Writing About Extracurriculars in Your College Essays

Webinar Transcription

2023-12-05 – Writing About Extracurriculars in Your College Essays

Anesha: Hi, everyone, and welcome to tonight’s webinar. My name is Anesha Grant. I am a senior advisor at CollegeAdvisor, and I will be a moderator today. Tonight’s webinar is, “Writing About Extracurriculars in Your College Essays.” Before we get started. I just want to orient everyone with the webinar timing. We will start with the presentation and our speaker will share some thoughts.

So I’m going to be talking about some guidance and tips, and then we will answer your questions in a live Q&A on the sidebar. You can download our slides under the handouts tab, and you can start submitting your questions in the Q&A tab before meet our panelists. Just a reminder that today’s session will be recorded.

And if you are a CollegeAdvisor student, you can access the recording tomorrow via the website that is posted in the sticky under the chat. So remember to take a look at that. If you are interested in re watching tonight’s session. Now, let’s meet our panelists in a high end. How are you? I’m great. I’m great.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.

Anna: I have been a CollegeAdvisor for two years. This is my third round of seniors, which is very exciting. Um, I studied psychology, graduated from Carnegie Mellon in 2015. Thought I was going to pursue clinical psychology. Um, took a few years off in the workforce and ended up in law school. Um, I graduated from law school about two years ago and am now a non profit attorney in Pittsburgh in addition to the work that I love with CollegeAdvisor.

I’m also with CollegeAdvisor. A team captain on our essay review team. So let me tell you this topic is near and dear to my heart. I love essays. I love talking about them. So I’m happy to be here.

Anesha: All right. We’re looking forward to hearing from you. Before I let you get started, we’re going to do a quick poll.

So for those who are in the room with us, please let us know what great. You’re in if you’re a parent or a teacher, we’re happy to have you, but you can go ahead and select other. You don’t have to select the grade or grade level for the person. You might be representing usually when we have polls. I like to ask the question.

So, um, as we’re waiting and I’m wondering for you, I always talk about food. So which town do you feel has the best food between Boston and Pittsburgh? I’ve never been to Pittsburgh. I’ve heard the sausages or the hot dogs are amazing, but, um. I guess, where for you, which locale is doing more, more things with food for you?

Anna: Interesting question. I honestly expected the food to be better in Boston.

Anesha: In my experience, it was not. I prefer it in Pittsburgh. With the one exception of pizza. Pittsburgh’s a weird city when it comes to pizza. Not the biggest food. And New England, just, that’s, I grew up there. Yeah, this pizza was better for me, but that’s a fun question.

Anesha: Um, honestly, I, I will say I, again, I’ve not been to Pittsburgh, but I do think Boston does pizza better. I was going to assume we did pizza better than the Pittsburgh would. So I’m glad you affirmed that for me. And now I know not to go to Pittsburgh expecting that. Um, but, but yeah, I really, I really love Carnegie Mellon as one of the top 10 schools on my list. And so I would love to hear a little bit more about your experience, but not tonight. Um, but anyway, we’ll go ahead and close our poll. Um, and just so you know, uh, we actually have a fairly even split. So we have a 14 percent or 9th grade, 10%. I’m sorry, another 14 percent are in the 10th grade.

The majority of folks with us are 11th graders, 43%. And then we have, it seems, a couple parents or teachers in the audience. So no 12th graders. So everybody is kind of anticipating what they will have to write, um, over the next couple of years and how to start thinking about their extracurriculars. So, all right, I will stop talking.

I will hand it over to you and I’ll be back a little bit later.

Anna: Thank you so much. Um, okay. So for starters, where in your application do you even talk about your extracurriculars? Um, and I should mention that the, the title of these sections I took from the common app. Um, if you’re not familiar yet, A lot of, most of the colleges you’re applying to will let you apply using either the Common App or the Coalition App.

Several are on both. Um, that’s not what we’re here to talk about tonight, but just know that these titles are from the Common App. They’re very similar to the ones on the Coalition App, um, but that’s, that’s where these titles are from. So, the first obvious place to talk about your extracurriculars is in this section called Activities.

Work family responsibilities section. I’m going to dig into that title a little more in a couple slides because there’s a lot in that. You can also talk about them under academic honors and achievements in your personal statement. If you’re not familiar, the personal statement is the main essay, usually around 600, 650 words.

It’s going to go to. All the colleges you’re applying to. And that’s really like the main piece of writing that you’re sending to colleges. Some colleges require additional essays. They call them supplemental essays. Um, they might be specific to the college. They might be about an extracurricular you’ve done.

Um, they might be very open ended. It just depends. Um, and then a place I think a lot of people don’t

If there’s something that you think is not going to be covered deeply in your application, or something that you think would just be better if someone else spoke to, um, it is okay, and I advise my students to ask the people writing their letters to be specific about what they want them to write about.

So, if there was an extracurricular activity you were involved in. Thank you. that you thought, you know, that story would come better from someone else, you might ask one of your letter writers to We’re going to focus on essays tonight, because that’s what we’re here to talk about, but I just wanted to outline at the beginning, um, that this, these are all the places where you can talk about your extracurriculars.

Here, just to give you an overview, this is what CollegeAdvisor suggests for a timeline for writing your essays. If this timeline doesn’t align with what you’ve done, don’t panic, breathe, um, you’ll be fine. Um, and actually since we have no seniors here, I don’t think that should happen for anyone, which is great.

Um, so we really recommend that you start brainstorming topics for your primary essay and personal statement, um, in the spring of your junior year. So I know there’s some juniors here coming up in a couple months. Um, then junior summer, uh, we suggest drafting that first essay. That might feel early. I’m telling you, you will appreciate yourself later if you do that.

Um, because then at the end of junior year, you can, you know, the junior summer, you can finalize that personal statement and start writing the supplementals so that you have senior fall to get feedback on them. Thank you to do any revisions that are needed and to make all your deadlines.

So why is this a title of a webinar here? Why does it make sense to extracurriculars? I think maybe one of the most obvious reasons is that in the activity section, you are very limited in what you can say. Um, on the common app, it’s a hundred and fifty characters. I used to to say about the length of a tweet, but that will date me if you know anything about the history of Twitter and X.

Um, very short.

So the essays, writing about it in your essay, will really allow you to expand and provide more detail. Another reason to write about them is to just highlight the activities that are really important to you. Um, something that you want to stand out more than it will on your activities list. And then. I think one of the most fun reasons to write about extracurriculars is they’re a good source of really interesting stories.

I’m going to get into in a bit why stories are so important and what I mean by stories. Um, extracurriculars are a place where generally students are really engaged, they’re doing fascinating things, they’re following their passions. Um, it’s a good source of stories.

We, I find my students Often thinking of extracurriculars in a bit of a limited way, I’m not going to read through this whole list here, but I just wanted to point out that on the Common App, when you enter in an extracurricular, you have to categorize it. From a drop down list. And this is that drop down list.

I want to point out how broad it is, um, things that my students often think aren’t thinking about are religious engagements, family responsibilities. So if you’re helping with your siblings, with your parents, grandparents. Family members in the house, if you have a job, anything that you are doing that is not going to class, and it’s not like playing video games in a very like casual way, um, is something that you could potentially, so if it’s important to you, if you do it, if you’re spending time on it, that’s appropriate and relevant to talk about.

None of these are favored more than others. I have students who get worried like I’m not doing the right types of extracurriculars. Um, I don’t know why. I don’t know who’s telling students that some clubs look better than others. That’s really not true. What they’re looking for is your level of engagement, um, and a passion.

So, how do you write a meaningful essay about your activities? I mentioned earlier the importance of telling a story. As best you can, put the reader in your shoes. Show them what you’re experiencing. Application readers spend maybe 5 to 12 minutes on the first pass, um, when they’re looking at applications.

So, They’re not going to remember every single detail. If you can tell a story, if you can help them see what you saw, hear what you heard, that sort of thing, that’s going to stick in their memory more because that’s how human brains work. We remember stories. So, step number one is to tell a story. I also think it can be helpful when talking about extracurriculars.

It depends on the prompt. So, it’s not. Always absolutely necessary, but I think it can be helpful to help your readers see the connection between this extracurricular you’re passionate about and what you want to do going forward. So, in college, maybe beyond college, and that connection does not need to be obvious on its face, for example, maybe you are in a cooking club.

Maybe in that cooking club you learned that you like deductive reasoning, and so you want to study math. Or maybe you had an interesting debate in cooking club, um, and you realize you want to be a lawyer. It can go any direction, uh, as long as you are honest, um, and looking for the story to tell that takes the reader from where they are.

You are to where you’re going. Starting the writing process. I know it can be overwhelming. It can be intimidating. Please, as you’re thinking about what to write in your essays, anytime an idea comes to you, write it down in a notebook, on your phone, wherever works best for you. Keep a record of the ideas that you have because you might have an idea that you think that’s probably not going to work, but maybe once you talk to someone about it, maybe your CollegeAdvisor or a teacher, they’ll help you see.

Yeah, you know what? There is a story here. There’s something interesting. So write every idea down. Um, things to be looking for is your goal. navigating your own life. Um, if you have a moment in school and a club and an extracurricular, that’s just really meaningful to you, um, write that down. And then as you’re thinking about how to turn it into an essay, think about, you know, how, how did that moment shape you?

How did it change how you’re thinking about the world? That sort of thing. And at the same time, think about what we call a candidate profile. I’ve heard it called a personal narrative or a brand. As I mentioned earlier, application readers on the first pass don’t get to spend a lot of time per application.

So when they’re going home at the end of the day, think of one to three high level themes that you want them to remember about you and that tie your story together. By high level, I mean things like They are creative, they are advocates, and they are dedicated. High level, themes that you want to um, keep consistent and convey throughout your whole application.

So these are things to just keep in mind as you’re brainstorming ideas for what to write about.

I started to get into this a bit earlier when I talked about telling stories. A good essay really shows.

So to show you what I mean, instead of telling you, here is an example. You could start an essay by saying, sharing my writing with others has always scared me. That’s true. It’s honest. It’s a little vulnerable. And it’s, it’s coming from this telling place. You’re telling the audience that it’s a fact.

Instead of that, you could show them it’s true by saying something like, my second grade hands shook. As I approached Mrs. Sanchez’s desk with a handwritten essay. So the same thing is conveyed, right, that sharing your writing was scary. But it puts us in your shoes. So you’re in second grade, your hands are shaking.

Okay, you must be scared and you’re going to hand in your writing. Um, that’s what I mean by showing versus

I mentioned earlier. Essays are good place to capture things that can’t be captured easily elsewhere. That’s particularly relevant for extracurriculars. Every word counts. What I mean by that is, I advise against spending a lot of words in your essay describing things like what the club is about. If you’re talking about debate club, you really don’t, and I think you shouldn’t, define what your debate club does.

Um, the readers will know, and that’s you using words. To describe something that isn’t you. Um, what makes a good essay at the end of the day is you and your voice. Um, SAT words are super fun and appropriate on the SAT. But for application essays, Readers want to hear what you sound like, your unique voices.

So when you’re revising and refining your essays, I definitely suggest taking time away, coming back and freshen your eyes. I think we’ve probably all reached a point with writing, uh, We’re like, I wrote this and I don’t even know what it means anymore. If you reach that point, you’re in 2D, take the night off, go for a walk, come back later with fresh eyes.

And as you’re reading through it, you can ask yourself these sorts of questions. Do I know what the theme is of this essay? What is it adding to my application? a pet peeve of mine. Look out for passive language. So, instead of saying, I was running to the beach, you could say, I ran to the beach or running to the beach, I saw, yada, yada, yada.

It will make your writing more active and it will almost always reduce word count, which is generally helpful. This, I think, is great advice and difficult to do. I feel Um, self conscious doing this still, but it really is powerful to read your essays out loud. You don’t have to do it in front of anyone.

Go in your room, close the door, private space, read it out loud. Does it sound like you? If not, how can you change it to bring your voice into it? Um, This next piece of advice is also difficult. Sharing our writing with others is a vulnerable thing to do and it’s super valuable, uh, with application essays.

So if you have family, friends, educators, CollegeAdvisor, uh, ask them for feedback and I encourage you to be Specific with them about the sort of feedback you’re looking for. So maybe you’re not sure if your theme is clear, you’re not sure if the conclusion sort of draws everything together. And then because these are people who know you, you can also ask them, Does this essay sound like me?

Does it capture my voice? Um, so those are some tips on

Anesha: Okay, I’m going to come back and do another quick poll, uh, to give you a little bit of a break. So our next poll is where are you in the college application process? The options are have started your researching schools. I hope folks are researching schools. Um, it’s okay. You have not started working on your essays as Anna shared.

Um, and I’m or you are getting application materials together. So let us know where you are in the process. Hopefully know what’s almost done, especially since we don’t have any seniors in the mix. Um, and I was also going to say one thing that your tips made me think about was especially when students start extracurriculars, meaning, like, if they’re a leader of an extracurricular in order to support your effort around or your advice around storytelling, I sometimes encourage my students to journal through events, especially if it’s the first time, so they can make note of what are challenges they’ve run into, how did they work through those challenges and those types of things.

So I just wanted to add that as an additional, I guess, piece of advice.

Anna: I love that suggestion. I’m going to encourage my students to journal too.

Anesha: I mean, it’s a hard thing if you don’t journal. It’s hard as a teenager to just start doing it. Especially because, you know, someone from your college told you to do so.

But I think it is a really good way, especially over time, to capture. Um, your experience within certain extracurriculars or just within certain events and have a point of reference to go back to when you have to sit down and write the essays, because there are a lot of essays. And so if you have some notes, um, and experiences that can help you build those stories, I think it’s a lot, it makes your life a lot easier.

As of starting the essay early.

I’ll go ahead and close our poll. Um, so it’s a pretty even split. So most of us haven’t started our research in schools. Um, one person is almost done. So congrats to that person who’s getting their way through. Um, and no stress for the folks who have not started. Hopefully this process will help you get some tips and, um, or if it’s nice presentation, we’ll give you some tips on how to get started and move forward in the process.

I will stop talking again. I’ll be back a little bit later where we open our questions. And again, please feel free to start submitting your questions whenever you get ready under the Q&A tab.

Anna: So, tips for describing yourself when talking about extracurriculars. If you’re in the activity section where you’re limited to 150 characters, think resume type writing, if you’ve built a resume. So you’re going to start with action words, led, developed, created, that sort of thing. Full sentences are not necessary.

They usually limit what you can share because of that character limit. Highlight any leadership roles that you’ve done. They don’t have to be formal roles, so maybe you weren’t elected to the board, um, but you, you co chaired an event or something. Um, focus on what you have done, not what the club is for or about.

So again, instead of telling me, a debate club, take you to different schools where you can debate topics with other students, focus on what you’ve done. So how many debates have you participated in? Any recognitions you’ve received? That sort of thing. Be specific about what you have done. None of that is bad advice when talking about extracurriculars in your essays, except for the full sentences.

You need to write in full sentences in your essays. But in terms of being specific and focusing on what you’ve done, not what the club is about, that’s all the same. But there’s where the storytelling comes in. There is where we want you to put us in your shoes. Um, and tell us, You know, something you’ve accomplished, something you’ve learned, how has participating in that extracurricular helped you grow and develop as a person?

Things to avoid, uh, I think I’ve made this point clear. Please don’t use a lot of space to describe the club or organization. I understand it’s a main thing. That no one’s heard of. You’re going to have to give a little background on it, but keep that as minimal as you can. Um, lists, accomplishments, uh, things you’ve done.

Those are great. On the honors section and the activity section, you don’t want your essays to read like a laundry list of things you’ve accomplished. That’s why we want to tell a story in your essay. I have negativity here. Um, but what I mean about that really is unconstructive critique. So, I would advise against a student saying something like, A French club at my school was terrible.

And, instead of that, what did you see in your French club? What, what concerned you? What did you do about it? Similarly, if you write about an activity that you don’t enjoy, or that you feel like you failed at initially, that’s okay. You just want to be thoughtful about how you framed it. So, okay, what happened that you consider a failure?

What did you learn about yourself from it? And how did you respond? in a positive way. How are you going to take what you’ve learned through that failure to be a more successful college student really is what they’re looking for.

So I read hundreds of messages every, every application season. Um, sure. Some things from my experience, really, you can relate almost. Anything back to your career or academic interest. Um, I had to do that myself when I applied to law school. My transcript, my resume, everything looked like I was into psychology, psychology, psychology.

Um, and then all of a sudden, I was into policy and law. But something changed in my life that, that made that true, and so I had to tell that story. Um, so you can relate almost anything back to your interest because everything you’ve done has led you to this point. Um, any amount of impact can be meaningful.

Um, so I think students feel a lot of pressure. To have this big, like, accomplishment to talk about or to show that they’ve really changed the world. Your story does not need to be TV worthy. There are interesting stories everywhere. Finding good ones for your essays will require reflection. Asking yourself what, what activities are most important to me, what moments stick out in my mind, why are they significant, that sort of thing.

Um, one essay that I read a year or two ago, truly, was not that remarkable when you look at the story. Um, the student was on the golf team. He, he thought it was going to be a solo sport, that’s why he wanted to do it. Really? There was actually a lot of teamwork involved, um, and he grew a lot as a person because of that.

So he was talking about golf. But the real focus was on his internal thought process and how he grew through participating in golf. That’s what I mean by there are interesting stories everywhere. Um, cause the essay was just about, on its surface, a regular day at the golf club.

Last, uh, pieces of, pieces of advice, which I think I’ve, I’ve mentioned already, but just to summarize before we move into the questions section, when you can show, don’t tell, um, give us a story, help us see how you experience the situation. Lists are great for the activity section. Please do not use your extracurricular essays.

Just list your accomplishments. Be genuine. Application readers are very, very good at picking out if you are just writing about this because you think it will impress. This is their job. They are good at it. BS detectors. So be genuine. Write about things you’re actually passionate about and then they’ll, that passion will be clear to them.

Just start writing when you’re ready. Just start. I tell my students, I think the hardest sentence they’re ever going to write for an essay is the first sentence. It’s a hard barrier. As much as you can sort of lower the bar for yourself and just get something on paper. You can always come back later and rewrite it, you can edit it, you’ll get feedback on it.

Um, good writing is rewriting, but it requires you to just start and put something on paper. As best you can, I know it can be a stressful time, but have fun. Um, really, writing about your extracurriculars should be you writing about the things you love the most. So let your passion shine through. Bring your voice to the essays and you can’t go wrong.

And that’s my spiel. I’d love to hear from you on it.

Anesha: Thank you, Anna. All right. So that is the end of the presentation part of our webinar. Uh, we hope you found it helpful and just remember that you can download the slides under the handouts tab. Um, I pinned it a little bit earlier for folks who might were having some trouble.

We’re going to move on to the live Q and A. So the way that it will work, I will read through the questions that you submit through the Q and A tab. I’ll paste them into the public chat so that everybody can see them, and then I’ll read them aloud to give Anna a chance to respond. If you’re having any issues with submitting questions, just know that you might have to log out, log back in through the link you received in your email and webinar landing page.

All right, so let’s get to some questions. So one of the first questions is does the activity that I do the activities that I have to write about all have to be related to my major or career interest?

Anna: Um, no, they don’t. And so I’m gonna say two things. One, make sure you read the prompts very carefully. I have read some essays this season where students have missed a part of the problem.

So I think the University of California this year, one of their questions was about, like, talk about next curricular year. And then how did that impact your A lot of students are missing that second part of that question. So make sure you read the full prompt. Make sure that talking about the extracurricular you’ve chosen addresses that.

If it asks about your future, then you need to tie it in. I think if you’re writing about something that On its face is completely unrelated to your academic, to your career interests. I challenge you to think of how it is. So I’ll use myself again. I thought psychology was completely unrelated to policy and law.

I had an advisor who. Challenged me on that and asked me to find ways that is similar. Um, okay. Psychology, law, they all involve people. Talking to people during stressful situations, trying to help people or convince people. So I bet you can find some connection between any interest you have in your future goals.

You might just need to take a step back and look at the higher level. It was a very long winded answer to a yes or no question.

Anesha: Well, that was helpful. And I will say I have to do that same explanation of what does, how, how does my job relate to other things and explaining my major, um, which was anthropology.

Um, uh, and explaining that to my parents of like, what does that mean? What do you do with it? How does it connect to education? Um, so yeah, definitely it’s a good practice and exercise you have to do, I think, repeatedly throughout your life. Um, okay. So someone said, I’ve read that one can use the additional information section to list accomplishments from activities.

Do you agree? Or I guess broadly, how do you think one should use the additional information section?

Anna: My feel is use the additional information section. You have additional information that cannot be captured elsewhere. So if you have completely run out of room in the honors, If you’re having folks edit it and help you pay back your character count, you could list them there. If there’s some, something about yourself that you just haven’t been able to get into any of your essays or your sections, yep, it’s fine to use that.

Remember, admissions readers are good BS detectors, so if it looks like you’re only using that section to make your application look longer, if anything, you’re going to annoy them. It’s there for you to use. You should absolutely use it if you have a good reason. The reason would be that like you genuinely couldn’t fit it elsewhere.

Um, our next question

Anesha: is, I like this question, does an activity have to be something where you produce something or can it consist of just reading or watching movies?

Anna: You don’t have to write about something that ends in, like,

What’s important is, so if you’re, if you’re writing about watching movies or reading, Why are you writing about that? It must be important to you. In what way is it important? Why are you watching all these movies? What are you doing as you watch them, after you watch them? Uh, are you critiquing them? Are you writing about it?

Are you getting inspired? For something you want to do, how is activity? How’s it meaningful to you? How’s it helping you grow as a person, high level? How’s it helping you get closer to your goals?

Anesha: Um, our next question is, should we write about an activity we did not enjoy or that we did not succeed, succeed in? I,

Anna: I touched on this, I think a bit towards the end. It’s totally fine. to write about something you didn’t enjoy or that you didn’t exceed, exceed at. You gotta be careful of your framing, uh, cause you don’t wanna sound just like ungrateful student who hated this one opportunity they had.

And the way to avoid that truly is putting us in your shoes. Okay, so you go to this club, things were said, it bothered you, what was said, why did it bother you? What did you do about it? How did you grow through that experience? And I think, if you do that, it can be a really strong essay. So I wouldn’t say to shy away from critiquing things or talking about a time you have failed.

You just gotta be careful with how you frame it and focus on what you’ve learned and how you’ve grown.

Anesha: This is a question from a parent. It says, for reasons, you’re My kid doesn’t have a lot of activities. What are the alternatives? What else could they be writing about?

Anna: Yeah, well, I don’t know the student’s particular situation.

I do think that there are a lot of things to write about that we don’t traditionally think of as activities. So when you’re not sleeping, when you’re not in school doing the things you’re legally required to do to be in school. You’re doing something. What is it? The questions about extracurriculars tend to be pretty broad and open ended for this reason.

Because colleges don’t want to exclude any sort of activity that a student might find meaningful. So if you look back at that list that’s in the slides about all the sorts of activities that they suggest you could talk about things like Family engagements, community events, really anything you’re doing that you’re not absolutely required to do counts as an extracurricular.

I don’t know what grade the student this question is about is in, um, but if they’re a freshman, sophomore, now could be a great time to look into, Ways to get more involved if you feel like you don’t have enough to write about in your applications. I always send students first and foremost to their guidance counselor.

If they need help finding an activity to get involved in, they tend to be connected. Definitely to the clubs within the school, but also to a lot of opportunities in the community. So if there’s something you’re looking to get involved in that your school doesn’t offer, they can be a great resource for helping you find that.

And follow your passions. Don’t sign up for, don’t do what I did, join every single club your high school has, because you think colleges want you to do that. They don’t. They don’t. They want to see you follow what you’re passionate about. And get involved and engaged there. Another long winded answer.

Anesha: No, no worries.

Um, take up all the wind that you’d like. Um, not a problem. All right. We’re going to do a quick PSA. Um, so, for any folks who are in the room who are not currently working with us, we know that you all have a lot of questions. questions and that the admission process can be overwhelming. So we do have a team of over 300 former admissions officers and admissions experts like Anna, who are ready to help you and your family navigate the process through one on one advising sessions.

You can take the next step in your college admission journey by signing up for a free 45 to 60 minute driving through session with an admission specialist on our team by using the QR code that is on the screen. During that conversation, we’ll talk about extracurriculars. We will Discuss your college list and how everything aligns with your goals and provide you with some tools to stand out in the competitive admissions world.

We will go ahead and leave that QR code up on the screen and get back to our questions. So my next question for you, um, do admissions hate essays about sports activities and are there any activities that are cliche to write about?

Anna: I get this question. In almost every webinar, and I want to know who out there is telling students that writing about sports is bad or cliche.

Anesha: It happens on other webinars. I’ve been on webinars where there have been AOs who are like, I hate, I hate the sports essay. So, it happens. It happens.

Anna: Interesting. Okay. Um, to some people here, think of that. My take on it is no story. Is cliche. If you make it personal enough, um, things that are cliche to me are saying things like I want to change the world.

Yeah. You and like every tech company, right? That’s all of their mottos, but how like, and why? So. If you can bring it down, putting us in your shoes, telling us, showing us what you saw, that’s going to be a unique story. Because no one else has been in your shoes. Um, I, I think, to be fair, I have heard, um, on the last webinar, it was an admissions officer or someone who said that, um, The bottom of the ninth, bass is loaded, da da da.

Yes, I understand how that comes off as cliche. Because it’s maybe putting us in your shoes, but a lot of people have been in those shoes if they play baseball. Um, so what was going through your mind? What were you feeling in your body? Um, get as, as low level, as personal to your experience as you can, and then you’re taking us out of cliche world and into your world.

Anesha: I love the, the whiteout test. Someone, an admissions officer told me about like, if we whited out your name, could this essay still, like, are you putting enough personal details in there that it’s clear that it’s about you and it’s not just about anybody else. And so I think that is. Yeah, that I think is a good test of like, if you were to take out any identifying markers, is it still clear that it is about, um, in order to make sure that your, your baseball essay is not like everybody else’s baseball essay, um, uh, out there. Okay.

Anna: That’s a much clearer way to say that. Thank you.

Anesha: No, no, no worries. No worries. All of the tips are available. Um, okay. So someone said, put the descriptions for your activities in the activities section of a common app. Should the tone remain formal or can you play around with the style, um, in the app? I think you have like 50 to 100 characters in that section.

Anna: Yeah, I’m curious what they mean by playing around with the style. 150 characters. Oh, go ahead, Anesha. No, no,

Anesha: no, I was gonna, I was gonna posture a guess. So just sort of like, I think just, you know, I guess because you don’t have a lot of room, is there a different way that you can write about?

Um, I don’t think it needs to be playful. I think they mean mess with, tweak with the format. Sorry, go ahead. Please answer.

Anna: No, no worries. Um, It should meet the level of formality where you’re comfortable seeing, having like colleges see it, right? So, if you don’t want to use slang, um, I would avoid abbreviations that aren’t going to be very obvious.

Um, but you don’t need to write full sentences, if that’s what they mean by formality. It’s okay to use semicolons. To separate ideas or even periods, um, if you’re not sure you can Google examples, um, not only of this, but also of resumes, because I think there’s a lot more out there on resumes. Um, that sort of.

Description advice you’re going to find on like resume bullets, I think is going to give you like the level of formality you’re looking for here.

Anesha: Yeah, I would agree. Um, someone said, is it a bad idea to include a religious extracurricular when applying to non religious colleges? I can’t replace them with non religious extracurriculars, but yeah, I

Anna: don’t think it’s bad at all.

If it’s, if it’s very meaningful to you, I think you should write about it. I think anytime in, in applications and in the world, if we’re talking about religion, politics, things that we all have sometimes deeply personal connections to and identities with being respectful, of course, first and foremost, um, And then think about, um, at the end of the day, what admissions readers are looking for is what students they want to see on campus.

So are you talking about your connection to religion in a way, um, that makes them think you will add value to their student body? Meaning will you come in and be open minded and accepting? Um, I think that that’s one thing they’re going to look at. When talking about religion or politics, I said this earlier about other things.

I think it’s, it’s. important to do this with harder topics. Um, the focus should be on you and your connection to whatever you’re talking about. So I wouldn’t spend time saying, you know, I don’t know some, some religious belief as a fact, I would say, you can say what you believe, um, and then tell us why that’s an important part of who you are, what have you learned from, from religion, how have you grown through it, how has it shaped the impact you want to have on the world.

Anesha: Yes, I think that’s a good question. More frequently, actually, recently, I’ve just students wanting to figure out how to talk about their religion, not just as an activity, but throughout the essay throughout their various essays. And I’ve always some of them. As long as you’re talking about your experience with your religion, right?

Your community, or your, your process through it and not trying to, um, proselytizing or evangelize through your, you’re not giving a sermon, then yeah, you can write about it in a way that’s most meaningful to you. And I’ve actually had some students come up with really, really thoughtful and, and, and strong essays around, you know, their, their experience within their religion, specifically in response to the community questions, um, that I’ve seen in some of the applications.

My next question for you is a kind of broader, more general essay question. This person says, Every essay I’ve read seems to discuss their background and an adversity in their lives or their family’s lives. How can essays stand out without telling, they said a compelling story, but I think they mean probably like a sob story.

Anna: Yeah. Um, I do think there is that, that perspective out there that most students are writing about, like, some big adversity. Having read hundreds of essays a year, I don’t think that’s true. Absolutely, some students do. Um, but for, for me, it’s not the majority and it’s absolutely not required or necessary.

Um, the things that are necessary for a good essay One, your unique voice. Two, showing some sort of growth journey you have gone on. So at the end of the story, you’re telling how have you developed as a person? What have you learned? Um, and you can tell that story through any, any sort of activity, um, like an extracurricular or a fun family outing.

It does not need to be about some big adversity you faced. Um, and I, I’ll, I’ll stop there.

Anesha: Yeah, that is a, that’s a tough question to unpack and it really, I think, That’s one of the questions that we’re like, it depends on what you’re going to write about. What is, what is the story? So, um, yeah. Uh, someone asked again, a general essay question and some very broad questions.

So what are some tips for supplemental essays?

Anna: Um, tips for supplemental essays. Pretty much the same as for the personal statement, um, or anytime you’re talking about extracurriculars. Supplements tend to be shorter. Usually the word limit is much lower than your personal statement. So you’re going to need to be more concise.

Um, but that doesn’t change my overall advice of telling a story, bringing your unique voice, and showing the reader how you’ve grown. If you’re looking for more specific tips, please submit a follow up question, and I would be happy to answer that.

Anesha: That is fair. Um, my general advice, or the advice that I’ve given a lot of my students right now with supplemental essays is research the school.

And write down your research. So like when I was on the website, I couldn’t find anything. Well, what did you find? Well, I don’t remember it. Well, you know, write it down. Um, uh, so yeah, that would be my one tip for some mental essays is research your schools and write down your research. Um, all right. Sorry.

Can I add on to that? Yeah, absolutely.

Anna: Um, cause that, that made me think. Your whiteout rule, I think, is super applicable to supplemental essays that are asking you about why you want to go to this college. If you’re saying things like diverse student body, engaged faculty, like extracurricular activities, you could say that about pretty much any college.

Um, so be specific, which is Anesha’s goal. It comes to Anesha’s point of doing your research. What professors do you want to study with and why? What clubs do you want to join and why? Um, I, I get a lot of anxiety from students when, when the why this college essay comes up. And I always take a moment and throw my hands up and say like, well, what, what, why are you applying here?

Like you put this college on your list, put it there for a reason. And I’m guessing. There’s more to the reason than it’s a prestigious place or I think it’s a easy application for me, like, no, for real. Why are you applying here? So start there and then do your research.

Anesha: Yeah, yeah, I think it’s funny when sometimes it is.

The only reason is because it’s prestigious and it’s like, okay, we have to now find some reasons for you to like this college outside of it just being a name. Um, all right, the next question for you is back on the topic of extracurriculars. So can a student write about an extracurricular activity completed before high school?

Anna: I would start with the question. Um, so what is the question asking you if it’s about high school and no, um, If you’re writing about it, I would just, I’d want to know why. Um, my guess is that whatever you learned in that activity is still really relevant in your life, if it’s meaningful enough to write about when you’re applying to college.

Um, so I think it’s totally fine to tell a story about something you did in middle school and then tell us how. How that’s informed how you’ve stayed engaged in high school and how you plan to stay engaged going forward. If it’s a story of how you like really got interested in something, I can see it making sense to start there.

Um, these high level questions are hard to answer sometimes because like, I just want to meet with all of you and talk about your essays and your background and your lives. And I think I could give much better advice then. Um, so, you know, QR code if you’re interested. Um, That’s, that’s, that’s my high level advice.

Anesha: No, that’s fair. I, I had a student who in her personal statement wrote about, When she started doing Taekwondo at like, I think age six. Um, and then, but she drew a parallel to doing ROTC in high school. And so like, here were these things that I learned, this discipline that I learned at such a young age to do Taekwondo, and then it became relevant when I started this new activity and I had to take that level of discipline to another level and train other people.

So, yeah, I think, I think. It is fine, but like figuring out what is the connection you can make to something that’s more recent, um, in your in your high school career. So, yeah, and I think also your to your point, I think if you can also write about it, well, effectively as an origin story for lack of a better phrase, um, Okay, someone asked, how do you incorporate multiple diverse extracurriculars?

I have many interests that correspond to different extracurriculars. Can they coexist efficiently?

Anna: Um, Anesha, do you think the question is writing about multiple extracurricular activities in the same essay?

Anesha: I think they, I think this is coming from this idea of like your profile, your overarching profile, and that they have too many things in common. represented, I guess, so many different types of extracurriculars and so not knowing where to focus in writing about it, writing about any of them.

That’s my guess.

Anna: Um, I would encourage that student, um, to take a step back for a second, look at, you know, where they’ve come, how, what they did in middle school, how they got involved in their community in high school, And where they want to go. What do they want to study in college? What do they want to do after college?

I think by taking a step back, um, and especially looking forward to where you want to go can make it easier to them. Look come back to present. Okay, that’s where I want to go. How do all these different things that I’m doing add value To my life as I’m working towards my goal. So let’s say you’re in soccer theater and debate club And you’re thinking these aren’t related at all.

I want to be, I don’t know, a teacher. Um, okay, why do you want to be a teacher? What sorts of skills do you think you’ll bring to that? Um, maybe, you know, connecting with others, being creative, active, those sorts of high level things. Um, I think then you can start to really make sense of how a diverse set of extracurriculars All relate to your formation as a.

legal adult who’s ready to take on college. I know that’s sorry. That’s again, very high level.

If you lost it, I have, Oh, go

Anesha: ahead.

Anna: Speaking of questions that come up multiple times, I have been getting questions about using AI, ChatGPT to write admissions essays, don’t do it, please don’t do it. Um, it is selling yourself short to do that. And if you do it, you’re going to miss my number one piece of advice, which is that your essays need to be short.

Be you, you need to sound like you, you need to have your voice. Um, and I, if a college was ever able to find out, I think they would be quite displeased. Um, so just don’t, it’s not worth it.

Anesha: And I caught a student doing that and, and I was like, I was like, did you, did you run this through AI? I was like, I didn’t want to like accuse, but I was like, this part doesn’t sound like you.

And I think, I think the advice that you gave before of having someone read your essays who knows you well, um, as a person who’s now read the book. I could tell that like this is not sound like your voice. This sounds super formal. You can, I think readers in particular can pick up when something just sounds like a bit robotic and a bit general and I, I have used that just to see what it would come out as.

And it becomes super generic. It would feel. The whiteout test every time because this AI does not have a story to tell, doesn’t have unique or specific details. So yeah, I would definitely, I definitely just echo that. Um, I found the question I was going to ask and I think it just speaks to the very great levels that we have.

So someone said, essentially, what is a supplemental essay and where can they be found?

Anna: Yeah, a supplemental essay is an essay that a college requires in addition to your personal statement. Not all colleges require them. Increasingly, a lot of them do. You should, when you’re, um, if there’s a college you’re interested in, you should go to their website, go to their admissions page.

They should have some drop down about requirements for the application. Um, it, it will list the essays there. You could also create a profile on the Common App or the Coalition App, find the school there, and they will also pull up the essays you need.

Anesha: Yep, well, we will leave it there with that very formal form and question and not a kind of a temporary advice, but thank you so much Anna for your time and for your thoughtful response to the questions today.

Thank you. Everyone for coming out tonight and we definitely hope that you’ll join us for our future webinars. So just as a preview. Tomorrow, December 6th, we’ll have a session, a CollegeAdvisor masterclass on Editing Your Essays. So not just writing your essays, but how should you go back through and edit your essays down, especially to the very word limits that you’ll face.

We’ll have a Q&A Session With a Former Admissions Officer on December 7th, and we’ll discuss Decoding the ACT and SAT on December 12th. So we hope to see you soon, but until next time, take care and have a great evening, everyone.

Thank you, Anna. You’re good. You’re good to go.

Anna: Thank you so much.

Anesha: Take care, everyone.

Anna: Have a good night.

Anesha: You too.