Webinar: How to Write an Amazing Common App

Aimee Heller, Essay Expert at International College Counselors offers essential guidance on the Common Application essay. his detailed discussion will demystify the Common App personal statement. the words you choose can mean the difference between a “maybe” and a “yes.”

After this webinar participants will understand:

• Understand what college admissions officers are looking for in an essay
• Know how to choose the right Common App prompt to answer
• Hone in on their story
• Learn about writing and polishing their essay so it’s ready for submission

Take a look at our upcoming free college admissions webinars.

WEBINAR TRANSCRIPT

00:00:09.290 –> 00:00:25.349
Aimee Heller: Hi, everybody! I’m Aimee Heller. I’m going to be talking with you tonight about how to write an amazing college admissions essay. I can say that this year I went through the cycle with my daughter.

00:00:25.530 –> 00:00:34.770
So I’m much more empathetic to how this, how stressful admissions is.

00:00:35.594 –> 00:00:39.400
I work with International College Counselors.

00:00:39.878 –> 00:00:56.888
Which is a full service company that does that helps with everything college admissions. They can help with everything from helping you make college lists to getting the application together to how to interview.

00:00:57.440 –> 00:01:19.854
to helping you position yourself to what major would help you get into the college that you want to get into. I’m thinking of all the different aspects of college and the advisors at International College Counselors have all these tricks and tips on how to make college admissions much more easy, and they’ll handhold you the entire way.

00:01:20.470 –> 00:01:43.710
I can honestly say, my daughter is going to college this year. I went through this cycle last year, as I just mentioned, and without their help I do not know where I’ve been, because it was so complicated. It was much more complicated than I ever thought, and my daughter’s high school was very, very helpful with the whole process, but still there were so many loose ends. So I empathize with everybody who’s out there watching this.

00:01:53.210 –> 00:02:05.449
My sister runs the company, International College Counselors, and she’s amazing. She went to University of Pennsylvania, and she went to Harvard Business School after that.

00:02:05.680 –> 00:02:20.729
Together we wrote two books. One is From Public School to the Ivy League. The whole idea that you can go from public school to Ivy League is completely doable.

00:02:20.850 –> 00:02:35.080
And then we wrote this book on International Admissions, which is for international students. If there are any international students out there, the company definitely knows how to position international students to get into American or United States schools.

00:02:36.870 –> 00:03:03.487
Okay, but tonight I’m just going to talk about the essay. I do not do the whole advising for college, because, as I learned last year, there were too many pieces even for me to contemplate. But the people my sister has working for her are absolutely amazing in taking care of the details and knowing everything about college admissions from which schools to apply to, how to apply to the schools, and how to bring everything together, to create a full narrative.

00:03:04.310 –> 00:03:06.460
I focus on the essays and offer writing help and tips on the Common Application essays and the supplementals

00:03:07.230 –> 00:03:22.990
So I am going to get into my area of expertise, which is not the whole college admissions process. Though International College Counselors can completely help you if you’re feeling overwhelmed and they’re really good at it. I just help with the essays.

00:03:23.160 –> 00:03:34.969
My background is in advertising. So I used to work in New York as a creative director for

00:03:35.120 –> 00:03:55.646
a couple of companies, and what I learned is how to do branding, how to bring things together. So you have a a shoe, or I worked on Coca-Cola. I worked on Ikea. I worked on a bunch of liquors a bunch of fashion brands. You! You name it. I’ve worked on so many things.

00:03:56.350 –> 00:04:25.460
and what I learned was, you have a shoe, and it’s pretty much like every other shoe. But how do you make it special? How do you create a story around whatever the kernel of truth is for that particular brand? How do you make it into something that is desirable? And so I was doing advertising in New York. I did it for God like about 20 years, and then my sister opened this company, you know, concurrently, while I was working in New York, and

00:04:25.590 –> 00:04:33.210
she said, You know, why don’t you come and help with the essays? Because you’d be really good at it, since you know how to like distill things down to branding. It’s creating a narrative. So how do you create a narrative that makes your student more desirable for college than other students who are like yours. I’ll get in more into that in detail. So first let’s talk about How important is the essay.

00:04:51.230 –> 00:04:56.270
What happens is schools are going to see the Common Application.

00:04:57.113 –> 00:05:09.486
And if you have any questions. Please feel free to put into the Q&A. At every any point. I’ll get to questions at the end, and if I don’t get your question. You’re more than welcome to email me or I’ll try to follow up with the questions and answer them. I definitely want to help.

00:05:16.618 –> 00:05:25.550
I do offer. If your kid has written an essay, if you want me to review the essay for all the people who have joined us

00:05:26.010 –> 00:05:42.369
on the webinar who watch this. I will give you a free 15 min evaluation of your student’s Common App personal statement. So if you want to send it to me after this, I’ll put my email at the end. I will give you like a

00:05:42.530 –> 00:05:53.870
a general overview about the essay, and what could be improved on it if you’d like to send that to me as a free yay for joining me tonight.

00:05:55.400 –> 00:06:00.139
So how important is the essay? Once again, they’re going to see the Common Application.

00:06:00.581 –> 00:06:04.509
So what they’re going to see in the common application is they’re going to see the grades

00:06:04.910 –> 00:06:22.743
that your student gets are going to see the courses that your student has chosen. So that’s the rigor of the curriculum. They’re going to see the test scores. Schools are moving away from being test blind and test optional more frequently now. Some schools still are test optional/test blind.

00:06:23.200 –> 00:06:32.449
If you’re applying to Florida schools they are mandatory at those schools. And that’s the way that is.

00:06:33.300 –> 00:06:57.780
And they’re going to see a brief background. So you know where your parents went to school, where you live. Things like that. That’s the overview they’re going to get. And they’re going to get an overview of activities. The activity section is really strange. Because I only think it’s only like 70 characters. It’s some really small amount of characters where you really learn to write with dashes and periods and abbreviations and things like that

00:06:58.290 –> 00:07:00.979
So that’s what they’re going to see.

00:07:02.640 –> 00:07:30.160
And I don’t know if all schools do this. I did work at University of Miami for a while, and I sat in on some of the admissions meetings, and I know this is true for University of Miami. And while I was going on the college tours with my own kid. I asked admissions people this, and generally this is true. Maybe the Liberal Arts schools kind of hedged it and said, we look at all applications. But if your students applying to a big school the colleges are getting

00:07:30.620 –> 00:07:43.967
thousands of applications, hundreds of thousands, like 90,000 applications, I think, was like University of Miami. I think NYU, New York University was at 100,000 applications.

00:07:44.360 –> 00:08:04.209
It’s not possible for them to read it all. So what happened at University of Miami was that they would run it through an algorithm. They would run the common application through the algorithm. And what would happen was at this point. You go into the yes, no, maybe category. This is not deferrals. This is not the wait list.

00:08:04.611 –> 00:08:08.680
What this is is just to see if your application is going to move further.

00:08:11.771 –> 00:08:33.968
By that I mean you might go to the Yes pile. Some students go straight to the Yes pile. This is usually like recruited athletes. This is usually like, if you play the tuba and they’re looking for a tuba player. This is like, if you have an exact academic interest that completely dovetails with the school. I had a kid that was so interested in birds, birds, birds, birds,

00:08:34.539 –> 00:08:43.679
Perfect for a school with an ornithology department, and he was only applying to schools where they did do some kind of studies of birds. How many kids want to study birds?

00:08:43.820 –> 00:09:03.896
So you imagine that there’s there was a fit for him because the schools were like, wow! We have somebody for our bird department, I mean. I know that’s not a major, but you know, within the school, sometimes they have interests or things like that. That’s what International College Counselors helps with is figuring out what the best match is.

00:09:04.390 –> 00:09:16.789
So he applied to schools like this. And you know, I’m sure he got in just because they were like, Wow, this kid not only likes wants to study birds, but he has a lot of experience because he had just been really

00:09:17.100 –> 00:09:23.530
focused on activities having to do with birds? I’ll talk about him more later.

00:09:25.800 –> 00:09:37.520
Then there’s some other things. This is real, that they may have students from 49 States. You come from the 50th state.

00:09:37.670 –> 00:09:49.769
And they’re like, Wow, you come from North Dakota. We didn’t have that before. We really want that. Now we can say in our marketing material. We have kids from 50 states so that actually might give you a lot of points.

00:09:50.392 –> 00:09:59.327
If you come from the 101st country and they have a hundred countries. Now they can say in their marketing material, we have kids from 101 countries for them that’s important.

00:09:59.810 –> 00:10:25.360
There’s the priorities of the school. So sometimes you wonder like, why did that student get into the school? And they do not have as great grades as my kid does, and it might just be something as random as that. That’s why this isn’t a science. This is really like a positioning your student so that the school wants them.

00:10:25.991 –> 00:10:29.768
And that’s really important, like, why would the school want your student over someone else.

00:10:30.350 –> 00:10:32.300
Now, there’s a no category.

00:10:33.850 –> 00:10:48.810
I had a kid who wanted to go to Yale so bad he wanted to go to Yale. He was a nice kid. He was a good kid. He had nice test scores. He had nice activities like he was just a good kid. The problem was he had a C

00:10:49.440 –> 00:11:17.410
on his transcript. The question then becomes, why does Yale want to really take him seriously when they have kids who are much more stellar than that, and he didn’t really have any extenuating circumstances. He just happened to get a C. He just wasn’t strong at whatever he had taken. I don’t remember what it is now, but let’s say chemistry. Okay. He had a subject he wasn’t good in, but Yale wasn’t really going to put him further, because they have kids who scored much higher.

00:11:18.669 –> 00:11:51.640
What happens now is, if you apply to the right schools that are within your range, and they do go out of the range. So you know, if you get like a couple more bees, then you think you can still go to an Ivy League school or something about it’s not that, you know. A couple of bees are going to knock you out of the range, or something like that. But what happens now is most kids then go into the maybe pile. And what this means is that the school thinks your kid might be a good match for them.

00:11:56.973 –> 00:12:09.096
So what happens now is they’re looking at now they’re going to read your application. Now they’re going to read the full application because they had to get, you know, they put the Yes kids there. The essays for the yes, kids are just

00:12:09.590 –> 00:12:29.229
like a rubber stamp. So can the kid write and enough for college. And also did they not write anything with red flags? I have seen essays with a lot of red flags in them, and you’re like the school is not going to let you in if you put that essay through.

00:12:29.440 –> 00:12:36.270
But I’ll talk about that a little more later. And the no, they’re not going to read your essay. So now we’re in the maybe category.

00:12:37.060 –> 00:12:40.109
There’s a lot of kids in the maybe category.

00:12:40.725 –> 00:12:43.679
What happens now is you take a school like Harvard.

00:12:44.190 –> 00:12:52.920
I use Harvard because it’s easy to envision. I can’t do this for all the schools, but I can do this for Harvard. Harvard’s the top school.

00:12:53.922 –> 00:13:26.059
What happens now is they get a lot of kids in the maybe pile. Now, how do you tell them apart? The kids come in. They have a 9.0 grade point average. You know. They took IB, they took AP, they took dual enrollment. They, you know, wanted to go to Harvard, some of them for a long time, so they did everything they could to check off the boxes. They got 1600 on the SAT, 36 on the ACT. They did research. They did varsity sports. They started a club, you know everything they could do

00:13:26.060 –> 00:13:33.210
That they would think Harvard would want to see. They might even be valedictorian. They might even be student council president.

00:13:34.178 –> 00:13:39.760
The problem that now happens is that you look across United States, you look across the world.

00:13:39.930 –> 00:14:05.539
There’s a lot of valedictorians. There’s a lot of schools all of a sudden, valedictorian is not so special. It’s great, and I congratulate all the students that got there. But Harvard sees a lot of this, and they don’t even want all valedictorians. They don’t even want all student council presidents. They want a nice range of a class. But how do they now tell which students to let in?

00:14:06.120 –> 00:14:39.930
Now they’re looking at the next level stuff. There’s demonstrated interest, which I hope you’re all familiar with. If you look at our website and look at the blogs. I wrote a blog on the demonstrated interest. Basically, this means is showing the school that you’re interested in them. This means signing up their emails. That means visiting them, if possible. This means, if they come to your school or an event near you, go meet the representative, and when you sign in, let them know you’re seriously interested in the school.

00:14:40.190 –> 00:14:57.290
Oh, and I learned this University of Miami, if you do sign up their emails, make sure that you click on them and you open them and you spend time on them. We actually used to record how long people would spend on the email, and if they would click to another link on it.

00:14:57.460 –> 00:15:12.259
I don’t mean leave it open for like two hours, but we could see if people really were opening the emails and clicking on another link in them.

00:15:12.600 –> 00:15:32.069
Ivies do not track demonstrate interest. But if you’re looking at other schools like Tulane, Vanderbilt, University of Miami, I recommend you demonstrate interest. I can only speak for University of Miami, but I know we checked a whole bunch of things. Did you sign up on our Instagram? Did you sign up on our Facebook at that time. Just make sure you show them you’re interested.

00:15:33.181 –> 00:15:36.800
Then you have the counselor recommendations and the teacher recommendations.

00:15:36.980 –> 00:15:39.209
They’ll read those at this point.

00:15:39.835 –> 00:15:47.349
But what counts the most of all is the essay. The essay counts more than demonstrated interest and the recommendations.

00:15:47.700 –> 00:15:49.370
So why is this?

00:15:49.500 –> 00:15:56.080
Because what the essay does is it shows why you.

00:15:57.640 –> 00:16:06.169
Why should they let you in, and not another student who’s in the maybe pile with you? So the essay is actually really important, because it brings everything together.

00:16:07.280 –> 00:16:29.120
I generally say there are two directions for the essay. There are others, mostly those other essays are written by students who really have an essay in them that they have to put on paper, or that they’re my creative writing majors and my creative writing majors are the only ones. I say, you really need to show them you can write something completely original because you’re a creative writing major.

00:16:29.910 –> 00:16:32.930
Everybody else. The essays can be standard format.

00:16:33.420 –> 00:16:48.680
However, they do have to express you. They do have to show your authenticity. They do have to bring you out, but regarding the structure of them, you don’t have to try to do something that they’ve never seen before. You do not have to write a poem. You do not have to try to do something crazy. Just write from the heart.

00:16:58.610 –> 00:17:05.190
Give the colleges a reason to accept you.

00:17:06.605 –> 00:17:13.589
There are two general directions for the essay.

00:17:13.650 –> 00:17:40.339
One is diversity and diversity can mean a lot of different things. Diversity can be that you’re a different ethnicity, that you have a different identity, that you come from a different culture. It could be that you come from a rural background because there are not as many people from a rural background applying to schools as from a urban background.

00:17:40.837 –> 00:17:46.402
It could be the strength of subject area.

00:17:47.410 –> 00:18:01.030
Diversity does mean something like, if you start a business. And I have lots of kids that start businesses. But maybe you started a business and you make balloon animals for children’s parties or balloon animals for parties.

00:18:01.420 –> 00:18:20.350
All of a sudden that enters a different range, because now they’re like, Oh, not only I this student start a business, but they’re quirky. So there’s no solid line between the different prompts, which I’ll get into more later. But diversity means that you’re bringing something different to the college campus

00:18:21.980 –> 00:18:27.360
The more common way to go with my students is characteristics.

00:18:28.049 –> 00:18:42.410
What characteristics do you possess that are going to make you successful at the school, because what a school wants more than anything else is to know that you are going to be successful on campus, and in the future.

00:18:43.064 –> 00:18:59.705
They do not have a crystal ball, and they haven’t met you, and they’re not going to meet you till you’re on campus, so how can they tell? What they’re looking for are indicators that say that, wow, you have the potential to be successful.

00:19:02.980 –> 00:19:12.969
And these can be a lot of different reasons.

00:19:13.280 –> 00:19:38.580
Whatever characteristics you possess that indicate that you have the potential to be success on campus and in the future, because what a school does not want, University of Miami, does not want is for your student or for you, if students are on here, they do not want to know that you are a year out of school, two years out of school, and you don’t have a job, or you’re not where you want to be, because inevitably, what happens is the students that don’t possess the characteristics to go further in life.

00:19:38.963 –> 00:19:46.800
Usually don’t do the self-reflection needed. And, I’m generalizing.

00:19:46.830 –> 00:19:55.869
It’s generally assumed they don’t do the self-reflecting to understand why they’re not moving forward. So they tend to turn around and say, You know, it’s University of Miami’s fault

00:19:56.180 –> 00:20:07.239
And University of Miami or Duke, or whatever school, University of California, they don’t want to be blamed for a student’s lack of success.

00:20:08.063 –> 00:20:14.540
So you want to give the college just a reason to accept you.

00:20:16.780 –> 00:20:46.659
Up on the screen are characteristics that can define a person because the best essays have one thread that runs through them like you are kind. You are a leader. You are brave. Things like that, like, because that’s what they need to see. And I have, a whole another page of words. I pulled all these off the Internet. So these are not proprietary to me. I just typed in positive characteristics. I’m sure there’s more. But these are the kind of characteristics we want to build an essay around.

00:20:47.075 –> 00:20:51.350
I helped a girl get in the University of Michigan with an essay on kindness.

00:20:52.070 –> 00:21:02.050
People always ask, Well, what does that mean? Kindness? Well, it wasn’t that she went and sat next to the sad kid in the cafeteria kindness. What she was was a quiet leader.

00:21:02.701 –> 00:21:10.290
And this is what we discovered when I worked with her. With my students, I do a whole exploratory. I talk with them for about an hour and a half.

00:21:10.400 –> 00:21:29.799
And I’m able to, through gentle, guided, questioning, figure out what their characteristic is if they’re having trouble figuring out what it is and building their story around it. But her authentic trait was kindness, and the kindness was that she was a quiet leader.

00:21:30.170 –> 00:21:45.947
She had no leadership title. She wasn’t president of anything. She wasn’t captain of anything, but people would come to her to solve problems. For example, have you ever done a group project and somebody is not working?

00:21:46.540 –> 00:21:58.860
I remember my daughter having this problem when maybe three out of the five kids or three out of the four kids. There’s always one kid that would not do the work, and everyone else would have to pull the weight.

00:21:59.020 –> 00:22:05.451
And most of the kids would just roll their eyes and do the work for the other student. But what she was able to do was motivate that student.

00:22:06.070 –> 00:22:23.240
She had very high emotional intelligence, and she was able to undo the roadblock through talking to them, reasoning with them, and getting things moving again. She was on the basketball team, the Varsity basketball team. She said:

00:22:23.310 –> 00:22:44.691
I wasn’t even good at playing basketball but I loved being part of the team. The reason they had her on the team was because she was the person who didn’t care if she played in the games. It just didn’t matter to her. She liked coming early and staying late, playing, doing the practices.

00:22:45.460 –> 00:23:02.999
Her big skill was that if they lost a point or they lost a game, she was able to motivate her teammates and pick them up and make them feel good again. People knew that she was not doing things for selfish reasons.

00:23:03.000 –> 00:23:22.189
She was doing things for the group. She was very group oriented and very people oriented. So even something you’re like, How can you write an essay about kindness? It could really become something. There’s a lot of things, you could be critical thinker. You can be a creative thinker.

00:23:22.500 –> 00:23:38.210
You could be a leader. You could be a manager. You could be a team player, a team builder, and I know this from advertising and from doing this from a long time as well, that everybody has a story. I’ve never met a student who did not have a story.

00:23:38.903 –> 00:24:00.929
And once you can find that one backbone that’s going to run through your Common App essay. That’s what we need to build it around, because you do not want an essay that’s like, I do music. Oh, and I like science. And I do community service, and I run a dog walking business.

00:24:00.930 –> 00:24:23.060
If you do that then admissions is not going to understand who you are. What you need to do is really define who you are around one core, because the way that it works is they’re going to read the applications. And I hate saying this. This bums me out because I cannot tell you how long we worked on my daughter’s applications.

00:24:23.493 –> 00:24:38.070
Admissions basically spend 7 to 10 min at most on your application. And you’re going to work really hard at it. But what you need to do with the essay is pull your application together.

00:24:38.260 –> 00:25:04.950
The essay is what helps you pull all your activities together, This way they will understand why you did Student Council, and why you worked for you know the Mayor of Miami, or why you chose to do Breakthrough Miami. I’m sorry I’m Miami oriented right now today. But why did you choose to do the things, or why did you join the math team? Or why did you do the Robotics Club?

00:25:05.510 –> 00:25:19.760
They’re not going to understand from your resume, pulling the activities together to understand who you are, but that’s what we want to do, because, as I said before. Colleges they don’t have a crystal ball. What they’re going to do is look at you

00:25:19.800 –> 00:25:40.529
and figure out who you are through what you’ve done. This is why I always place emphasis on showing in the essay. Don’t just tell me you’re smart. You have to show me you’re smart. Don’t just tell me you’re kind. Show me your kind, and that’s really important is how do you demonstrate that because you can’t just make claims about things.

00:25:40.650 –> 00:25:46.080
If you have any questions, please put them into the Q&A And I’m happy to answer them later.

00:25:48.250 –> 00:25:59.650
I had a girl this year who is so funny. Basically in her essay she compared herself to different kinds of underwear.

00:26:01.160 –> 00:26:11.010
It was a humorous essay, and it was cute, and she compared herself to different underwear. But what you do not want is for admissions to say, Hey, do you remember that underwear girl?

00:26:11.858 –> 00:26:43.870
You want them to say: Hey, remember that right brain, left brain thinker. You want them to remember you as the really civic minded person, or very leadership. That’s what they’re going to remember as they’re talking in their committee meetings, and that’s how they’re going to remember you. So it’s very important to come up with a very solid idea for yourself that pulls everything together. And that’s how admissions is going to define you, because in 7 to 10 min they’re not going to read it like

00:26:43.880 –> 00:27:06.527
when in your classes, when you read Hemingway. They’re not going to look for metaphors and deep meanings. Yhey’re not going to be looking for the obscure hidden things. That’s just basically the way it is. They’re looking to see how good you’re writing and how authentic you are.

00:27:06.850 –> 00:27:18.779
Again feel free to put comments or questions for me. And again I’m happy to review. If your student has written an essay, I will look at it, and I will give you top line thoughts about it.

00:27:21.399 –> 00:27:30.160
Now we’re going to get into the Common App prompts themselves.

00:27:32.400 –> 00:27:44.530
I don’t know how many of you looked at the essays. The Common App essays were approved, I think around March. So these are the official Common App essay prompts. There are seven of them.

00:27:45.258 –> 00:27:57.099
I’m going to go over them separately, so you don’t have to try to memorize them all here. But there are seven Common App essay prompts. They are all weighted the same. So it does not matter which one you answer.

00:27:59.510 –> 00:28:18.488
So don’t think, oh, because less people answer that one, it’s better. It really does not matter. In fact, the admissions people that I’ve met say we already know what prompt they’re trying to answer. We don’t even look at that. They don’t put them in buckets.

00:28:18.920 –> 00:28:37.070
And I’ve worked on this for a long time. As I do my talks with students when I work with them, one-on-one to find their story, I always say you will not answer all seven prompts. That’s not the point of this. The point is to find one prompt that speaks to you that you can answer.

00:28:37.778 –> 00:28:46.099
You only need one. I’ve never had a student answer all seven. I never expect to. And seriously, that is not the point of this.

00:28:46.648 –> 00:29:14.390
These are called prompts for a reason. They’re called prompts, because they’re to generate what kind of thinking you need to do on your essay, and what colleges want to hear because if they had said, write 650 words of an essay and send it to us, they would get all kinds of fluff. The prompts really define what they’re looking for in the essays. I’m going to go over them separately

00:29:15.290 –> 00:29:37.100
so you understand what they’re looking for in the essays. Seven just says, write an essay of your choice. This one basically is if your essay overlaps more than one prompt because sometimes an essay can be a mix of four and five, sometimes a mixture of, one and six. Something like that, my bird kid, that I was talking about earlier. He was a mixture of one and six,

00:29:37.180 –> 00:29:46.890
I’ll go over them so you know which one I’m talking about. I know you’re like, what’s six. What’s one? But you’ll see there, there can be an overlap, and that’s fine. Then you just pick seven.

00:29:48.496 –> 00:30:00.879
This is the first essay question it asks, some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful. They believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

00:30:01.270 –> 00:30:11.969
This is basically the diversity essay. This one’s asking if you have something in your background. Or aniIdentity, interest or talent that would really stand out.

00:30:15.620 –> 00:30:22.292
And as an addition to the school that would make them say, Wow, we need a kid to add this kind of diversity outlook.

00:30:25.380 –> 00:30:35.029
Sorry. Sometimes I get stumbly with my speaking. I am a writer. I’m very good at working on writing. I’m not a public speaker too much.

00:30:35.476 –> 00:31:01.929
But that’s what prompt one asks for. So you got to make sure that if you do choose this question, that you are defining yourself as something interesting. It’s not enough to just say, Hey, my parents are from Cuba. You have to get into why this is special. What you’re doing about it, or how it’s helped you, or affected you in your life. So a lot of this requires reflection.

00:31:05.220 –> 00:31:25.599
Question 2. The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback or failure. How did it affect you? And what did you learn from the experience?

00:31:25.990 –> 000:31:39.089
This is the question. Where, if something has happened to you in your life. This would be the question for you, but, as you can see, I put on the bottom what you’ve done is more important than what’s done to you.

00:31:39.090 –> 00:32:07.099
This question needs to be answered with something that’s significant. So whenever I speak with students about this, I say you need to have a significant challenge, setback or failure. This does not mean you got a bad grade. This does not mean you didn’t do well in soccer, or even that you got injured in playing a sport or anything like this. What this needs to be is something that really affected your life. The students I’ve worked with on this one can be anything from

00:32:07.676 –> 00:32:31.449
they had a significant illness. I’ve worked with students, with cancer. I’ve worked with students with narcolepsy, who fell asleep at different random times. I’ve worked with kids that are homeless. I’ve worked with kids who had parents with mental illnesses. There’s a lot of things that people have had to overcome that were significant.

00:32:31.859 –> 00:32:46.569
So when you do answer this, remember that those are the kind of answers that work for this particular essay. That’s what they’re looking for. They’re looking for something that a parent died or something like that. They’re looking for something could have derailed your life.

00:32:47.050 –> 00:32:52.329
But it didn’t. You came back, and you had grit and fortitude to get through it.

00:32:52.970 –> 00:33:17.630
What’s important. Remember, on this essay is what you’ve done is more important than what’s done to you. You did not ask for cancer. You did not cause it. You did not ask to be homeless. You did not ask for a parent to have a mental illness, so while they care about what happened to you, and I’m not diminishing anybody’s experience. I mean, I wish this on no one.

00:33:18.210 –> 00:33:33.429
But what happened to you is not enough. It’s what did you do after. How did you bounce back from it? What? What did you overcome? And how did you overcome it? That’s really what they want to know, because that informs them that in the future, if you encounter a roadblock you’ll bounce back from it, you’ll be able to overcome it.

00:33:43.200 –> 00:33:49.229
And again, if you have any questions them put into the Q&A. And I’ll try to get to it at the end

00:33:49.876 –> 00:33:59.593
or you can always email me, I’m going to put my email up at the end. If I don’t get your question or I don’t get to questions today. Feel free to email me and I will. I will answer your email.

00:34:02.546 –> 00:34:18.240
Number 3. Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or an idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome.

00:34:18.489 –> 00:34:23.890
What’s important is that they want to know if you have an issue, if you have something that you questioned, or you had a belief that you challenged

00:34:24.352 –> 0:34:45.510
How did you go about researching it? How did you go about studying it? What did you do? I had a student who wrote this on religion. A lot of students question religion. That’s a big thing, but it’s not enough to just have a question about religion. What they’re really looking for is when you have a question or you have a challenge.

00:34:45.690 –> 00:34:57.772
What did you do about it? So this student went to an Iman in a mosque. The student went to a rabbi in a synagogue. The student looked into Western religions and

00:34:58.220 –> 00:35:02.687
Eastern religions. And to start with he was really Catholic

00:35:03.350 –> 00:35:09.830
Cuban grandma. Crosses on the wall. He was a choir boy

00:35:10.227 –> 00:35:18.519
all kinds of stuff like that. So he was deeply involved with his religion before he went on this quest. But then he took it very seriously.

00:35:18.650 –> 00:35:47.360
He read the Quran. He read the New Testament. He read the Old Testament. He looked into again Eastern religions as well as the Western religions. He read philosophy of religion. He looked at the roots of religion. Where did the religion start? So he had a whole robust essay about all that he dove into in order to come to his conclusion. At the end of the day, everyone wonders, what did he decide.

00:35:47.846 –> 00:36:01.879
He did stay Catholic but now he had a full, well-rounded understanding of why he wanted to be Catholic. He really understood now why that religion spoke to him, and it wasn’t just because he was born into it, but it was because he really understood it and it spoke to him.

00:36:04.237 –> 00:36:06.952
So that’s what they’re looking to see.

00:36:08.930 –> 00:36:24.494
The next one, number four, is reflect on something that someone has done for you that has made you happy or thankful in a surprising way. How has its gratitude affected or motivated you?

00:36:25.510 –> 00:36:47.439
This one is really asking for if there was somebody, and they’re not looking for parents. So, looking to see if a teacher, a mentor, or a friend has motivated you to do something or pushed you out of your comfort zone or connected you with something that you thought you weren’t able to do. That’s really what they’re looking for.Growth There’s a lot of things that you could do wrong with this essay Don’t write too much about the mentor, friend, peer.

00:36:47.590 –> 00:36:54.190
aunt, or something like that. Because the essay needs to be about you, not about somebody else.

00:37:00.100 –> 00:37:10.399
Number 5 is discuss an accomplishment event or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself and others.

00:37:10.510 –> 00:37:21.910
A lot of people grow steady. You find an interest and this les to your next interest, you find your next interest. You find your next interest. This one’s asking if anything has caused a spike in growth.

00:37:23.460 –> 000:37:55.039
For an example. I had a student who was watching the news. One day, she was just watching the news. It was in another country. I work with a lot of international students to help them with their essays. And she said. I saw a news story, and the news story was on how people dispose batteries irresponsibly, and they’re ruining the environment. And she said, I never really thought about the environment. I never really thought about batteries.

00:37:55.399 –> 00:38:13.850
But something really spoke to me. I knew I could do something about this, so there was a story in between here, because, you know, you do have to have a build up with and that shows off your personality as well. You can’t just say I did this at the end of the day, so there was a whole story in between here. But at the end of the day what she did was

00:38:14.630 –> 00:38:35.870
She set up bins in her country in front of the Home Depot’s and Lowe’s, and she found a company that would collect the batteries and recycle them responsibly, and she did social media and got on the news and got in the newspaper and things like that, telling people about these bins where they could throw away their batteries. So just watching that news program

00:38:36.350 –> 00:38:38.518
Resulted in a huge spike in growth.

00:38:39.080 –> 00:38:56.936
She went and did something. I have a lot of examples like that. If your student has had a job there’s a lot of opportunities to tell stories where you can show a spike in growth. And there’s a lot of other situations, too, where we can build a spike in growth.

00:39:00.010 –> 00:39:07.210
Again, if you have questions, please put them in the in the chat I meant in the QA.

00:39:09.140 –> 00:39:18.320
Option. 6. Describe a topic idea. Concept that you find so engaging that makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What, or who do you turn to when you want to learn more.

00:39:23.002 –> 00:39:36.299
So my bird kid could have gone into the diversity of interest and talent. The first prompt I discussed, yet he actually fell more into this one, the this one’s for students that are really, really focused on a certain topic. I’ve had a lot of students choose this one.

00:39:44.320 –> 00:39:54.169
Some students weren’t able to write this Common App essay because the passion wasn’t completely there. They were like, Oh, I like to do art. Oh, I like to write poems, but they did not have enough to write the essay

00:39:54.390 –> 00:40:22.300
This is what I always tell my students. If you can only write 350 words on an essay. It is not your topic, or something is wrong with the core of your essay. When I work with the students, I know they have the right topic if the problem is that they can’t keep it within 650 words. They have no idea how to write the 650 essay, because the essay they wrote is like 900 words.

00:40:22.460 –> 00:40:41.229
which I totally allow students to do in the first round, then we’re able to shape it. But you know you have the right essay if you cannot stick to 650 words, because that is the maximum amount of words on this essay. But back to my bird kid. So why did he fit into this?

00:40:41.530 –> 00:41:21.190
Because he was obsessed with birds, basically, and everything. All his activities had to do with birds. Not only did he spot birds and a list of all the birds that he saw, he started a group where he took people out to birdwatch and spot birds. He worked for a bird sanctuary. Everything came back to the birds. So we had a lot of activities that built up around birds. And that’s the important thing is, how many things can we build up either around your interest or around a characteristic to make the essay robust.

00:41:22.550 –> 00:41:31.499
If you have a student who’s really interested in robotics or computers, or something like this, this might be the question for them.

00:41:32.570 –> 00:42:07.932
I had a kid who was so into computers. He looked into all the programs and taught himself some. He also took one of those summer computer courses, and I think it was like University of Washington, and he became close to the Professor. The professor really saw something in him, and he ended up as a remote teaching assistant for this professor in Washington. He was reviewing student’s work as a high schooler. He was working with college kids just because he had such a depth of knowledge about computers and about the subject that this professor was teaching.

00:42:08.890 –> 00:42:27.972
So that’s what they’re looking for in this one is something that you’re so intensely interested in, that you’ve done everything you can to keep going with it. Another interesting student I had was into car photography, luxury cars. He loved loved luxury cars.

00:42:28.870 –> 00:42:57.379
He wanted to photograph them. He got a job just to buy money for the photography equipment. Then he like quit his job, and then he went around and he looked for luxury cars. You know I’m here in Miami, and there’s a lot of these fancy, fancy cars, and he joined meetup groups with people with fancy cars. He did not have a fancy car, but he would meet up with people who had them, and he would offer to photograph their cars. He went to those companies where you can rent a Porsche or Ferrari, or whatever the heck they are.

00:42:57.669 –> 00:43:09.529
And he had offered to photograph their cars. He and he would find the best angles to showcase the cars, he really watched YouTube videos. And he looked at the lighting. I mean, he learned all about how to photograph cars.

00:43:11.410 –> 00:43:28.450
Eventually he got so good that people would hire him. He got professional jobs photographing cars just because he had built up such a level of expertise in photographing these cars. But I mean, he really focused on getting better and meeting people that could teach him not only photography, but had the cars.

00:43:31.250 –> 00:43:39.851
So that’s what they’re looking for in this one. There’s obviously, you can see, overlap between the essays, like between the first one asking about

00:43:40.540 –> 00:43:48.060
background, identity, interest or talent. And that overlaps with six. That’s why we have 7, which actually is just sharing essay in any topic of choice.

00:43:57.450 –> 00:44:08.700
It can be the one you’ve already written when the response to a overlap between the essays that you can pick that one.

00:44:12.120 –> 00:44:17.979
Points to keep in mind. Answer the question being asked, if you do pick a prompt make sure you answer the prompt

00:44:18.340 –> 00:44:47.410
Write about yourself. I went to a thing at University of Pennsylvania, and they were talking about the essays, and I remember so distinctly the story they were using The speaker said we once had an essay, and the kid wrote about his father, who is an astronaut, and they said, Wow! It was so interesting, but we learned nothing about the student. We learned about his dad, and we would let the dad in in a heartbeat. But we know nothing about the student. So you have to be very careful that you’re mainly writing about yourself.

00:44:48.366 –> 00:44:50.069
Keep the essay readable.

00:44:50.610 –> 00:45:08.900
This is important. Don’t go into the Thesaurus and write some deeply dense essay with words that you hardly understand because it will not be readable. I did have had students do this where they put so many fancy words, and you just could not get through it. It was a very, very hard read and admissions wants to get to know you. Not that you can master a thesaurus.

00:45:14.379 –> 00:45:35.610
Very importantly, do not depend on ChatGPT to write your essay. There are hallmarks of using ChatGPT It is not going to write in your voice, I can tell ehen students have written in ChatGPT. It might be getting better… someday it may be able to write the essays perfectly, but it is not there yet.

00:45:36.183 –> 00:45:54.340
So I highly recommend that you don’t do it. You can even put in all your characteristics and it’s still going to write something that sounds a little bit wooden, even if you write like, Hey, make it sound like this? There is a certain authenticity with students, so you can feel and tell, and there is nuance. ChatGPT does not have that yet.

00:45:54.811 –> 00:46:09.970
And I’ve have gone to talked with a lot of admissions, people, and you don’t want to be the person who gets caught for writing in ChatGPT because you have one chance. You don’t get to put your essay to admissions again. They’re not going to tell you why they rejected you either.

00:46:10.110 –> 00:46:25.759
They just will. So if you want to take the gamble and write it that way, feel free to take the gamble, but if not, it will get kicked back by admissions. people who read lots and lots of essays. And when you start reading lots and lots of essays, you can see where things kind of sound the same. So just be very careful with that one.

00:46:32.401 –> 00:46:39.560
How to approach the essay. Yes, choose a story that focuses on you. This is important for you to choose the right story.

00:46:40.116 –> 00:46:54.929
You need to choose the right things from your life, and everything has to layer together. I don’t recommend just writing about like one small thing, especially if you’re going to very competitive schools. I definitely recommend working more things into your essay. So it gives admissions

00:46:55.399 –> 00:47:00.509
a full view of you as opposed to a very narrow small view.

00:47:01.444 –> 00:47:05.565
Make sure your story can show your character, personality, and growth.

00:47:06.050 –> 00:47:11.029
that comes back to the core. Pick the right prompt for you and answer it. Write about something that matters.

00:47:16.640 –> 00:47:34.629
I mean, your essay has to stand out. Basically think of it as a competition. You’re competing with other people to get into the school. Your essay needs to stand out enough that they pick you over other students like you, because all schools have a maximum number of kids they can let in.

00:47:35.545 –> 00:47:39.960
That’s just the way it works, so they can’t let everybody in. So make your essay stand out

00:47:43.294 –> 00:48:03.430
Do not tell the story of your life. This means do not start from you in kindergarten, or something like that. You really got to take a slice of your life or slices of your life. What’s the important part of your life? If it did start when you were young, like you fell in love with the violin, or you fell in love with ballet at 6. And now you’re doing it. Spend this much time on when you were young.

00:48:03.740 –> 00:48:09.180
Spend most of the essay on how you’ve developed over the years. Showing growth is very important.

00:48:09.846 –> 00:48:23.290
I spoke about this one already concentrate more on what you’ve done, not things have been done to you. So again, bad things happen. But that’s not really what they’re looking for. They’re looking for you, and what you did when something bad happened.

00:48:27.197 –> 00:48:37.029
Write about your recent past. This means do not write an essay how you peaked in 6th grade with a spelling bee. You have to bring it out to what you’re doing now.

00:48:38.870 –> 00:48:56.440
Why, it matters is, it has to be something that you can show yourself and how you function in high school. They really want to get to know the high school you. And that doesn’t just mean 9th and 10th grade. It has to be something that concludes now in your junior/ senior year, something that you’re continuing to do.

00:48:58.000 –> 00:49:08.235
not just that you stopped community service in 10th grade once you made all the hours you needed, and then it didn’t mean anything to you anymore. I’m just giving that as a random example.

00:49:09.060 –> 00:49:15.559
They want to know that this is a characteristic that you really possess that’s integral to you.

00:49:16.574 –> 00:49:38.600
Leverage your experiences connect them, if you can. This one’s harded to explain. But you just don’t want to write about like one thing. You want to fold more things into it to give it more flavor. So it’s not just like one bland story, but to show that it really is an integral part of you, that whatever we’re writing about, really says a lot about you.

00:49:41.160 –> 00:49:51.040
Show. Don’t tell. This is very important. So if I write an essay about how smart I am. If I just write the essay, I am so smart, or I really like community service.

00:49:51.419 –> 00:50:11.170
You got to back it up. So if I write an essay, let’s say I concentrate on how smart I am then. Well, I took 15 AP classes last year and got fives in them all, and I cured cancer over the summer. They will see I’m smart. I don’t have to tell them. Try not to use words love or passion in your essay, help admissions see this through your essay

00:50:12.034 –> 00:50:37.479
And again you need to back it up whether you won awards, whether you started a company, whether you started an initiative with a club. But again, the trick is not to repeat your resume. So I have students that come to me and say, I don’t want to put that in because it’s on my resume. Well, there are ways to write the essay where you’re not repeating your resume, but you can use things from your resume in order to tell your story, because right? How else are you going to do it? You have to use things that you’ve done.

00:50:39.167 –> 00:50:46.000
Very importantly. Don’t share anything if it doesn’t put you in the best light unless you can turn it around to show something positive.

00:50:47.170 –> 00:50:49.779
So this means

00:50:50.840 –> 00:51:09.949
Do not write about the DUI you got. Do not write about drinking beer parties or anything like that, and you’re probably saying like. Oh, I would totally, never do something like that. Yet, I’ve seen those essays actually, where somebody felt like they had explained something, but it didn’t turn out quite

00:51:09.950 –> 00:51:28.859
right. But if you do have something negative that you do have to explain, let’s say it is a bad grade, or let’s say you do have to explain an absence from school. There are ways to reposition this, or, to put it in other parts of your application. This is something I can work with you on, how to turn negatives into positives.

00:51:29.278 –> 00:51:43.089
Very importantly, do not. And I’m not diminishing anybody. When I say this. Do not write about things like anorexia or eating disorders. Do not write about anxiety. Do not write about depression.

00:51:43.210 –> 00:51:48.740
You may have that. It may have been a huge part of your life. But what happens is is that schools are going to look at that as a possible liability. Schools are businesses at the end of the day. Schools are not benevolent associations, they are businesses.

00:52:01.300 –> 00:52:20.849
They know school stressful. You’re going to go to school. It is going to be stressful. You might be away from home for the first time you might be living with roommates. College is fantastic. It is also hard. It’s a transition. They don’t want to see anything that

00:52:20.850 –> 00:52:49.189
they think might relapse because they’re not going to be able to be there. So if you do have depression, it’s totally fine. Just don’t write about it in the essay because they’re going to worry that something might happen to you. They’re going to worry. Your eating disorder might be retriggered. They will worry about this, and what’s going to happen is if God forbid anything happens, somebody’s going to come back to them and say, You know what my student wrote about the eating disorder. And how did you not know about that?

00:52:49.210 –> 00:52:53.079
And they’re going to say, Well, we have 20,000 people on campus.

00:52:53.540 –> 00:52:58.020
They don’t want problems.

00:52:58.460 –> 00:53:17.569
So do not write about anything doesn’t put you in a good light unless you have the depression, and you got over the depression. And now you’re counseling other people about depression or something like that, then maybe. But that’s another thing we’d have to discuss is how to do that, because there is a fine line between what’s going to scare them and what’s going to be good

00:53:19.012 –> 00:53:20.610
Avoid anything controversial.

00:53:20.860 –> 00:53:38.598
You do not know who’s reading your essays. So if you, unless you want to write about how you support a political candidate, or you only like this one thing, or you don’t believe in evolution. I am just making stuff up seriously off the top of my head.

00:53:40.950 –> 00:53:50.579
You could take the chance, and you can say you know what, if they don’t listen to my beliefs, and they don’t like the way I think, I don’t want to be part of that school. Great

00:53:50.900 –> 00:54:11.060
go for it. But at the same time I highly recommend. Why would you want to do that? You’re applying to a school because you hope you get in. So avoid things that are controversial because you do not know who’s reading your essay. You do not know their beliefs, and they’re not going to call you and ask you to clarify. That is very important. They will not call you, no matter what you write and ask you to clarify anything, they’ll just say, Nope.

00:54:13.180 –> 00:54:34.180
Don’t list information already in your application again, there’s that line between using your resume to write your essay and repeating your resume. So just remember you don’t want to repeat what’s in your resume. But in the essay you can add to it. You can explain how things work, or why you did the things you did

00:54:36.210 –> 00:54:40.870
And the last one is, keep it real right from your heart. Write it authentically.

295
00:54:41.302 –> 00:54:58.250
That’s really what they’re looking for. They’re looking to see who you are. It’s funny. One of the schools my daughter applied to is Bowdoin, which is up in Maine. It’s a Liberal Arts school, and I always speak to the admissions people, and I say, you know what characteristics are you looking for in the students you want to admit

296
00:54:58.390 –> 00:55:20.319
And they said, one of the big one was kindness. They were looking for kids who were kind, and they said that was really important to us. So part of writing the essay also is you know, you’re going to match certain schools with it.

00:55:23.470 –> 00:55:50.810
I’ll probably give another one of these webinars on the supplemental essays, and you have to get more into like understanding what the schools looking for. But in the main essay this Common App essay goes to all the schools. I really did miss saying that. But this is the essay that goes to all the schools. This is the one essay all the schools will see it so you can’t really tailor to the schools. But just understand, the schools are looking for a good match between you and them.

00:55:51.243 –> 00:55:57.239
When I start talking to students, I always ask them what are your top three schools

00:55:57.350 –> 00:56:15.500
that you were applying to. And then we work the essay that it in some ways it speaks to the top schools that you’re interested in. Usually students, when they make a list, apply to schools in a certain kind of category And

00:56:16.250 –> 00:56:21.009
At least, when they work with international college counselors they come up with a list that really speaks to them.

00:56:22.290 –> 00:56:47.880
Oh, I’m going to run out of time. I’m not going to get to questions. But seriously, if you have any questions, please please email me, I’m going to bring up my email at the end of this and I’m happy to answer any questions that you send to me. And also again, I make the offer of if you send me your essay I will do a top line review of it and tell you what I think.

00:56:48.605 –> 00:56:58.510
But this is it. You need to stay on the right track. A reader should be able to summarize the subject or essay in a simple sentence. So again. You don’t want to be underwear girl.

00:56:59.390 –> 00:57:21.090
You want to be known, as the kind leader, or something like that. So it’s not even a sentence. It’s like advertising. It’s like Volvo stands for safety or BMW stands for performance. So it’s very much defining who you are and who you want to be in a way that the school can understand that. And that’s why they want you.

306
00:57:25.580 –> 00:57:36.380
I have writing tips. I’ll review them really quickly. I always tell students write the first draft without worrying about word limit. Get everything on the page.

00:57:36.520 –> 00:57:41.959
Let it sit for a day, read it over as if you didn’t write it. Spend time revising your essay.

00:57:44.470 –> 00:57:53.859
Copy and paste carefully. That’s more for supplemental essays. And then, at the end of the day, check grammar and spelling. Get a second opinion.

00:57:53.920 –> 00:58:20.410
Do not get 40 opinions, because if you ask for 40 opinions, you’ll get 40 answers. Only ask people that really know what the essay is. This is a very, very specific piece of writing. This is a piece of writing to get you into the school. This is actually not a creative writing project. This is not if I just throw it out there schools are going to understand me. This is an essay that needs to be very tight and really define who you are.

00:58:20.760 –> 00:58:33.369
So if you are getting opinions, don’t just show some random person. Show a teacher show your guidance counselor. Show somebody that really knows

00:58:33.370 –> 00:58:51.309
what the essay is supposed to do, because, again, this is a very specific piece of writing to help you get into school. If you want to work with me, I do work with students. I help them find their stories. I will help them get from not only a story, but I’ll take them all the way to the end to a proofread essay.

00:58:51.730 –> 00:58:54.250
So I definitely help with that

00:58:55.226 –> 00:59:02.950
And ask yourself how you’re coming across. There’s a weird hybrid between being too braggy and not bragging enough.

00:59:03.100 –> 00:59:28.239
Because what you are is competing against others. So you have to be likable at the same time that you cannot be too humble. I’ve had many students who’ve done extraordinary things, and they are so humble. You cannot even tell what they did. And I’ve had students who are very braggy about things that they should not have really been bragging about The activities weren’t important enough to put that much emphasis on. So it is a balance.

00:59:30.380 –> 00:59:47.066
And again, like with any essay, read your essay over, and would you have any questions for you if you were reading the essay? Have you left holes in it? Have you left things unanswered? Have you left gaps that are like, why is the student saying things like this?

00:59:47.510 –> 00:59:49.332
That’s very important.

00:59:50.559 –> 00:59:57.230
Because you’re not going to be there. They’re not going to call you. They will never call you and ask you for any more information.

00:59:57.610 –> 01:00:01.749
If your essay does not stand on its own and support itself.

01:00:03.310 –> 01:00:04.789
It’s not going to work.

01:00:07.610 –> 01:00:37.209
Here’s my last thoughts, and then I’ll be done because I do like ending on time. College essays about the student–who you are and not who you’re not. So don’t compare yourself to people who you’re not. Don’t put other people down. I have seen essays where a student feels a need to say how the other kids in their class weren’t working, or these people weren’t working hard enough, or their teammates weren’t as dedicated as them. You do not want to put anybody down in the essay. They want to know about you, not about everybody else.

01:00:38.142 –> 01:01:05.510
I highly believe this, and I learned this in advertising, too. Every product has a unique selling point, and every student has gem of an essay in them. I’ve been doing this for many years. I speak with the students, for, like an hour and a half we find your gem. It is guided questioning. It’s very gentle. And it’s a good conversation. I’ve never had a student who has not had an essay in them.

01:01:06.422 –> 01:01:33.940
You got to find that ounce of truth and turn to 650 words of strong focus. Positive writing. Again, if you cannot bring your essay up to 650 words, if you’re only at 400 words, unless it’s some creative writing piece, you do not have the right topic. This should be easy to write. I know when I work with students and we hit on the right topic, they smile and I love that smile. They get really excited. They’re like, Oh, my gosh! I can write that essay. So

01:01:33.940 –> 01:01:37.709
I know once we get to the right essay, they get that smile.

01:01:39.560 –> 01:02:15.770
So here’s me, Aimee, at International College Counselors. If you’re interested in the company, or more comprehensive help with your application, please consider International College Counselors. They can totally take you through the whole application. They do have a senior package. They work with students for anywhere from 8th grade to 12th grade. And if you do have a senior this year they can very much help you through the process. I only work on essays.

01:02:16.796 –> 01:02:25.000
So feel free, if you have an essay, you want me to look at. I will give you a top line feedback on it.

01:02:25.320 –> 01:02:35.620
And that’s it. And if you have questions please, please please send them to me.

01:02:38.783 –> 01:02:40.289
Let’s see.

01:02:40.920 –> 01:02:35.620
I’m going to answer a couple of these: somebody asked, Does every college have their own prompts?

01:03:00.980 –> 01:03:29.919
Every school does not have essays. Some schools do not have any supplemental essays at all. Some have a lot of supplemental essays. The Ivies have a lot of supplemental essays. The University of Texas has a lot of essays. University of California schools have a lot of essays. Then many schools do have their own supplemental essays. You can check in on our website at internationalcollegecounselors.com. We have la section of essays. And we put up all these supplemental essays as they come out.

01:03:29.920 –> 01:03:36.919
So our website’s a really great resource for you if you’re looking to see what supplemental essays are coming out.

01:03:37.346 –> 01:03:43.209
But some schools do not have any essays at all like FIU, Florida International University.

01:03:43.840 –> 01:03:57.879
Will the recording be available in the future? Actually, everybody who’s here is, going to get a copy of the recording that you can share with people. Feel free.

01:04:02.060 –> 01:04:03.046
Let’s see.

01:04:04.420 –> 01:04:15.220
You said not to talk about when you were very young. But what if something like a family member getting sick really affected you as a child, and made you want to get into health care and want to help others with health.

01:04:15.722 –> 01:04:20.989
For that question I’d have to look at what essay your students writing, because there’s a fine line

01:04:21.270 –> 01:04:28.640
Even if you want to. You really don’t need to talk about your major in this essay. So

01:04:29.200 –> 01:04:53.390 it depends what schools you’re applying to as a whole because some of the supplemental essays ask like, why you’re interested in a major, or why you’re interested in this school, which might be great in healthcare or something like that. So this is something I’d have to look at specifically. And also I would go over what other stories you might have, because the Common Application might not be the place you want to write about that.
01:04:58.940 –> 01:05:03.730
How much is the consultation fee per student? Do you charge per school that we apply?

01:05:04.530 –> 01:05:28.660
Oh, it’s an anonymous attendee. If you write to me specifically, I’m happy to share the prices with you. I do help with the Common Application essay, and then I have a la carte where I help on specific essays, and I price by word count, or I help on schools. So I have like packages of like five schools or ten schools. We can talk if you have something else in mind.
01:05:29.175 –> 01:05:40.309
And then for those five schools or those ten schools, no matter how many essays they are, I will work with your students on them. So if the school has two essays. Fine If a school has five essays. Fine.

01:05:40.759 –> 01:05:43.859
But I have different. I have different prices for that.

01:05:45.072 –> 01:05:48.517
And then somebody asked about AP scores.

01:05:49.760 –> 01:06:02.360
yeah, I actually don’t know the answer to this. If you take many APs and get great grades, but have weaker AP Scores, I actually don’t know the answer to that. That’s on the advising side. International College Counselors offers advice and help with this.

01:06:02.520 –> 01:06:18.689
At the minimum, I believe they have a two hour session. If you have like questions for them, you can meet with them for two hours, and they can answer questions for you. But I don’t do anything with the advising side. I don’t have the answers, and I don’t want to tell you anything that’s wrong.

01:06:24.490 –> 01:06:25.559
Okay.

357
01:06:26.880 –> 01:06:33.810
Oh, what college did my daughter get into? She got into Cornell. I’m really proud of her, very proud of her.

01:06:36.070 –> 01:06:45.639
Let’s see, somebody asks, have you stay away from sports, relative deaths, mission trips, any truth to that. You know what? It really depends how we position it.

01:06:46.030 –> 01:06:51.239
I have had students where the only thing they had were sports, and the only thing they had were mission trips.

01:06:51.490 –> 01:07:11.679
There are ways to manipulate the essay, so it’s not just about that. But I’d have to talk with you on a on a specific basis for that, because I don’t do any blanket statements that are like, never write about sports, never write about that. Sometimes it’s all the student has. So it’s just how do you position it? And that’s again that requires a conversation. So if there’s something specific.

01:07:15.400 –> 01:07:23.269
Please write to me. Here’s another very specific one about how someone overcame an illness. Yeah, you can. You can write about that.

01:07:24.330 –> 01:07:26.584
Yeah, that’s a good one.

01:07:27.790 –> 01:07:45.289
When we send you an essay, when you look at what the cost of it. I will look at a first draft of an essay, and I’ll just give you a top line answer, and then we can discuss cost. If you want to work with me. I’ll give you honest feedback. It’s very transparent. I’m not a teacher. I don’t give grades.

01:07:45.290 –> 01:07:59.790
My job. My only job is to help students on their essays.. So I will give you feedback, and then, if you choose to work with me, you can or choose not to, but you know I’ll give you an honest overview.

01:08:05.710 –> 01:08:20.960
Have you any tips for finding a gem of an essay on your own. I’m considering plenty of ideas and don’t know how to narrow them down. If you do write an essay, I’m happy to take a look at it. I don’t have any tips and I don’t do worksheets. I don’t have anything like that.

01:08:22.319 –> 01:08:29.450
It’s just what do you feel really strongly about. And what can you write about that you think really reflects you.

01:08:30.180 –> 01:08:38.430
I don’t have any magic answer. This is why, when I talk to the students, we talk for like an hour and a half, and we find that gem of an essay. But I don’t have any magic way to tell you how to do that.

01:08:43.960 –> 01:08:46.736
Yes, if you want to write to me, you can write to me.

01:08:47.960 –> 01:09:04.459
I heard that the Common App should reflect all aspect and aspect of you, though to otherwise not be shown in your application. Is there any truth to this. Yees, that’s why I was talking about a student’s characteristics because it’s not going to show up anywhere else in your application. The essay pulls things together

01:09:04.569 –> 01:09:16.669
that are about you. You can have things that are in your application, but it’s how does it make you? Why did you choose those things? How it was meaningful to you?

01:09:16.670 –> 01:09:36.731
I do believe the essay pulls your application together and creates a narrative for you, because again, they’re looking through your application very quickly. The essay to me pulls your application together and helps them understand who you are, why you did these things, why you took these classes.

01:09:37.910 –> 01:09:44.530
So yeah, can I write about how I overcame an illness? Not someone else?

01:09:45.634 –> 01:09:54.089
It’s a very specific question. You’re more than welcome to write to me about it specifically, but I don’t know how to answer it just

01:09:54.370 –> 01:10:12.379
generalized, because again, I don’t ever say, don’t write about this topic. It really depends how you write about it, because I’ve written great sports essays when others say don’t write about sports. But there are ways to write good sports essays. And you know, sometimes that’s all the student has. What are you going to do?

01:10:13.120 –> 01:10:23.359
But we make it interesting. We make it about more than sports like we bring more stuff in. So it’s it shows them off more than just like I played in a soccer game, or I spent my whole life playing soccer.

01:10:26.913 –> 01:10:45.139
I don’t know if anyone else has any other questions but 100 perfecnt feel free to email me. For being here on this webinar, you can send me an essay. I’ll take a look at it and give you like a top line. It is going to be top line. It’s not going to be completely comprehensive, but it’ll give you enough of an idea if you’re on the right track or not.

01:10:45.716 –> 01:10:49.193
And that’s it again. Feel free to write to me and

01:10:49.650 –> 01:10:54.039
thank you all for being here tonight. I definitely appreciate everyone being here.

01:10:55.070 –> 01:11:15.930
Oh, here, what are this? Oh, here someone else is asking about the consultations. What are the schedules of the consultations? I mean, do we start in August? Now I am working with students. Now, I’ve been working with students since the essays got approved. I’ve been working with students since June. So if you do want to work with me on the Common App, I highly recommend starting now.

01:11:16.000 –> 01:11:29.380
because the supplemental essays will be coming out, and they’re starting to come out already. You want to have the Common App essay buttoned up before all those supplements come out, because there are a lot of supplements. I don’t know what schools you all are applying to, but the supplements are their own critters.

01:11:39.129 –> 01:11:43.540
So yeah, if you are interested in working with me, I’m happy to start working with you now.