CollegeAdvisor Masterclass: Brainstorming Your Common App Personal Statement Topic

Webinar Transcription

2024-05-09 – CollegeAdvisor Masterclass: Brainstorming Your Common App Personal Statement Topic

Anna: Hello, everyone. Good evening. Good afternoon. Good morning. Wherever in the world you’re joining us from, we’re so happy you’re here for our webinar on Brainstorming Your Common App Personal Statement Topics. I will introduce myself and then hand it over to Lydia. So my name is Anna Vande Velde. I’ll be one of your moderators and presenters today.

Just a bit about my background. I’ve been with the company as a senior advisor for almost three years now. And in addition to advising students, I’m a proud co-captain of our essay review team. For undergrad, I studied psychology at Carnegie Mellon. Thought I was going to be a clinical psychologist, but life had other plans for me.

I ended up at Harvard Law School, where I graduated a couple years ago. So, in addition to my work with CollegeAdvisor, I’m a non profit defense attorney, and I live in Ottawa, Canada. Lydia, I hand over to you to introduce yourself.

Lydia: Yes. Hi, everyone. My name is Lydia Hollon. I’ve also been with CollegeAdvisor for about three years now.

I’m a senior advisor at CollegeAdvisor as well as a co-captain like Anna of our essay review team. I am a graduate of NYU. I studied political science and also did a master’s in public administration. And I’ve also, uh, gotten my master’s in teaching as well. Um, and in addition to working with CollegeAdvisor, I’m also an education consultant who works with different schools, government agencies, and nonprofits, and I’m also a former teacher.

So, uh, just to get everyone familiar with how the session’s going to go for tonight, um, we’re going to start off with our presentation and then finish up with a live Q and A. On the sidebar, you can download our slides and start submitting questions in the Q& A tab. We also are recording this session so that you can review the webinar again later if you happen to miss anything that we say.

So now let’s go ahead and get started.

Anna: Okay. I’m sorry. Um, Before we jump into the presentation, we’d love to get a sense of who’s with us in the room. So I’m going to launch this poll. Please let us know what grade you are in. If you’re here as a support person in any capacity, feel free to just select other. While we wait for your answers to come in, Lydia, I was wondering if I could ask you to share if you remember what your common app personal statement was about.

Lydia: Yes, so I, we’re going to touch on this a little bit, um, in some later slides, but I’m a strong proponent of the idea that like your personal statement does not have to be about some big dramatic moment. I think it’s a common misconception and so. My personal statement was, I think, an example of that. I just talked about how from the time I was a small child, I was someone who was always very much bothered by anything that was unfair.

Like, I was very much a tattletale, even when I was a little kid. If I saw like one kid take an extra crayon out of the box or something like that, it always just really bothered me. And I ended up becoming the kind of person that was just. I was just also very much bothered by injustice that I saw in the world, like in society as a whole.

And when I entered high school, I started pursuing that passion through social justice work and community organizing. And, you know, I felt like adults had always told me that you just have to kind of accept the world for what it is and accept that life isn’t fair. But that was just something that I wasn’t comfortable living with.

And I was interested in pursuing political science, so definitely lined up with the major that I was wanting to pursue as well.

Anna: That makes perfect sense, and we’ll talk more I’m sure about. Relating our personal statements to our academic interest. Um, but I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves. So, um, I’m not sure if you can see the results, Lydia, but we have about a third of the folks here are in 10th grade and then two thirds are in 11th grade

Lydia: Great. Well, it’s a great time to be asking these questions right now. So let’s go ahead and jump into the presentation for tonight. So I think the best way to start us out for This conversation is to really just think about why personal statements in general are so important. And I think the main thing is that this is your chance to make your first impression to introduce yourself.

So for pretty much every other part of your college application. The things that they’re going to see are not in your full control. Like, obviously, your grades are within your control, your standardized tests are within your control, but there are things that have already, to some extent, been defined before you’re even starting to work on your college application, right?

You can’t go back and change your freshman year grades or your sophomore year grades, um, Usually by the time you get to your senior year, you’re not going to be able to take the SAT or the ACT again and change the score that you get there. So your personal statement is the only thing that you truly have complete say over what it’s going to look like, what they’re going to see.

And the story that you’re going to tell so it really helps to shape how your admissions officer that’s reading your application is really meant to interpret who you are as a person, what the significance of the classes that you’ve taken, or the extracurriculars that you pursued, and all that. What that really means to you and who you are and why you’ve chosen the path that you’ve chosen up into this point and where you want to go in the future.

So first impressions are really important and this is how you kind of are able to make a memorable introduction and share what your brand or what your persona is as an applicant. And we’ll talk a little bit more about, you know, the idea of a persona or a brand. Later on, um, also just like going beyond grades and scores.

Like I said, academics for some students is like a really great bright spot for them in terms of their application. And I would say that most admissions officers that you ask are still going to say that grades and test scores are the most important factor that they consider when deciding to admit a student.

Personal statements also can play a somewhat significant role in your application as well. And so, if Even if your grades are not the most fantastic or your test scores are not the most fantastic, um, having a really strong personal statement can help them to understand why maybe you have weaknesses in certain areas, and it can also just help to demonstrate how you are different from the other students who are applying to school.

So even if you have really great grades, if you’re applying to a school like Harvard or Stanford or something, a school that’s really selective, that’s not going to be enough just in and of itself. You have to be able to differentiate yourself, um, and show how are you different? How do you stand out from a pool of other candidates, other students who may be similar to you in a bunch of different ways?

And explain why you are the one that deserves that spot. And so that again, comes back to developing a personal brand and saying, you know, I’m more than just a student who has a 3.9 GPA or who has a 33 on the ACT. I’m a student who has accomplished XYZ things, or has this certain kind of personality trait, or these certain values, and this is what I’m going to bring to your campus.

This is how I’m going to make it stronger in this way, or this is the person that I strive to become, and your college is going to help me get to that point. And then lastly, it’s also an opportunity for you to not only find your voice. I know for a lot of students, the personal statement that they write in high school is a lot of the time, the first time that they’ve really had to sit down and reflect about who they are, the experiences they’ve had, um, and what they want to do and who they want to be in the future.

So it’s a time for you to find your voice, but it’s also an opportunity for you to share. That voice and share that narrative with other people. So as you are entering this new stage of life, or you’re figuring out what kind of adult you want to be, this is a really cool opportunity for you to be able to share that with other people and create a narrative about the direction or the trajectory of your life that goes beyond the story that your transcript or your test scores tell.

Anna: I agree with everything you said, Lydia. And I, I love. I love that last point that, um, some of the strongest essays I’ve read really show that students have introspective and sort of reflected on, on what they’ve been through. So, uh, love that. Um, we wanted to talk about what the typical prompts are. So very briefly, if you’re not familiar, most colleges, you will submit your application in a portal online called the Common App.

Saves you a lot of time, so you don’t have to, like, enter all of your information on each college’s website. Most of them use the Common App. There are exceptions. Um, so then the things you enter all go to all of the schools, including your personal statement. So your personal statement is going to go to all the schools you apply to on the Common App.

Please don’t say in your personal statement, I really want to go to Harvard, for example, because All the other schools you apply to will get it. Um, when it’s time for you to start brainstorming your applications, you should check the Common App website to see what the most current prompts are. So I’m speaking especially to the 10th graders with us, um, because we don’t yet know what your prompts will be, but they have been announced already for the class of 2024 to 2025.

I will tell you, they didn’t change at all from the previous year. Great. They don’t change that often, and when they do, the changes tend to be subtle. Um, so you can expect to have a list of questions you can choose from. You only need to choose one. And you can expect that they will all be pretty open ended.

Um, so basically, whatever you want to write about, you’re going to be able to find a prompt it works with. So the ones for the upcoming cycle, there’s an option about a pivotal aspect of your background or identity. Another one’s about a challenge you face that you learned from it. Maybe similar, uh, questioning the belief or an idea you held, reflecting on an unexpected moment of gratitude and its impact.

I don’t want to bore you by continuing to read this list, um, but I hope you get the point of fate. are all really open ended. Um, I’ll also say that these are not the full questions. We, uh, summarized and condensed them so they would fit on a slide. Um, so please Google comment app personal statement questions and you can see the full list for this upcoming cycle.

Anything you’d add to this, Lydia?

Lydia: Yeah, I mean, I definitely agree with you, Anna, about the fact that you can really write about almost any topic with the amount of range that you have here with the different prompts. So I feel like it’s Well, it’s helpful to have the prompts to just get an idea of what kinds of questions you may have to respond to.

Don’t see these prompts as something that is meant to constrain you, but rather see them as just a way to kind of help you get focused. So regardless of the topic that you want to talk about, it can be helpful to choose a prompt so that you know the lens through which to focus on through it. And if you look through the summaries that we have of the prompts, like Anna said, we wouldn’t be able to fit in.

The exact text of all those questions onto one slide. Um, but if you look here, you’ll see that all of these prompts are encouraging you to take a moment to be introspective and to reflect on your life in some sort of way. Um, and that’s what Anna was just talking about, you know, a second ago is that the personal statement is really an opportunity for you to think about who am I in the grand scheme of the world?

Who do I want to be in the grand scheme of the world? What values do I hold? Am I an open minded person? Am I not? Why or why not? How do I respond with the environment that I’ve been put in? Um, you know, how do I interact with new information and new people and things like that? And so it’s an opportunity for you to really be able to reflect on how you got to the point that you are in your life right now and who you want to be and share the things that matter most to you because, you know, We can have a thousand students who all took the same AP courses, got the same GPA, got the same test scores, and maybe they all want to be pre med.

But until we look at the actual personal statement, it’s really difficult to actually know how in a few years. and effectively they are different people, right? So the personal statement is an opportunity for you to show who are you actually as a person. How are you going to help contribute to a diverse class of students?

And I think that that’s something that a lot of students don’t realize that admissions officers are also thinking about when they’re deciding who to accept is they’re not just looking for Who are, let’s just accept all the quote unquote smartest students, the students with the highest GPA or the students with a, you know, who all have a perfect score on the ACT or SAT.

They’re trying to create a community. And so when you’re trying to create a community of people, you’re also factoring in personalities, interests, the ways that they’re going to contribute to that community. And you need a little bit of everything. So you want to share what’s unique to you.

Anna: That reminded me of something I, I meant to say, Lydia, so thank you.

Was that, if you noticed, the last prompt is write an essay on the topic of your choosing. I think that’s tempting for some students to submit an essay they’ve written for school. I’m not saying don’t do that, I’m saying be very thoughtful if you take that path. Because I don’t think it’s common for high school essays, and Lydia’s a former teacher so she’ll know this better than me, but I don’t think it’s super common for high school essays to ask you to do the work that the personal statement is really intended to have you do.

So, if you think about it, most of your application is going to be you checking different boxes about what school you went to, your grades, a list of your extracurriculars. The essay is really the only place that your voice, like, gets a voice, gets to come in and where you get to show the unique person you are.

So I challenge my students that every sentence of their personal statement should be conveying something new, something that the readers can’t find anywhere else in the application, and something about them as a student. So if you happen to have written an essay for school that matches that, and that is 650 words or close to that, that could be a potential starting point, but I would still highly recommend that you have other folks read it.

You get feedback on it and we’ll talk more about, um, developing a personal narrative or personal brand, but you’re going to want to make sure that it really fits with that. So to be honest, I get a little nervous when students start with, Oh, I want to use an essay I wrote for school. I’m not saying it can’t work.

I’m saying please be really thoughtful about it.

Lydia: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. Um, and so when trying to determine which prompt is best for you, I agree with you Anna. I, I very rarely encourage students to choose the any topic you want type thing because for most people, Although it may sound counterintuitive to some, having the constriction or the constraint of okay this essay is meant to talk about like a obstacle that I overcome and that’s kind of the focus or the lens that I need to view this through or this essay is It needs to focus on like, a belief that I held and how I questioned it and how I, you know, became more open minded or, you know, grew in my worldview.

Having like that specific lens for how you need to look at a thing can be helpful so that you stay focused, versus if you have a Oh, I can just write about anything. It doesn’t really matter. Those essays sometimes tend to have a lot less focus, and as a reader who may not know you, it may be unclear for them, like, what was, what was I supposed to take away from this?

Versus if you’re following one of the specific prompts, it’s easier for you to be like, okay, this is the message that I have to have the person walk away with. Um, and I know that for some students, like you may have written Like I know a lot of juniors, for example, sometimes they’re assigned the common app personal statement as like a final essay that they have to write at the end of their junior year so that they get started on it.

But that’s the only situation I can think of most of the time for most high school students where you may end up using an essay. Again, for your common app and even then nine times out of 10, you’re going to want to revisit it and edit it and get additional feedback on it. When you come back to it your senior year and start applying to the colleges, because.

You may have a different feeling about who you are as a person or who you want to be when you are applying to colleges in your senior year versus when you wrote it, maybe, you know, fall semester of your junior year. So regardless, you’re going to want to revisit it, but definitely most papers that you write for that you write for school.

Um, they just tend to be a lot more academic. They’re usually in a sort of report style, like here is this issue. This is the point that I’m going to prove. Here’s my evidence. And this is the main point that you should walk away with or believe now that I’ve presented this evidence. But personal statements are really different.

And so when choosing your prompt, like you need to think instead of, you know, Trying to prove something. It’s more so about thinking about the kind of what part of yourself or your life that is most important to who you are and that you want to share. So for some people, they feel like I’m really been defined by like this.

like adversity that I faced as a child. Maybe it was something like, you know, you develop, you like moved around a lot when you were a kid. Like maybe your, your parents were in the military and so you had to figure out how to make new friends because you were constantly switching schools. And now you feel like, you know, you’re really open minded because you’ve been around so many different communities and different types of people.

Or maybe it’s like, you know, I have dyslexia or have ADHD and that. you know, affected the way that I learned and I had to develop certain skills so that I could be successful in school. But you want to think about What part of you do you think is most important to who you are? Or do you think maybe isn’t reflected in other aspects of your application that would be valuable for them to share?

And sometimes if you don’t know what that thing is, that’s really important to who you are, that really defined you sometimes before you even get this, get started or choose the prompt, it can be helpful to even just ask like your friends and your family, what things do you think of when you. Think of me.

Um, and so consider once you’ve identified that consider the prompt that you feel kind of compliments. those traits. So if it’s like, like I said, an adversity that you’ve overcome and you feel like that really defines who you are, then you may want to choose the prompt about an obstacle that you overcame.

But if you maybe have had like a really big change in terms of how you view the world, like your mind was blown when you studied abroad or something like that, or you went on a vacation, then maybe you want to choose a prompt that talks about how a belief was changed or something like that, but choosing a prompt that kind of compliments.

The thing that is A defining characteristic of who you are. Um, and then also choosing a prompt that feels natural for you to write about. So I hear all the time from students like, oh, I don’t have a quote unquote sob story. I don’t have this really big tragedy that happened to me. My life for the most part has been really Quote unquote normal like there’s there’s nothing traumatic that has happened to me in my life.

And you definitely don’t have to write about that. I think that for whatever reason students saw the prompt about, you know, overcoming a challenge or an obstacle. And some students think that’s the only thing that they can talk about. But if you don’t have one of those. You don’t have to write about it.

If you have just like a thing that you’re really passionate about and you’re really interested in, then choose the prompt about talking, like a topic that you’re interested in or passionate about. Don’t make the job harder for yourself by choosing the prompt that you think you’re quote unquote supposed to write about.

You can have an exceptional essay regardless of the prompt that you choose, you just want it to be focused. Um, And then think about the prompt that it’s going to allow you to share a unique or compelling story. And that does not mean you have to tell a story of the wildest, craziest, most unexpected thing that happened to you.

It’s more so about how you reflect on that thing. So, Maybe your unique thing is you really value the walks that you go on with your dog, but the way that you share the story about going on walks with your dogs, like, only you probably take that specific route with your dog. There are specific things that you interact with on that walk or specific things that you think about that no one else could really share.

So, Even if it’s something that is somewhat mundane, or you feel like a lot of people experience, the details are what are going to allow you to share a unique or compelling story that could only be told by you. Is there anything you would want to add to that, Anna?

Anna: Um, I think you covered that all so well.

I’ll just add what I think is the flip side to your point about the challenge prompt, which is even if you do have something very traumatic, in your background, you do not have to write about it. It’s okay to not address it at all. It’s okay to just mention it briefly. You should not share anything in this essay that you’re not really comfortable putting out there.

Um, so I think it goes both ways. You don’t have to write about it if you have the experience and it’s okay if you don’t have the experience. Um, so we wanted to

show, and this is just a suggestion, Um, but the suggestion that CollegeAdvisor gives for a timeline for writing your essays, I love seeing that we have juniors in the room because you are right in this spot where we suggest that you start brainstorming topics for your personal statement. So bold star for being here today.

Um, by brainstorming now, that will allow you over the summer when school slows down and you have hopefully some more spare time. And start drafting and workshopping your personal statement so that by the beginning of your senior year, you’re walking into school, the new school year, with a personal statement, pretty ready to go.

It’s okay if you still want to get a little more feedback on it, but have it pretty ready to go because we haven’t mentioned this yet. If you’re not aware, A lot of colleges will have what’s called supplemental essays. So in addition to this personal statement, which is 650 words, typically, um, they might ask you to write any number of additional essays.

I would say typically averages like two to five. You think that’s right, Lydia? Um, it really varies by school. So getting a personal statement done by the end of junior year summer, then opens up time for you to Start working on those supplementals, uh, so that you’re seeing your fall when I’m telling you life just picks up speed.

I think things get more exciting and busier. Um, you’re not needing to spend all of your time writing essays. Uh, you can workshop those supplementals, get that final feedback on your personal statement, and then be confidently ready to submit. Um, depending on when you’re applying, sometime in November through January.

So that’s our suggestion. Um, that’s the suggestion that I think we should get on. Anything to add on the timeline, Lydia?

Lydia: Not really. I mean, I think that this is a really great guide. I know that, um, there’s always going to be like a section of students. I can definitely say this as a teacher who worked, like, I don’t need to plan this out super far in advance.

I’m great at writing essays last minute. I do it for school all the time and I get good grades, and I just would like to push back on that if there’s anyone on this webinar who is thinking that. That may be true for you. Like you may truly be one of the students who like you can crank out quality stuff, uh, in a short period of time.

But I think for the personal statement it’s different and it’s worth doing it farther in advance. Because even if you are a student who Can write great essays for school quickly, um, writing a great personal statement for most high school students. It’s going to be a type of writing that you haven’t really done before.

Like, At 17 years old, I doubt that you have written a memoir in your life where you’ve had to reflect on your life experiences and share how they’ve made you the person that you are and how they influence the way that you view the world, right? And so, Because you haven’t, most likely, gotten experience doing that kind of writing, which is very different than writing a report on a book or making an argument about, you know, the motivations of a character that you read about in English class, it’s going to take a little bit more time to do it well.

And you shouldn’t hold yourself to an expectation that you should be able to do an essay like this really well in, like, a couple of days. because most people can’t and some people just will always struggle with it to some extent. And then also on top of that, even if you are someone who is really good at like a more creative writing type of style, this type of writing also just takes a lot of personal reflection and a deep understanding of who you are as a person and what you want in life.

So even if you are really good with words, you’re really good at, you know, having a clear, outline or structure to the writing that you do. If you haven’t taken the time, the personal time, to just think about who you are, you’re not a, or you’re not a super introspective person, you’re not a person who’s constantly reflecting on your life and your experiences and things like that.

Doing that pre work, that brainstorming part, is oftentimes the hardest part, um, because This is the first time that you’ve probably been asked or had the agency in your life to actually think about what you want for yourself, and how do you want to get it? And what do you believe? Not what your parents believe, but what do you believe as a person?

What do you think is right right or wrong? And so the more time that you give yourself to do all those things, the better your essay will be.

Anna: Yes, Lydia, I feel like I could piggyback your ideas. all night long because I, I just, I so agree. Um, and when you’re talking about, you know, maybe in high school, you can get these essays out really quickly.

I’m willing to bet for, especially if you’re here attending this webinar, your college applications have a higher stake for you than one high school essay, than one grade. Um, so that’s one reason right there to put more time into it and good, the best writers, very famous published authors say good writing is rewriting.

The first thing they write is not what gets published, is not what becomes a bestseller. They have editors, they’re getting feedback, um, so really we believe it should be a process that takes time and that includes a lot of thought.

Um, so in terms of getting started, we suggest you start by brainstorming. What does that mean? I like to encourage my students, once they’ve sort of figured out what they think their personal brand or candidate profile is, I, we use those terms kind of interchangeably, um, What I mean by that is admissions readers on a first pass are maybe spending 12 to 15 minutes on your application, maybe fewer on the first pass.

It’s not a lot of time. And also lists, grades, things like that, really hard to remember when you’re reading a hundred applications a day. It is easy to remember is more high level themes and stories. So ask yourself, and I encourage you to do this with a CollegeAdvisor, guidance counselor, or someone who knows you well.

What couple of things do you want the first person who reads your application to remember about you at the end of the day? If they’re walking in their cars, they’re making dinner at home, what do you want them to remember about you? It’s going to need to be some pretty high level things, like you are an advocate, and you are justice oriented, and you Our creative thinker.

High level things. So be thinking about what your brand is, what, what themes sort of make you. You tie your experiences together. And then as you’re living your life, be mindful of moments, people, activities that feel kind of special, kind of momentous to you. Um, and these do not need to be TV worthy. For one of my, uh, students, her dad made an offhanded comment about, oh, that thing they just did, they don’t have any common sense, super mundane moment.

But my client took that statement and asked herself, what even is common sense? What is sense? And she went down this research path online and ended up discovering this passion for philosophy. Right? So like the most boring moment, but it was meaningful to her and it made a really good personal statement.

So, um, it also doesn’t have to be like a big revelation like that. But my point is that any moment that feels meaningful to you feels like you’re learning something about yourself. That’s a good potential topic for your essay. Write it down when you notice it, because it’s hard to pull these things out of thin air.

So if you have a running list, uh, you will think yourself later, especially because, as we mentioned, there’s not just one essay for all of these applications. Some have additional ones. Um, so jot them down. I, I switched my own order. I’m sorry. I talked about candidate profile first. Um, keep your candidate profile in mind as you’re.

Jotting down these experiences and then looking at that list, pick something that is going to allow you to highlight your brand, your, your candidate profiles, two to three things you want the admissions reader to remember about you at the end of the day. If you can convey those things by describing one of the experiences, people or activities on your brainstorming list, pick that topic.

Occasionally I’ll have a student who reads a prompt and it just like totally inspires them and it brings to mind an event that they want to write about. I think usually it happens in the other direction though where you need to think about what you want to convey and then think about a topic that will convey those things and then find the prompt that best aligns with that story.

So once you’ve done all this work, and it is a lot of work, it’s a lot of thought and introspection. When you can start outlining your essay, your outline is for you. It does not need to be beautiful. It doesn’t even need to make sense to anyone else, but get your ideas in order and just sort of lay out the structure of how you want the essay to go.

As you’re doing this, please read and reread and reread and reread again the prompt that you’ve chosen. I know I have. I’m sure Lydia has read. A lot of essays that are pretty good essays, but I get to the end and I think, wait, what? Which prompt are they answering? And then I go look and, and they miss a component of it.

You don’t want to do that. Uh, so make sure you read the prompt and you’re addressing it really clearly. Then start writing. I really believe the first sentence you write is always the hardest. So, I encourage students to just get it out there and don’t make it pretty. Don’t worry about that. Just start writing stream of consciousness, get the ideas flowing, then you can start compiling those thoughts, maybe condensing them, cleaning them up into a first draft.

Again, still not worrying about perfection. Good writing is rewriting. The hardest draft I think is the first one to get. Get the structure, get the story laid out, draft something, and then there’s all sorts of things we can talk about, tips on what to do next, um, but I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves.

So I’m going to pause there and ask Lydia if she has anything to add.

Lydia: No, I think you covered this part really well.

So we’re gonna take a another brief pause to do, um, Our next poll, which is where are you in the college application process? And like Anna said for the previous question, if you’re here representing someone else or supporting someone as a parent, just feel free to respond with whatever you think your student would say.

But Anna, I asked you the same question you asked me earlier, which is, uh, what was your personal statement about when you were applying to college?

Anna: Yeah. So, um, ironically, given everything we’ve talked about, I did write about a personal, uh, matter in my family that was really difficult for everyone. And I got a lot of feedback on it.

And a lot of the feedback was, why are you talking so much about? Your brother or your mom, you’ve got to focus on you. So I really had to work and rework it to center the whole story around my experience. What I saw, how I reacted, how I felt. Um, and I’m very grateful for that feedback. Made it a lot stronger.

Lydia: Yeah, I think that that is. Very common feedback that a lot of students get, especially when talking about like family issues or, you know, difficult things that they’ve gone through. And sometimes it comes up in the gratitude prompt this as well when they’re talking about like, Oh, I’m so grateful for my mom, like it.

It can be difficult sometimes when you’re talking about how the people in your life have influenced you or made you the person that you are, because you want to describe them enough so that people understand, but it’s also a fine line because the essay is meant to be about you and not other people, so you really want to think with every sentence that you’re writing, is this information actually helping them to learn more about me?

So even if the topic is how my mom made me who I am, we should still walk away knowing more about you and knowing the essay is about you and not a love letter to your mom or whoever this person was that influenced you. Um, but looking at our responses now, we’ve got 18 percent who haven’t started, 45 percent who are still researching schools.

That’s 27 percent who are currently working on their essays, and then 9 percent that are getting their application materials together. So it seems like a lot of you are, you know, in the right spot! You’re getting started, you’re starting to research schools and work on your essays, and this is a great time to be thinking about, you know, the steps that you need to take to make your essay stronger, and how to choose the right prompt for you.

Anna: Yes, good. Good job, everyone. Uh, there’s some do’s on writing your personal statements. The most important thing is to be authentic, right in your own voice. Um, stay true to yourself. As Lydia said, they’re not, colleges aren’t looking for only the top of the top of the top students. They’re not looking just at grades.

They want students on campus who they’re going to enjoy walking by every day and saying hi to in the cafeteria. They’re looking for their community, so show them who you are. Um, so they can see you’re someone they would love to see around campus. As I think we’ve covered pretty thoroughly, it doesn’t need to be a sob story.

or some amazing adventure. It does need to be true to you. I say write in your own voice and it’s a professional context. So that voice also needs to sound professional. Um, so you need to have proper grammar. Um, it’s okay. And I think Great. A lot of times to have a conversational tone in your essay. Um, but it shouldn’t look like it needs to, it needs to still have some level of professionalism to it.

We really advise that you focus on depth. So instead of, you know, describing every single thing you’ve done one or two moments and dive deep into them or those topics, um, to show, you know, why they were meaningful. What it, what it tells the readers about you as a person. Show, don’t tell. I write that I think on pretty much every essay I review.

And because I’m saying that I feel like I need to show you what I mean instead of just telling you that. So I had a student once Start an essay with sharing my writing with others has always scared me. I don’t think that’s a bad intro I think it’s still a bit high level. So I asked them we were in a meeting I asked them a lot of questions like what what does that mean?

What did it look like? Can you think of a time when you notice that about yourself and really encourage them to make that? Sentence more illustrative to draw the reader in And after some workshopping, where it ended up was, Second grade, hands shook as I approached Mrs. Sanchez’s desk with a handwritten essay.

So, it’s conveying that sharing their writing was intimidating, was scary, but it’s putting the reader right in their shoes. That’s what I mean by show, don’t tell. Revise thoroughly, ask folks for feedback, Give it a lot of reads yourself, I think that requires taking time away, which is another reason to start early, right?

I think we’ve all had the experience of reading something we’ve written so many times in a row that it doesn’t make any sense anymore. You reach that point, you need to take a break, come back. I do encourage students, and I know this is a hard thing to do, to read their essay out loud. You can go in a room where no one else can hear you.

Last log music, whatever you need to do, read it out loud, because one, it’s a good way to find typos. And two, it will tell you if it sounds like you. If it feels really foreign coming out of your mouth, then there are probably a lot of opportunities to go back and infuse more of your voice into it. And then every word counts.

I said this earlier, uh, every sentence should be adding something new to your application. And every sentence should be conveying something about you, as a person.

Anything to add, Lydia?

Lydia: Yeah, I mean, I think you hit, uh, all the main things, but I would elaborate on the show don’t tell by just saying, you know, I think that reading, uh, creative writing, like reading fiction, or reading other, um, people’s like, memoirs, or even poetry to some extent, um, can help you to be more effective at writing a personal statement because I think that sometimes students assume that a personal statement either is supposed to sound like a school book report or they think it’s supposed to sound like their diary and it’s really not supposed to sound like either of those things because You want to make this, while personal statements are not just like something that you’re doing just to keep admissions officers entertained, you do have to keep in mind that they’re reading a lot of these.

And so, you know, the more enjoyable, the more engaging that you make your essay, the more you show rather than telling. your story, the more interested they’re going to be in reading it and the more attention they’re going to pay to what you actually have to say. So, like the example that Anna gave of like describing your hand shaking as you turn in your paper, right?

That’s more engaging than just being like, I’ve always been nervous, you know, asking people for feedback on my writing and stuff like that. Because imagine if you were reading a book and they were trying to get you to imagine a character, understand a character and who they are and what they believe in and stuff like that.

You’re going to be more interested in the book that puts you in the scene and helps you to really, you know, Imagine it in your mind’s eye, rather than an author who does not provide any sort of imagery, no real description, and just tells you, she was scared. She was thinking this, she was thinking that.

It’s more interesting to be able to picture in your mind, oh, they’re feeling this way because I’m, you know, hearing this description of, you know, the way that their body was responding or the trembling in their voice or whatever. So, you know, if you’re someone who is an avid reader, it can be helpful to kind of just look at other examples of, People’s work or even looking up examples of other personal statements that have been really well received.

So you have a model of how to, like, model or shape your writing as well, if you haven’t done this kind of work before.

So, Uh, and I did the positive. I’m gonna do the negative now. Uh, the don’ts of writing a personal statement. A big one is avoiding cliches, and I don’t want this one to scare you. I know sometimes students think that that means that there’s like a set bucket of things that you can never talk about, and that’s not what avoiding cliches necessarily means.

Um, you like, You want to try not to use a bunch of overused phrases. Yes, there are terms of phrase that, you know, we use in the English language that are somewhat common. And sometimes you may want to use them. But your whole essay should not just be a collection of common idioms in the English language, right?

Like, it shouldn’t just be a bunch of things like, oh, you know, slow and steady runs the race. That shouldn’t be the exact terminology or the exact wording that you’re using in your essay. Even if that is like, if I were reading your essay and that’s what I could take away from it, if I were summarizing it to someone else, you should put that in your own words.

Right? You shouldn’t be using a bunch of phrases from other people’s work or like just idioms that are commonly used left and right throughout your essay, because we want this to be your own personal reflection. We want to show that this is like your unique understanding of who you are or your experience or whatever.

So using your own words and not other people’s words is really important. And then also when it comes to the predictable narratives. Yes, there are certain topics that are discussed more often than some other topics, um, when admissions officers are reading essays, right? Like, there are a lot of students who choose to write about sports, for example.

There are a lot of students, especially in previous years, I imagine it’s decreasing more with each year, but definitely in previous years, there are a lot of students who have chosen to write about COVID 19 and how it affected their education or how it affected their mental health. And that doesn’t mean that you can’t write about those things, but if you’re doing a topic that is somewhat predictable or done very frequently, very commonly, you want to make sure that what you’re about to say is going to be something that is really specific to your experience and that you’re providing details that make your story different from the possibly a hundred other essays that that admissions officer may have already read that are talking about something very similar.

I think it can be really detrimental for a student. to write a personal statement that for them may feel really important, but it’s a topic that is so common that their, their personal statement ends up just kind of running together with all the other essays that that admissions officer has already read just because there’s so much overlap.

So again, like if sports are truly like the thing that you feel define who you are as a person, I’m not saying that you can’t do it, but you just want to make sure that if you’re talking about it, that you’re. approaching it from an angle that is unique to you and your experience. Um, also skipping, like don’t get super general or have like vague statements or topics that could apply to anyone.

This is kind of similar to like the cliches. Um, like for example, when students talk about sports, a common pitfall I see that makes their essay just too general and feel like anyone could have is they basically say like, I love sports because Sports help you learn how to work together as a team. I love sports because it helped me to learn how to, you know, value healthiness and value, like taking care of my body.

None of that is something that is particularly unique to your experience with sports, right? Almost any person that played a sport as a child or as a teenager took away that exact same lesson, right? Um, and I can say that I played sports in high school, but I didn’t, it wasn’t something that was a huge part of my identity, but if I had wanted to write an essay, I could have said that exact same thing.

So making sure that you, um, really being as specific as possible, not being super general, providing those details is really important. Um, another thing is you don’t want to get too comfortable. Um, this kind of connects what I was saying about, like, you don’t want your essay to be the same as your diary.

So, don’t feel like you need to share the most traumatic or heartbreaking experience that you’ve faced in your life. You aren’t going to get brownie points by just like trauma dumping or sharing about the worst things that have happened in your life. What you get brownie points for is just being authentic, authentic.

And having a clear idea of who you are and, you know, where you want to go. So don’t feel like you have to share something that’s super personal or super embarrassing. Also, even though it’s a different kind of writing, it is more personal. You don’t want to use like a bunch of slang or sound too casual in the way that you’re speaking, because at the end of the day, you don’t know.

This admissions officer who is reading your essay. So don’t assume that they know certain things or are familiar with certain things unless it’s a truly common, you know, topic or experience. Um, and also don’t assume that they agree with you on everything. So maybe you’re like really progressive, for example, like you’re a Democrat, don’t assume that you, that the admissions officer that’s reading your essay is also a Democrat and say like, Oh yeah, any person who, you know, believes this or believes that they, they are just like ignorant or something like that because you don’t know.

Um, so yeah, definitely don’t assume things, be respectful of all perspectives, even if you are talking about your personal beliefs, um, and make sure that you’re. You have a clear vision for what you want to say. Don’t try and cover too many topics, um, in one essay. Is there anything you would want to add to that, Anna?

Anna: I’ll just say quickly, because I’m noticing the clock. And when you were talking about cliches, I was chuckling to myself, because I think students get, I see it happen frequently, where they get their story out, there’s some unique thing there. And then they get to the conclusion and they’re like, Oh, I have to tie it up.

And I think they get a little rushed and that’s where I see the most cliches come in with statements like, I’m going to make the world a better place. I’m going to improve healthcare. I’m going to do this. That’s really high level, make the world a better place. That’s pretty cliche. Um, so drill down on that.

Ask yourself what you actually want to do in the medical field. It’s okay if it ends up changing. Um, yeah, I think that’s, that’s, that’s where I see the most cliches. Yeah, definitely. Oops, sorry.

Okay, I got it. Okay. Um, okay, this one’s quick. Who should pre proofread your essay? Hopefully there are a lot of folks in your life you feel comfortable asking. English teachers are a great resource, your guidance counselor, any trusted friend or family member, your CollegeAdvisor. We love reading your essays.

Um, be mindful of who you ask. And how many people you ask when I applied to law school, I was a little antsy and I counted. I think I had 20 people read it. If you have that many people read it, you’re going to get conflicting opinions. And I did. It ended up being helpful for me because it told it kind of forced me to decide what my voice was and what I wanted to share.

But it was too many people. Like don’t, that was too extra. Um, two to three, one to two, that’s fine. Um, don’t overwhelm yourself. Don’t be like me. That’s all I have to say on this slide, Lydia.

Lydia: I, I definitely agree. Just, whoever you pick. Be one to two, two to three definitely is, is the way to go. Um, and then for final tips like a lot of this we already covered but definitely starting early, and that’s just important because it allows you to, you know, stay organized and keep track of the different drafts, like Anna said.

Good writing is rewriting. So, starting early and staying organized allows you to incorporate that practice, um, and it also gives you a little bit of freedom where if you realize, like, oh, this really isn’t it, like, I don’t like this topic, you can have more time to actually revisit the direction that you go versus if you wait until the end.

It can be really difficult to do that. Um, and also, like, there’s benefits to taking breaks, like stepping away from things and coming back to it. So starting early allows you to take a break and then come back to your work with fresh eyes and realize, like, Oh, maybe this part wasn’t that clear, or maybe this part didn’t really make sense, or this portion isn’t really necessary for me to include so that I can focus more on this other part that’s a little bit undeveloped.

And like, be resilient. I know it can be really vulnerable to share your writing with other people and ask for them to pick it apart, but you know, don’t take those things personally. I know it can be hard, but if you’re asking the right people to read your work, They’re giving you that feedback because they care, not because they think that your story in and of itself is bad.

It’s just that they want it to be something that other people can relate to and that they can understand. But definitely make sure that you’re asking for feedback. I cannot tell you how many times students, you know, they think that something makes sense, but when someone who is not from their world or is not, you know, in the activities that they participate and reads it, they immediately like can say, this doesn’t make sense to me.

So it’s really important to ask for opinions from other people besides yourself. Don’t be afraid to share it with other people because they’re going to be able to catch those spots where maybe you didn’t realize that you could have explained something more or, you know, you maybe needed to phrase something a little bit more different, um, for it to be clear.

Anna: Awesome. So we have a few minutes left for Q and A. Um, if your Q& A tab isn’t working, please just make sure you join the webinar through the custom link we got via email. You might need to log out and log back in. Um, but Lydia, I’m going to throw one your way, if you don’t mind. Okay, sure. Does the essay need to be related to your major or your career interests?

Lydia: No, not necessarily. Like, um, There are a lot of essays that can be really strong that are completely different from what a person is interested in majoring in. I always say that if it’s difficult for an admissions officer to tell that you’re really interested in or passionate about your major when looking at your extracurriculars or your courses, then it may be a good idea to talk about your major to some extent in your personal statement.

But if they can gather that from other parts of your application, you know, maybe you want to do pre med and there’s a ton of STEM stuff in your academics and a ton of STEM stuff in your extracurriculars, it can be refreshing to, you know, talk about something different for your personal statement that shows your personality.

rather than just your credentials for the program. So yeah, like keep your options open. I’m just gonna remind you all also that CollegeAdvisor has a team of Over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts like Anna and myself who are ready to help you and your family navigate the college admissions process and one on one advising sessions, and we’ve already helped over 6,000 clients in their college journey.

And in our 2021 to 2023 data, we found that CollegeAdvisor students were two to four times more likely to get into colleges like Stanford, Vanderbilt, and Harvard. Increase your odds and take the next step in your college admissions journey by signing up for a free 45 to 60 minute strategy session with an admissions specialist on our team using the QR code on the screen.

During this meeting, you’ll receive a preliminary assessment of your academic profile, along with some initial recommendations. In the end. You’ll also learn more about the premium packages that we offer that pair you with an expert who can support you in building your college list, editing your essays, and much more.

Okay. And Anna, I’m going to ask you one quick question is, so If a student does have, you know, a really difficult background and maybe that affected their ability to perform in school or perform in extracurriculars, should they automatically choose to pursue the prompt about talking about their challenges so they can explain that in their personal statement?

Or is it better to address that in the additional essay section instead? It’s

Anna: a great question. Um, the essay is definitely one place to do it. I would ask yourself if putting it in your personal statement is going to allow you to highlight those couple of things that you want the readers to remember about you at the end of the day.

If the answer is no, or you don’t want to write about it, I would strongly encourage you to talk to someone who’s writing a letter of recommendation for you. Um, I think that’s a great place to get these in. I think in a lot of ways it holds even more credibility if the teacher says, no, no, really, I saw like they were going through this thing.

Um, and that impacted their grades, it is more than appropriate to ask your letter writers to address specific things that you know they have seen you go through. Um, so you could do it there, or like you said, you could do it in the additional states.

Lydia: That’s really helpful information. Okay. Well, thank you all for coming out tonight. I know I had a great time talking about this with you, Anna.

Anna: Yeah, so did I, Lydia. I told you we could do this all night.

Lydia: Yeah. All right. So, uh, this is our calendar for our May webinars. I’m looking forward to hopefully having some of you join us in our future sessions for the rest of the month, and I hope that all of you have a great night.

Thank you for joining us.