. So with that, we’re going to launch our second poll. We would like to know Where you are in the college application process. So if you’ve already answered the poll because I think it launched a little earlier Um, that is totally fine, but we want to capture everyone’s response um, believe it or not the college application process begins sooner than your summer of your senior year, going into your senior year.

Uh, so let’s see. I’m seeing the responses coming in. Okay, here they go. Alright, so we have 16 percent that haven’t started yet. Uh, 37 percent are doing their research into their schools. 33 percent are working on their essays. I know after this webinar, that percentage is going to go um, 13 percent are getting their application material together.

Um, so that is where we are with our audience or live audience and where they are with their application process. Thank you all for submitting your responses. Okay. So with that, Jennifer, I’ll turn it back over to you to talk about, um, you have the two approaches. Yeah. Okay.

Jennifer: So I just talked about, right, wanting to write an essay that, um, that tells the reader something about yourself.

And I think some of you guys are like, well, how do I, how do I know what about myself? I want to tell the reader, or how do I know what does a good job, right? Of telling the reader something about myself. So I’m going to share kind of two different approaches, right, to this task of writing a story that’s about you, that tells the reader something you want them to know about you.

There’s a lot of text on this page. I’m very sorry, I should have split it into two slides, but I put it all together. Um, Okay, so think about two approaches, okay? Think about a funnel. One approach is starting at the top of the funnel, and then like, kind of going down. And the other approach is starting from the bottom of the funnel and working up.

So let’s start with the first approach, which is starting from the top of the funnel. So starting from the top of the funnel, you might already know, here’s what I want to tell the reader about myself. Okay, and this is for you guys who kind of when I said that first thing at the very beginning of like, you control your own narrative, like, what do you want to tell, you know, your audience that you’re empathetic or intellectually curious or what have you, right?

You were like, Oh, I know what I want to tell them. I want to tell them, you know, like, So, this or that, right, who have something specific in mind. So you have that thing in mind, um, I want to, you know, tell my reader that I’m intellectually curious. Then, think about your essay as an opportunity to get more specific than that general statement of I am curious.

You know, intellectually curious by building an experienced bank, right of times when you demonstrated that trait, right? And so use that guiding idea of like, I’m trying to share this thing about myself and do a brainstorm, right? Think about. Why? What? What were times where I really I really demonstrated this or what were times where I felt like this was really guiding my actions?

Was it when I signed up for this harder class instead of this easier class? Was it when I decided to go with a friend to this thing that I didn’t know anything about, but they didn’t want to go alone. So I said, Okay, I’ll go. Like, maybe I’ll learn something, right? Um, Think about the traits that you value in yourself or that other people value about you, and go through your memories of, you know, freshman year, sophomore year, junior year.

It feels like a long time because you guys are all still young. But you go through those memories, um, and think about, reflect on, when were the times when I feel like I really did that? So I have an example right here where, um, I’ll just read where I wrote this thing. I just. I just wrote. Um, I was one of those kids who never stopped asking why.

At first it drove my parents crazy. I was always asking them, Why do I have to go to bed? Then it kind of drove my teachers crazy. Why were there only 13 colonies? But now I’m learning how to shape my curiosity in a way that helps others. Right? So you’re taking this general idea and it’s, it’s boring, right?

If you just say, I am super intellectually curious, but it’s becomes interesting if you start at that high level and then kind of come up with these like smaller, more granular anecdotes that shape that reader perception of yourself. Okay. Now there are some of you who are like, yeah, I really, I don’t know what I want to say about myself.

Okay. And that’s when we might try and The second strategy, right, which is to go from the bottom of the funnel up. And so you’re starting with the experiences or the details or the stories. And you’re trying to work up to this idea, this like bigger idea of who you are, which is hard because you know, it’s hard to know who you are.

Um, So the second bullet I have written, think about, take some time to reflect on the experiences or activities or peoples or goals that are meaningful to you, right? And ask yourself, what is uniting these things? And oftentimes if you make, you know, like a list, um, or if you, Draw, right, like out these experiences and these places or these times, you’ll see these patterns starting to emerge, right?

So, for example, I have this example. Lots of people have told me that I’m funny, but what they don’t know is that humor is important to me because it’s enabled me to connect with unexpected people in unexpected ways. Even if I have nothing else in common with someone, we can still share laughter. When I took a school’s trip to France, Right?

So this is something that someone might have reflected and realized, Oh, like I’ve always been the class clown or like, I’m always, you know, sharing memes and like my group text with, um, my friends. And I’ve never really thought about like, why, like why I, Like to be the class clown or like why I like to share these memes and actually right upon reflection I might realize that it’s because it’s this shared language, right?

Where yeah, like I can be funny with my parents with my friends with teachers with people who I don’t know People who sit across the cafeteria from me at lunch, right? And no matter who they are if you’re funny, like you have a connection with them So that’s an example where thinking about an experience that was meaningful to you, right?

Thinking like, Oh, like, you know, I have a lot of students write about travel. Why was it meaningful to me? Like when I went to this place, was it because it expanded my horizons and helped me think about, um, think about culture differently. And that actually novelty and diversity are things that I, I value.

And that’s why it was meaningful to me. Um, or is it because of. You know, it was really beautiful and the nature was spectacular. And that tells me that, you know, nature and conservation are really meaningful to me, right? But like, think about making a chart of things, experiences and activities that were meaningful to you and asking yourself if you can find an underlying reason about yourself or a uniting factor about yourself that you can sort of elevate, um, that you can work from the bottom up, um, to talk about those things.

I’m going to now, okay, move on to editing. Okay. Um, so once you’ve written your essay, probably you are very, very sick of it. Um, and want to take a break from it. Um, and that is something I definitely encourage people to do. Okay. The hardest time To evaluate your own work is right after you’ve written it.

Funnily enough, I have found that people generally fall into two camps in terms of like reading their own work right after they wrote it. The first group of people is like immediately after they write it, they read it and they’re like, this is amazing. Like it’s, it’s the best. It’s perfect. And the other category of people are people who right after they write something, they read it and they’re like, Oh my gosh, like this is garbage.

I have to throw it away. I have to burn it. Don’t burn it. Okay. So most of the time. Neither assessment of your work is correct, but you’re emotional and you have all this pent up energy and thoughts from the drafting process. That are sort of like clouding your judgment. So my first tip for editing is to just take a break, like put it away, depending on how much time you have.

That might be like one day. It might be a week. It might be two weeks. Put it away for some time. Okay, because when you come back to it, you’ll have some distance and you’ll be able to read it more like, a third party reader, which is what the admissions committee will be, and less like a person who just like poured their guts out on, you know, onto Microsoft Word.

Okay, my second tip for editing is to do a reverse outline. So I don’t know yet, some of you folks may have like done this in your English classes, but this is a technique that I find really helpful with my students. So reverse outline is. Well, okay, let me go back for a second. So most of you all will have outlined.

So outlining is when you have an essay and you’re saying, Okay, in paragraph one I have this idea, in paragraph two I have this idea, in paragraph three I have this idea, um, and then you write, right? A reverse outline is what it sounds like, it’s the reverse. It’s where you have an essay, and then you go through and you say, Okay, based on what I have written, if I was reading this for the first time, um, From the first paragraph, I would take this away.

From the second paragraph, this is what I would conclude. From the third paragraph, I would take this away. From the fourth paragraph, this is what I would conclude. Right? I find this to be helpful for a few reasons. Um, one, it helps you make sure that you actually are saying something in your essay, right?

Beyond, I like baseball, I like fishing, I am funny, my dad is important to me, right? You want to make sure that there is some depth there, where like each of your paragraphs is saying something a little bit different, right? Like, I like baseball because it reminds me of how hard it is to do anything well.

You know, because I played baseball when I was a kid and it took hours of practice just to learn how to throw a curveball, right? So making sure that you have these like developed nuanced ideas in these paragraphs that you can see coming through is one thing a reverse outline is really helpful for. In addition to the things that you’re probably more likely to have talked about in school, which is like, you know, are the paragraphs clustered around common themes?

Is like, are there transitions between the paragraphs and stuff like that? So I really like the reverse outline, um, because again, what you’re trying to figure out is what is this essay telling the reader about me and is that matching up with what I want to be telling the reader about me. Okay, another thing, the third tip is when you do your read through or when you get input from an advisor, a parent, a guidance counselor, oftentimes they’ll, you know, they’ll, they’ll just in your notes, they’ll in the essay.

They’ll like write all these things, right? And they’ll all be in your essay. Before you start editing, take a second to like look at the feedback and be like, oh, here are the themes of things, right? Like one set, there’s one set of changes that’s like maybe spelling and grammar or like word changes, right?

Okay, there’s another set of changes where it seems like my teacher or my advisor wants me to go into more specific detail about these things, right, so there’s some additional writing that I have to do. And then there’s another set of changes that’s, oh, these sections are confusing, like I don’t actually, the teacher didn’t, or my advisor didn’t actually understand what they meant, so I need to clarify the language there.

Right. Don’t try to do all of those things at once, or at least I find it really difficult in my editing to do all of those things at once, because it just confuses your brain. You’re trying to do too many things. If you can look at your feedback and identify, oh, here are the common, here are the, the categories of things I need to do.

I need to tweak the wording of certain things. I need to add certain things. I need to clarify certain things and attack them kind of one by one. Okay. Over the span of like maybe a week that really helps Okay, and then this is this, this one last one I also think is really important, which is like, before you get feedback or take feedback, make sure you have a clear vision of your own essay because people are going to give you contradictory feedback because people have different reading sensibilities, right?

So some readers might say, Oh, I didn’t really understand this. Take this out. Other readers might say, no, this was like really important. Like, make it longer, right? When you get a ton of feedback, it becomes really important for you to know what your essay is trying to do. And that’s why those exercises at the beginning are really helpful.

Those core questions of what am I communicating about myself? What are the stories that I’m trying to tell? What are the traits of my personality that I’m trying to bring to the surface, right? And use those in your Guiding questions to determine what feedback you think is helpful to your essay, um, because it’s important for you also to be the architect of your narrative and of your essay, and feedback is really helpful for that, where you see common, you’re getting common themes from other people, but also can be confusing if you don’t have a strong internal sense of like what you’re trying to say.

Okay. Um, essays that have stood out to me. Um, a sort of, uh, a thing that people say about writing nonfiction, about writing essays, is that essays have an about, which is like what they’re about at the surface level, and then they have like a really about, which is like what they’re really about. Right? And my favorite essays are the ones where, like, you read it the first time and you’re like, ah, this is about this one thing.

And you read it again, you’re like, ah, like, it was really about this other thing. Okay? So I’ll just share two examples. I assume you’re writing an essay about rain, okay? Kind of weird, like writing an essay about a weather phenomenon, okay? But she was kind of writing about, oh, you know, these different events in her life that occurred when it was raining.

But then throughout the essay, there was this like, overall metaphor of like, Oh. These bad things have happened to me, but like I found ways to make them positive in my life or I found ways to convert them into these other things. So it was like about literal rain, but there was also this like presiding metaphor of like resilience and rain as sort of struggle or challenge that she had to overcome.

I had another student, um, who wrote a really fantastic essay. Um, and they wrote about this random, They were in Europe and they saw this like random landmark, um, that no one had ever heard of. And it didn’t have a Wikipedia page and they were on a school trip and it was while they were on their way to visit, like, um, you know, like St.

Peter’s Basilica or something huge. So they kind of were this essay that was sort of just telling us about this, like, you know, um, and landmark that probably no one was ever going to, Really write about over again, but then over the course of the essay, you realize that actually what it was about and why the student was telling me about this like random landmark was because they wanted me to think more broadly about what we consider worth, you know, going to paying attention to spending time with.

Right? And so really this essay was about like, oh, we really should celebrate, right? These small moments that we otherwise overlook, or like ask questions about things that we otherwise take for granted. That was an amazing essay. It was like, so you were kind of learning about this like random landmark in Italy, but at the same time realizing, oh, he’s trying to make this point about what are all the other things we overlook in life, right?

And so that was a really amazing use of the like, it’s kind of about this, but it’s like really about this. Okay, it’s really hard to have a unique like big picture really about right like lots of students write about resilience. Lots of students write about, you know, curiosity or perseverance or, you know, a time they contributed to their community.

And that’s, that’s okay, right? Like, Like in terms of big picture themes, there are only so many big picture themes. Um, those of you who are in, you know, English classes have probably read like eight novels, right? About the American dream, right? You’ve read like The Great Gatsby. Like you’ve read so many novels about that one big picture thing.

Um, so it’s, yeah, it’s really hard to have a unique, big about. Whether it’s like resilience or humility or compassion or empathy. Yeah. Try to find this lowercase about that is specific to you, right? Like I really don’t think anyone else is going to write about that specific landmark that no one else has been to.

I don’t know if any other student is going to use rain in the way that the student used rain. So even if you can’t have a unique big picture, you know, message, right? See if you can find that story or that way in that like little about that is unique to you. Okay. Okay. I think this is my last slide. Yeah, it is.

So, um, my last tips are, uh, one, from the beginning of the presentation, I’ll just recapitulate. Use that essay as an opportunity to do something that the rest of your application doesn’t, okay? So, if your whole application is like, centered around all of the volunteering that you do, maybe write about something that isn’t volunteering or write about something that emphasizes a different aspect of your personality other than your investment in community or like how you relate to other people.

Like maybe write about how you um, find the problem solving of math really interesting, right? But try and think about, Oh, I’m using this to like, uncover a new facet of my personality, um, that isn’t otherwise going to be visible to the admissions committee. Okay, and then my last kind of like, corny, cheesy tip is, find something about the essay that excites you.

I know for a lot of you, it’s like, not going to be writing, you don’t like writing, it’s hard. And that’s okay. Um, if the essay, the writing itself doesn’t excite you, but find something about it that does excite you. Whether it’s like, the topic. right? You find exciting. Or for those of you who do like writing, maybe like just a couple sentences that you’re like, Oh, I really love that sentence or this story that you really want to share.

Like you tell all your friends this story. And so you’re excited to just share with the admissions officer. It doesn’t have to be the process of writing the essay as a whole. It can be it. something that’s little, something that’s inside one of the sentences, um, or inside one of the ideas. Because if you have that little kernel of excitement, it will 100 percent come through in the writing.

Like, I read, I teach two sections of college English, so I read hundreds of essays every semester. And you can absolutely tell, like, when the student was, even the least bit excited, right? And that enthusiasm, I think, is so infectious and so cheerful and will be joyful to your admissions team to read, um, as they are also reading hundreds and hundreds of essays.

Thank you.

Lonnie: Thank you, Jennifer. Um, that now concludes our presentation portion of our webinar. And again, just a reminder, because there was some great information that Jennifer shared. You can download the handouts by clicking on the handouts tab and it will be readily available for you. So now we’re going to jump into our live question and answer.

And so how it will work is you will place your question into the Q and a tab and then I will read out loud and place it into our public chat for you to be able to see it. Um, so at any time you are welcome to ask your question. So I will jump into our public chat. First question that has been asked and it says it’s grammarly or any other AI allowed for college essays.

It’s a big one. Yeah.

Jennifer: So certainly I would not use like a generative AI like a ChatGPT or anything that um is like generating sort of words for you or generating text for you right like anything where you put in a prompt and it responds to your prompt I would not use um because really The whole, yeah, the opportunity of the essay is to showcase your experience and your voice, and using an AI sort of takes that away from you.

Um, I don’t think there’s a prohibition against using like a grammar checking tool, right? I think, again, I’d be very careful that you’re just using it to If it’s saying, oh, you’ve used this word already, you maybe want to use a different word. That’s helpful. Right, but what you really want to stay away from is these softwares that are telling you the exact words to use, or like giving you sentences because those aren’t going to be reflective of your own voice and it’s not original content.

So I think spell checkers, grammar checkers, I think those, um, I think can be helpful tools for you, right? But it shouldn’t be doing the writing for you. You should ultimately still be doing the writing. Right.

Lonnie: Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, depending on some of that software, it kind of used the same, like, it kind of phrases things very similar.

Also, I can absolutely tell when my guest. Yes, I can too. Yes, absolutely. Um, so our next question says, if there’s a topic that involves an extracurricular that I am passionate about, and it isn’t listed on my extracurricular list, but is unique to me, can I write about it?

Jennifer: Yeah, that sounds like a great topic to write about.

It’s, if I’m not sharing a question, it’s, it’s an extracurricular that you like. It’s, it’s on your extracurriculars list, but it’s unique to you. I think that’s totally fine. Like it, if it’s something that’s listed, but it’s not like the whole focus of your application, right? I think it’s great to expand on if it’s something you’re passionate about.

Lonnie: Okay. Next question. Should the essays be more story like rather than informative?

Jennifer: Yeah, great question. So I’m going to say that a good essay will incorporate elements of storytelling, right? Things like varying, even something like varying your sentence length, right? Like that’s an element of storytelling.

Um, That is good to include in your essay. However, I know some writers, right, like, who, it’s not organic for them to, like, write everything as, like, a story. Like, they’re just not that kind of writer. And if you’re not that kind of writer, it’s okay. Like, your story doesn’t have to be, like, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

It can be more informative. It can say, I really enjoyed these things, and here’s why. As long as it feels authentic to you. So I think what I’ll say is, There are elements of storytelling that can be helpful. For your essay, regardless of your voice, things like figurative language, things like, um, having a few examples, right?

Having examples for everything you say, telling stories from your own life inside your essay. I think those techniques or techniques of storytelling that will fit in your essay no matter what. But if you’re a type of person who your voice is more like, um, Yeah, more like explanatory or inform informational.

That’s okay. Don’t try to write it like it’s a short story, you know, like it’s it’s more important that you’re telling it in a way that feels feels good to you.

Lonnie: Okay. How do colleges react to religious topics? Would you recommend?

Jennifer: Oh, that’s a good question. And Honestly, I think it would depend a lot on the execution of the essay.

Um, I’ve read essays where people have talked about volunteering that they do in their church community or strong relationships that they’ve developed in their church communities, and I think that’s great, right? Like, I would read that as if it was any other important, um, relationship. Um, I think probably what you want to stay away from is not even necessarily religion, but like, controversial, anything controversial, which doesn’t mean the same thing as religion, and yeah, could be many things outside of that.

So I think there’s not like, there’s not any prohibition on writing about religion, I don’t think that’s necessarily bad. It’s an animating force for a lot of people. And if it’s something meaningful to you, that’s totally okay. Um, but I would stay away from topics that are like currently the source of contentious debate, you know,

Lonnie: right, right.

Uh, how do you make sure an essay talks about the things that you have done without being braggy?

Jennifer: Yeah, that’s a great, great question. Um, okay. So I think one thing that makes it braggy is when you’re just listing out things that you’ve accomplished with no explanation of like, how did you do those things?

Or why is it meaningful to you? Right? I think Taking a moment to reflect on the process that like enabled you to accomplish those things, um, can be really a really helpful antidote to bragging. So for example, um, if someone writes, I was the best player on my team. You know, volleyball team that’s going to come off as like a little braggy, but if you reflect and you say, you know, I loved playing volleyball and I felt really happy that I was able to contribute to my team success in these ways, and I did these things that helped the team win and it made me feel so good because I loved all my teammates and it was amazing to win that comes off as a little lot less braggy because you’re not just saying like, I’m the best I rock, but you’re contextualizing it and like, I care about my team.

I also am a little bit competitive, and that’s perfectly fine. Like, I enjoy, you know, being active. Like, you’re kind of giving us this other information that’s not just, I’m the best, right? Nothing should just say, I’m the best. It should also say, like, I’m competitive. I value my teammates. All these other things that will sort of Organically come up if you’re contextualizing your brag or the thing that you’ve done in the other people, the other processes, like things that you did, the hard work that you put in, like why the emotions of why it was meaningful to you, how it felt, et cetera, et cetera.

Like those other details will help anchor it. So it’s not braggy or doesn’t feel braggy.

Lonnie: Um, this question says, is having someone look at your paper, but then, but them changing it to sound more formal. But it’s the same message, consider cheating. Good question. Yeah, that’s an

Jennifer: interesting question. Um, I don’t, I think, again, with these sort of like, is it cheating, is it AI questions?

Like, I think the question to, to ask is less like, is it cheating and more like, is this, still my writing, right? Um, if they’re doing things like saying, oh, you have a lot of contractions in your essay, and maybe it would sound better if you didn’t have contractions, which, by the way, I don’t necessarily agree with that advice that you can’t write with contractions, but if it’s things like that, right, where you’re like, oh, I would maybe not use these abbreviations, I would maybe not use these contractions, it’s coming off as a little informal.

Please try, try and stay away from saying things like, you know, the dudes in my English class said this, right? If they’re saying, oh, like, instead of saying those dudes say, like, my peers, I think that’s okay to take that as, like, editing advice, right? Um, but probably you want to avoid them wholesale changing words, like changing things from, like, It was hard that I was far apart from my sister to the distance between me and my sister really compromised our emotional intimacy, right?

Like that sounds more formal, but it also no longer really sounds like you wrote it because it sounds like Yeah. Your mom, right? Right? So like, um, yeah, so finding the line between, oh, like this person is giving me advice to make my language more stylistically formal versus this person is sort of changing how the essay sounds and who it sounds like it was written by.

Lonnie: Um, how do I find those special stories or how do I go about starting my brainstorming?

Jennifer: Yeah, um, so some questions that you can start with are what I’ll just give you some questions. What were the moments in high school when I felt the happiest? Why did I feel happiest in those moments? Um, if I had to go back and do something differently, what would I do differently?

And why do I think I would do that differently? Um, If when my, when my parents and my friends tell other people about me, what do they tell those other people about me? What are the stories about me that they tell other people when they’re trying to tell other people about their friend, you know, Jimmy or, or whatever, right?

Um, what do other people see in me that I maybe don’t see in myself? So those are some brainstorming questions. Um, I know I went through that really fast, I’m sorry, but there is a recording. Um, so hopefully that gives you kind of a starting point to think about.

Lonnie: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, let’s see. How much does my college essay affect my chances of getting into college?

Jennifer: Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, colleges don’t, they don’t publish, like, This, we wait at 10%, and this we wait at 10%, and this we wait at 50%, right? Otherwise, like, um, the application would be a lot easier. Um, how I try to think about it, right, is like, it is really the, the main vehicle they have of getting to know you as a person.

So, it is quite, like, a substantive part of the admissions decision, and I think it can absolutely tip a decision, like, one way or the other, right? Um, at the same time, it is only one part of the process. The application and the other things matter too, right? But if you think about it as like, yeah, like this is the thing that they’re going to learn the most about me from, in terms of like actual content and not just numbers, like that’s, that’s a huge opportunity, right?

And I think they do take it very seriously for that reason.

Lonnie: Um, this question says for those of us who struggle with writing, um, the beginning of our essays, What’s your biggest tip for getting the creative mind flowing? I

Jennifer: struggle with writing at the beginning of my essays. Okay, yes, I have a couple tips.

Um, one, it’s okay if you don’t start at the beginning. Like, it’s okay if you start in the middle. If the beginning is too hard to write, just like skip the beginning and start from the middle. And then as you’re writing the middle, the beginning may come to you. Um, Yeah, so start whatever you have, start there.

It’s better to start with what you have than to try and come up with something that you don’t have and then you don’t write anything, right? So start with what you have. Oftentimes, your, your high school teachers probably say this, oftentimes after you’ve written the middle of the essay, the beginning and the conclusion, the introduction, the conclusion, like become more clear.

So it’s totally fine to start in the middle. My other advice that I would give for that, um, is to do some free writing, which is Don’t think of it as like starting your essay, just think of it as like, I’m just gonna free write about this topic. Okay, just like write, challenge yourself to write, you know, One page if you’re writing by hand or like 150 words or 200 words if you’re writing on a computer About your subject right and don’t don’t try to make it an essay Don’t try to make it a story just like make it a stream of consciousness, right?

And then read your stream of consciousness and you might see something where you’re like, yeah, I like that little phrase, right? I like what my brain did there. I like Where I associatively got to when I started talking about this other thing. I think that could be a good place to start Um, so my yeah just to recap my advice is it’s okay If you don’t start from the beginning just start with what you have and then two is free write and let your brain just like come up with stuff like brain dump basically and then like Review what you came up with because you might see something in there that you really like

Lonnie: Okay Great great advice Yes.

Jennifer. Um, our next question says, I’ve heard, um, people stay, say to steer away from trauma dumping. Do you think that there’s a line between that and just reflecting on events that have shaped you as a person?

Jennifer: Yeah. Wow. That’s a, that’s a great question. And, um, one that I think about as a writer all the time, um, okay, so the line between trauma dumping and sharing about what shaped you as a person.

Okay, so I think, I’m not an expert on, like, trauma, um, or psychology or anything like that, so just to caveat that. I think, as a reader, right, what makes me feel like, oh, this is not trauma dumping, this is the reader sharing something meaningful about themselves, is when, um, I know that they’re sharing these things for a reason other than just like, oh my god, I really needed to get this off my chest, right?

I totally encourage writing to get things off your chest, by the way. I do it all the time, but that type of writing might not be a good common application essay, right? But if you want to write about something difficult that happened to you, or something challenging, and reflect on that experience, and actually like, you know, Turn that into a story.

Use that to tell us more about yourself. That’s not, that’s not what something I would consider trauma dumping. What I would consider trauma dumping is like, you wrote a vent, or like you wrote a list of things that are really emotionally loaded to you, and you’re giving it to me, and like, I as an admissions officer, I don’t really know what to do with it, because it’s like, not really telling anything about you other than that these terrible things happened.

Again, that’s Totally super people writing their emotions, writing to process, um, think it’s really valuable. Just think that this essay should probably do more than that, and can do more than that, even if it is about a subject that is sad or hurtful or, you know, Was fraught for you.

Lonnie: Okay, we’re going to take a short pause for live questions and answers for me to share more about the work that we do here within CollegeAdvisors.

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During this meeting, you’ll receive a plenary assessment. your academic profile along with some initial recommendations on what you can do to stand out. So after that, you’ll also have the opportunity to learn more about CollegeAdvisors, premium one on one packages. That can pair you with experts like Jennifer who can support you, you know, in building your college list, editing your essays and much, much more.

Um, so the QR code will stay on the screen as we continue with our questions and answers. So our next question reads. Someone wrote, how, actually I’ll go to more, how often should I free write?

Lonnie: That’s funny.

Jennifer: I think, um, free writing is a tool, right? So, uh, you should do it as long as the tool is helping you accomplish what you want the tool to be, right?

If you, if you’re free writing for like, you know, 40 minutes every day and it’s not getting you anywhere, stop free writing. Um, Or to try something else, you know, but if you’re like, oh, I’m stuck and you do it for like 10 minutes and you’re like, oh, this is like kind of helped me, um, then keep doing it, you know, and see if it continues to help you.

Um, I think like advice, it’s like do this for this amount of time often doesn’t account for the fact that everyone’s processes are different, right? If you’ve never free written before, or if like, that’s something that’s really hard for you, I would say give it like 10 minutes. I would say do it, like, do it for five minutes, three times, like, do it five minutes one day, five minutes the next day, five minutes the next day, and see if you’re starting to see things bubble up, right?

And if it’s not, then that might not be the right tool for you. And if it is, then that’s the tool you can keep in your toolbox. Um, yeah, kind of like, it’s like, when people are like, how long should I use a hammer? Well, it’s like, well, if it’s, like, see when the nail is, you know, Is it right? Um, okay.

Lonnie: I like that.

That’s a good analogy. Um, should you worry about having the same theme as other people, even though it really resonates to you and you have a unique story to tell?

Jennifer: Um, yeah, well, kind of like I said, like, there are really only so many themes. Like, like if your theme is, you know, um, there’s a person who was really important to me, you know, like my grandmother was really important to me.

Yeah. Like probably a lot of people are writing about their grandmothers, but if it is really unique story, then like, I think you should tell it right. I think what you want to avoid, this is kind of like the capital about. Little lyric is about thing you want to avoid like the essay being the same as someone else’s essay, right?

But the themes of you know, they’re they’re universal themes for reason themes of you know Resilience love adversity friendship compassion empathy, right? Like those are those are universal themes community is another one Lots of people write essays about community, but everyone has a different set of communities, right?

So lots of people can have unique essays about community. Um, so I think my answer to your question is yes, you can write about a, you know, common theme if it is grounded in a really unique and meaningful experience to you.

Lonnie: Yeah. Um, this question says, do the stories I tell have to be about high school experiences?

If I write about my childhood, how can I connect them to my current growth?

Jennifer: Yeah. Okay. That’s a great question. Um, So I think it is possible to write an essay that incorporates material from your childhood, right? I would say, I would think about the fact that the essay is supposed to tell a story about like who you are now.

Okay, so if I’m telling a story about how when I was in the second grade, I was running, I was playing at recess, and I fell down and broke my ankle. That doesn’t necessarily, in and of itself, tell the reader anything about me now. But if it’s like, I broke my ankle in the second grade, and I’ve had these lingering mobility issues since then, and it’s made me realize that, you know, such and such and such, right, about other people, and then in high school I did this about that, then that tells me something about now.

You know, so my, my thing is, um, it’s totally okay if you want to write about childhood, but make sure those anecdotes are connecting to something about you in the present day that like the reader understands. And the other thing I’ll say about writing about your childhood, which again, I think you can do is it, it makes it hard to share accomplishments in the same way, like to get in things that you’ve achieved or things that you’ve done in the last two, three, four years.

because you’re taking up that space writing about childhood. So I think if you want to write about childhood, that’s totally fine, right? I encourage that excavation of important meaning of important memories from our past, but just make sure you’re using it to connect to the present day and then make sure you’re also able to like also tell the admissions officer about how you’re smart or funny or charismatic or what have you.

Uh, in the rest of the essay.

Lonnie: Um, can a really good essay get you into a top university if you don’t have a lot of AP classes?

Jennifer: Yeah. So I think that what I would say about that is like a good essay will make you more competitive than an essay that is not as good. Right. People who take tons of AP classes and write good essays often don’t get into top universities because statistically it’s just really, really hard.

Right. And so it’s, it’s hard to say like, Oh, this is the thing. It’s like going to get you into Stanford or Harvard or, you know, school, right. Um, it’s oftentimes You know, they’re reading the application as a whole, it can come down to, you know, things that you don’t necessarily know about when you’re applying, right?

Um, but I absolutely think it can, you know, push you over the top. Like, I absolutely think it can be the thing that makes an admissions committee say yes. Um, even if I can’t say for certain, like, yes, this is the key to getting into this top university because really, you know, it’s, it’s the, the percentages are just so low.

They’re so competitive, right? Um, so, um, yes, they will make you more competitive, certainly. And for that reason, I think it is worth striving to write a good essay.

Lonnie: Yeah. Um, can I include parts of other pieces I’ve written or if I’m quoting an essay? Unpublished piece. How would I go about that?

Jennifer: Okay, that’s a fun question.

Um, you sound like a writer. I love the piece thing. I love that, um, writing pieces. If you were, like, so if it’s your own writing, then I guess I’m, I’m confused by, well, I guess I’m not sure if you mean like, oh, like you want to, you know, take things that you’ve written before and repurpose from that, for that essay, which I think is totally fine.

Like if in junior year English, you had to write an essay that was like, Write about the experience that shaped you the most. And you’re like, oh, this is still true. I think it’s okay for you to take some of that material and import it in. Um, I think quoting yourself would be like a little weird. Uh, like if you’re like, uh, Jennifer, you once said, you know, the trajectory of a life is long, like that might be a little bit odd, but I think it’s okay to like take stuff that you’ve written before and like repurpose it because it fits.

Um, Even to like reflect on other writing that you’ve done.

Lonnie: Awesome. Awesome. Um, I think we’ll do one more question and that question is going to be should, I think we kind of talked about this, but like just should the common app essay be written in a formal or more informal tone?

Jennifer: Yeah. Okay. So there’s like, there’s elements of informality, right.

That I would stay away from because it is a piece of Semi professional communication like I would not I would not refer to your friends as like dudes unless you’re coding dialogue like your friend said dude What’s up, and you’re putting on clothes. I think that’s fine. You’re not like referring to your refer to your parents as dudes I would not like, you know refer to your parents as like, you know I don’t know what the lingo, I would not say yeeted, okay, like, like slang.

I would, I would stay away from slang like that, but I think like things like contractions are totally fine. Things like, um, yeah, like not academic language is like, okay. If some of your sentences are just like, I love my dog, you know, like that’s, that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be like a research paper. So I think.

Informality, um, is, is okay if it’s like genuine and authentic, like most people don’t write authentically like an academic paper, um, but I would stay away from like slang, um, yeah, and, and, and sort of like more unprofessional types of communication, like certainly no slang, no swearing, et cetera, et cetera.

Lonnie: Okay, well, that was our last question. So thank you, Jennifer, um, for sharing all this great information about how to make your essay shine. And last announcement I wanted to make to everyone is that we have one more webinar for this month. That is on August 28th. However, every week we will have a different webinar webinars offer to support you through the college admission process.

So we look forward to seeing you in upcoming webinar. Um, with that everyone, we are now going to end our webinar and again, thank you Jennifer so much for your time and for sharing. Yeah, thanks Bonnie

Jennifer: and thank you everyone for coming and your great questions.

Lonnie: Yes, absolutely. Goodnight.