The Secrets to Writing and Editing Compelling Supplemental and "Why Us" Essays

hi I am Debbie Schwartz founder of road to college and the paying for college 101 Facebook group I am here with Ellen Whalen who is our counselor in Residence who um manages does a lot of the sessions for a program called uh um College insights Academy and also works one-on-one with all the families who request those types of services so um let me just do a tiny bit of housekeeping people are asking for the captions so let me put that on captions show captions great let me um send this to Facebook if anybody is going to watch it there and Ellen while I do that do you mind giving a tiny a quick background on yourself no hi I'm Ellen Whalen it's my pleasure to be here tonight with all of you um I uh this is gonna be my seventh season doing College admissions counseling and I come at it from a bit of a different angle I graduate from model psychologist with a ba in economics and Spanish and then I worked in Fortune 500 companies during sales and marketing for over a decade and when I had children I um I gotta click something here I took took a break and became a professional writer and editor and I find that um these skill sets really work well um in this industry and it's my pleasure to help families and I've had my two daughters go through this I haven't I already graduated from Wellesley and another one that's at Hamilton and I've helped hundreds of families and I'm getting around that thousand essay Mark I think of editing yeah I'm sure Allen has helped a ton of families um with us through Rhodes college and then um through her own practice and um she has a great insight into kind of how what angles to take when when your students writing um both their common app personal statements and also the supplemental essays so let's get started um Ellen has slides to share I will be checking the chat if you've got questions and um we'll take and we did get samples from people thank you um for sending them in we couldn't use all of them but um Ellen picked a few so we have some of those samples that we're going to go through to apply what Ellen talks about to some real real Sam real live essays okay so I'm going to share my screen I I have the capability right there yes okay great okay okay here we go okay so College specific essays also known as supplemental essays um so we're going to try to give you some insights some tips some tricks uh and hopefully it will make everyone's lives easier okay so um about the IB plus colleges say that 80 percent of the students that apply can do the work so um again it's all about standing out in the process and so once the academic hurdles have been passed what's important is uh you know what's in the Common App and a big piece of that is the writing and what I have found is that students tend to put a lot of time into the personal statement and they don't put as much time into the supplemental essays and what's happening because there's so many there's so many applicants that these colleges overwhelmed and I'm finding and I I've heard this from other you know counselors that the um supplemental essays are now as important if not more important than the personal statement because it's that extra these colleges are looking for a reason to take someone out of the admit pile because they have to they they just have to because the numbers if you know there's a four percent acceptance right that's what they have to do and it's very hard so if students don't demonstrate that they know the college through these essays then that can be a reason to be taken out of the admit pile so uh please keep that in mind so writing a tight detailed filled essay can be key in this process all right so um so I touched upon this a little bit but why do colleges ask for these essays well first of all they want to learn more about you so every essay is an another opportunity for a student to give a show themselves from a different angle and um they also want to know if you are a good fit for their college it's another way for students to show demonstrated interest and that they know information about the college um and it can help a student what what I have found this process if the student digs deeply enough they get to know the college better and I think often they can become more excited about the college and this can even happen with their likely schools that that they go oh my gosh I didn't know they had this aspect and so it's an interesting process to see it unfold if done well so the last thing is on this screen optional isn't optional right again colleges are looking for reasons to say no so if everyone is writing an optional essay when there are ones and your student isn't you know then they're going to stand out for not writing it so keep that in mind okay so um you know with the increase in applications as I said these essays are you know more important oh I'm sorry I went the wrong direction sorry about that or did I I don't oh I know what I did okay I've got two screens screens going so I can read some notes at the same time and I push the wrong button on the other one okay so the more competitive of college the more likely they are to have these essays because again it helps them to know if the student's a good fit and also it's another hurdle to jump over so um It's Not Unusual some schools might have four essays and they might also have popcorn essays which are short short answer questions um okay for example I just want to say my um daughter that's at Hamilton she had accounted 23 essays that she did and that included a few for um a theater portfolio I had another client who had um well over 30 and she wrote unique essays for every single one it was really crazy um okay so so where can these essays be found they should hopefully be on the college uh College's admissions page but the definitive one is when they're in the Common App students um August 1st is when it goes live and they um student goes to the individual colleges tab under that there'll be um questions and it's usually under the writing tab of the questions but go through every single tab under the college um the college specific area because there can be questions hidden under the major it could be a question hidden um under if they hit that they went the Honors College and Essay might pop up um if they're you know selecting that they're going to do something with an art portfolio it could come up so those are just things to keep in mind but that's something when um August 1st with the schools the students know currently I would um have them do that so they don't find have any surprises and then put all the supplemental essays like on a spreadsheet so they can all be seen and look for commonalities which I will get into um another thing that can happen after a student applies they might think there aren't any supplement supplemental essays and sometimes I know this happened with my daughter at Colgate in Hamilton they pop up in the portal and that's after the students have sent in their application they get portal instructions and that's then how the colleges communicate to them so it's important to check the portal after a student um applies okay so Ellen there was a question you um mentioned a little bit earlier about optional isn't optional is that relate to um um like other questions as well um you know um like there's the the additional information uh section of the Common App okay so the additional information section is usually underutilized so you don't have to use that but I have said in the past that I find it hard to believe that there isn't something that doesn't need clarification or couldn't be expanded upon to benefit your student now you want to use it judiciously you want to keep it short and to the point uh and relevant you don't want to upload a resume you don't want to upload extra supplemental essays for another college that you just want to you know put in there so that's not what it's for it's to clarify issues with grades um with a course selection um if maybe you know they were got a Girl Scout Gold Award and they wouldn't expand upon that a little bit more those are the reasons to use the additional information section so when I'm talking about optional other areas and and that could be one of them um and you wouldn't use the covet if there's no reason there's a coveted essay uh if there's no covid reflection don't use it but when there are things like in optional interview it's best to try to take advantage of them when you can all right so oh and if so if there are optional essays in the portal or essays in general often this um the colleges give them a few weeks to do it so don't be surprised if that occurs okay so you might be wondering what the most common essay questions are they kind of come in these six types so when I said go and look at all the essays and put them in Excel spreadsheet you're going to see commonalities and general generalizations um there's this why this college uh so um that comes in different forms But ultimately why do you want to come to this college what do you think why do you think you're going to be a good fit at our College those are all in essence a why this college essay uh what is what they're looking at what they're looking for for an answer is why you would be a good fit on their campus and why their campus kind of meets your needs um and it helps to see how you will be on their campus through using activities a student is currently um participating in and what they might choose to participate in similarly on campus and their different academic focuses so the next one which can overlap with a wireless collagen sometimes it becomes one question we'll say why this college and why this major under one question so why this major it would be why same idea why is the student interested in this major and why is our College a good fit for the major your students interested in so kind of same theme same idea sliced a little differently uh favorite activity can come in different types of questions again but assess essentially it is reduced down to that and so if a student has a really activity that's really important to them they might want to and they're writing about it or thinking of writing about for the personal statement they might not want to or they might want to touch upon it but not go into depth they might be able to hold that um to the side and first of all see if there are favorite activity essays so it's good to know that's why it's also good to know these essays do you know um you can kind of map out what different areas a student wants to highlight in these different questions to make sure there's this big um three-dimensional uh information about the student so it's not just the same OneNote thread okay a very popular there's a lot been a lot of community questions um like you know what community um are you involved in but diversity has been added into this um especially in light of um you know affirmative action being ended so they might also instead of diversity might use the word like lived um experience um so UVA just came out with a new 300 word essay and it is what about your background perspective or experience will serve as a source of strength for you or those around you at UVA and it's getting at kind of this kind of diversity question getting around um affirmative action a bit it opens the door for a student to talk about their identity and some you know whatever aspects of their life they want to share uh why uh the Honors College um that is another popular one and um oh and just to finish about Community diversity community community can be any it can be school Community it could be a sports team it could be Church it could be family it could be a town it could be um you know just French Club whatever it is the community theater could be anything um and so the last one um which are becoming more common are popcorn questions and that's where it might be what's your favorite book and they have um 50 or 100 characters to answer the question or um who uh what what historical figure um you know would you like to have dinner with so questions like that and they might have like eight or ten of them so those are the most common questions that I have seen over time so Ellen it was a good question somebody's asking what if they actually talk about the major that they're interested in as part of their common app uh personal statement and then you know um there might be a supplemental question that that relates to it yeah and that's why it's helpful to know the questions ahead of time but hopefully if it's your major hopefully you have other information to come at the question the other question um so yeah it's good to hold back some information if you are going to write about your major so you still have something new to share in the why this major essay so hopefully if you don't have anything else maybe there's something you can add into your personal statement like another paragraph that shows another side of you and that paragraph that's getting replaced maybe could go into a why um this major type of thing you could the student can also spend a fair amount of time talking about what the college has specifically that is perfect for what they want to study and I'm going to go into that kind of stuff as we uh progress so a trick um is to it let's say they have their favorite activity is to look at all the different word counts so um when my daughter was doing it there was definitely you know what's your favorite activity and I think she had to write it four or five times and the word length range from 400 all the way down to 150. so what I suggest is the student writes the longest essay the 400 word essay in this case and then cull it down and it's not easy to call it down but um it's easier to call it down in that they have a framework and so to keep that in mind that that's a recycling of an essay but it's craft culling it so that it still reads well and the essence the heart of the essay is still there all right so we're going to cover mistakes to avoid so broad generalities those are what you want to avoid so you don't want to talk about weather or location so a lot of students talk about let's say Northeastern I love Boston well you know what are they how many are there they're I don't know they're like like 60 plus colleges in the rough area around Boston uh so that's not a good you know that's not specific all right um some kids or students say I want to go to an IB well the IVs are all a lot of them are pretty different especially if you compare Dartmouth to Colombia for example um and then uh recycling essays so on some level as the essays can be recycled but it's important to know how to do them so if a student let's say does you know um you know why the school and they're just saying broad things I love the weather I love um you know the football team and then they don't but they they cite the football team's name you know whatever it is the Penguins and they don't change it for the next school um then that is obviously a tip that they weren't paying attention um they were careless not paying attention to details and the college knows that they recycled an essay and weren't didn't care enough to catch it is their thinking um and you know wasting precious words some of these essays are as short as a hundred words and every single word counts and again being specific and not just doing broad generalities when with regard to the conservation of words so actually talking about conservation Awards somebody was asking about um word count um can you talk about how many words are acceptable I wouldn't go over the amount of words that they say so again there so some colleges uh so uh Penn um State Honors College they have two I think they have eight essays in total eight or ten I can't remember if it's it's at least eight and two of them are 800 words each so that's a very very long essay so that's an extreme amount that's more than the personal statement but uh my understanding is that the common Apple like you know cut it off so the essay let's say a student writes a 300 word essay it's a 250 word essay the the ending will get cut off so we you want they want to pay attention to directions and match the word count right and so and the word count can vary and will vary from school to school and supplemental essay so some might be 300 some might be 250 I've even seen 150 so Dartmouth which I'll be showing is a hundred so um okay foreign next one okay so let's talk about best practices for the Why Us and um why this major so hopefully um your student was and or both of you uh have been taking notes whether visiting a campus or listening to um online talks or just doing research and uh that is when it can be really helpful to pull up those notes and that's what I always recommend to our College insights Academy group to do that and it makes it a lot easier if a student hasn't been doing that or a school has just landed you know on their list it can take two to four hours of research to write a why this essay well to get the specifics one place they might want to look is the mission statement and or the Strategic plan to get some ideas of what the college is looking for what kind of tells of um uh the type of student they're looking to bring into the college into the community um and then the essay can kind of be crafted around that a little bit or give a nod to it in a sentence um looking at the professors in the classes is a really great way to be specific and I'll go into that some more um and uh so another thing is what do you want to do on campus you know look at the clubs and the Traditions you know you can literally Google the school's name in clubs and all the clubs come up generally and then which clubs does your student like um which ones pair with what they're already doing and which ones might be something where they say they want to try something new um and and that's the idea of what are you doing now that you'd like to continue all right so next so some essay writing tips so I've said this before my last talk um writing is rewriting so read the essays out loud have them proofread by someone else and make sure that you know there's new information in every essay so that it's not some you know old information that doesn't go with the new school and writing is a window into the mind so a student is proving that they're College ready through their writing it's a way for the admissions officers to see your um intellectual prowess so um shortening the essay to fit the count um ways to do that are being concise contractions can be used it's supposed to be in the student's voice you know when we speak we tend to use contractions um use short paragraphs little bite-sides paragraphs it just makes it easier to read it's more inviting um and so um Mark Twain it's hard to be concise and right it's much harder to write something that's tight than not so Mark Twain wrote I didn't have time to write a short letter so I wrote a long one instead all right Ellen along that lines about like you know keeping things tight um somebody asked could you use chat GPT to help reduce the length of your essay once you have a draft yeah I don't you know there's just so many things with chat gbt I I would hope possibly since it is your essay I would hope that would be okay I just don't know I don't I think you have to be careful I mean I'm um I'm a little bit on the fence I absolutely you can't you need you cannot use it you know to create your the initial draft um if you have something that's like I'm gonna yeah 350 words you want to get it to 300 words I'm not opposed to running it through and see what they suggest I wouldn't take everything um straightforward because it does have the chance of kind of like not dumbing it down but kind of um but but just making it very Bland you know um so I'm not going to say don't use it but I'm not going to say take every suggestion it it offers I am going to say do not use it for anything initial because um you need to come up with your own um original material but if you want to use it as like a final kind of pass-through to you know maybe squeeze out a few words you know I I wouldn't be a post okay and there you go there's Debbie's official answer opinion opinion okay so uh now we're going to look at these principles and actions so I'm going to stop this and so the first thing I want to do is show you um so this is dartmouth's magazine and it's 3D magazine and every year they have um they share some not too many colleges do this you can always Google and see if you come across us but they share essays that worked in students they accepted um you know John Johns Hopkins does this too yes and last year they were sharing supplemental essays and I went to I I saved the link and I went to it and I could only find personal statements yes so they have personal statements tough says personal statements Connecticut College has them Hamilton College does but finding the supplemental essay is not commonplace though Dartmouth is a great one for that and these are I'll let you guys read them I don't want to take up a lot of time but it's on page eight um you know what Ellen can you take that um link and put it into the chat okay yep I can do that I am technologically savvy Debbie I know it's a very high bar we got here okay now he's just gonna put in this chat okay here it is it's up top sorry my bar was up there okay here we go paste and uh for people that watch this afterwards um it's just uh Dartmouth 3D magazine and page eight okay all right so um the next thing I want to share is tough so this is from their um website here are their questions for this year and um so the first uh they choose for one of three questions 200 to 250 words see it's all they are clearly spelled at out it's uh cool to love learning what excites your intellectual curiosity and why no that can be a why this major essay that could be a why you know what's your favorite activity essay um you know that could be different things um have how have the experiments excuse me environments or experiences of your upbringing your family home neighborhood or Community shape the person you are today so that's a community essay right it could also be diversity um using a specific example or two tell us about a way that you contributed to building a collaborative and or inclusive community and that's a community one the Fine Arts has its own question um and then there's one more at the bottom a hundred words or less I'm applying to Tufts because that is a Why Us essay and there you go so that is an example so now what I want to show you is oops this is not what I want sorry let me go here we go okay this is what I want I hoped all right here we go so when I was watching uh Tufts talk one time they I had this great example of um some essays so I took a screenshot so I'm going to read it to you it's the Y Tufts essay and I'm going to ask Debbie enter anyone else that wants to chime in what they think about this essay so Tufts University is an interesting and exciting school for many reasons I had previously never heard of Tufts however after I learned about the school and visited the campus I knew it was where I wanted to spend the next four years of my education and my life I love how it's located right outside of Boston because there are so many exciting opportunities in the city to start me on my career path I also love how it's a typical campus style school which I could definitely see myself living in a small undergraduate population also excites me because I am looking forward to forming close relationships with my professors and peers so that I can be collaborative with the people around me okay Debbie what do you think I think it's pretty generic I could have like taken the um you know Tufts out and I could have put Haverford College you could have put Swarthmore College in there it's nothing particular to Tufts well you wouldn't put them in because they're not location as well but right but right no you're putting Bentley you could've been well Babson yes yes so that this is an essay you don't want to do all right so now they should make it so that was interesting so they gave that as an example in their session say don't write like this okay that's correct sorry gotta get okay so now they gave an essay they liked here we go all right I've got to make sure I can read this sorry let me not make it worry about making it too big and I have to be able to there ah okay I just can't leave it like this and read it okay so this is an essay that does work why Tufts I have been waiting to answer this question since I was a sophomore in high school I discovered the international literary and visual studies program by accident online I became very familiar with the gray and green ilvs webpage reading about the cultural history of the Middle East China and the West Etc was an easy way to put off my math homework Tufts is a multifaceted is a place for multifaceted people in high school I've often felt torn between my different interests I've explored gender and sexuality in my artwork studied Qatari and the U.S foreign policy in depth and discovered my love for um could I'm sorry for Chinese idioms and Proverbs whereas in high school having this many different interests sometimes left me feeling torn Tufts is a place where the this is not expected and celebrated I would relish the chance to be able to wholeheartedly pursue learning Arabic Chinese and continuing my study of foreign policy without being feeling like I had to sacrifice my love of art I love the spirit of light-hearted nerdiness at Tufts it was the only information session session that I laughed in most of all I appreciate the Tufts Community is supportive introspective and diverse definitely it's great yeah the only thing I would the word relish that you know you might debate whether or not that's a word that the student would naturally use and even if they know the word what the word means which you know I'm sure a lot of students do does it sound like it's coming in their voice you know that might be something that you think a parent had their hand in um minor thing is not to say you know that it there's nothing wrong I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it I'm just saying that's just something that stood out to me but yes um all in all very specific like we're talking about and um the student got into the school okay so now I want to share the supplemental essays that were shared with us so I um got some some people sent me personal statements and we weren't covering personal statements and um I I wanted um essays I had a few that were in pretty good shape and I wanted essays where we could kind of um give some ideas to help improve them so this is the University of Georgia S.A uh question so this and it's kind of an interesting question it's Unique that this one would be hard to recycle so the transition from middle to high school is a key time for students as they reach new levels of both academic and personal Discovery please share a book um that had a serious impact on you during this time please focus more on why this book made an impact on you and less on the plot theme of the book itself we're not looking for a book report 200 to 300 words suggested it's interesting they say suggest it um so they're being very specific they're giving great directions so if someone gave a book report the student would not be following directions well okay so I I don't want to um I want to say I want to thank those um two students that gave me examples and um we want to make sure to um be helpful and give them good suggestions so this is what the student wrote and uh Debbie I'm going to ask you for your opinion and there were someone else has any comments they want to chime in about um the transition from middle to high school for my class was stomped on by Copic as the world uh locked down and everything came to a halt we found ourselves with little school and lots of free time insert my Uncle Matt Uncle Matt is a smart guy but the conspiracy theory believes have gotten wild over time he told my mom he had a fantastic eye-opening book for us to read so he polished his tinfoil hat and marched off to the post office soon arrived humans are not from Earth by Ellis silver and boy was it life-changing my mom would not even crack the book open but I decided to give it a go let me first state that I'm a science guy I'm a man of logic reason and Common Sense the first paragraph had me rolling my eyes this book is out there I disagreed with about 99 of what was written it contradicts everything solid science has taught me it was like nothing I had ever read I did not understand how this was even published it is outlandish who would actually believe any of it well Uncle Matt that is who my beloved funny intelligence supportive Uncle hangs in every word however this book did remind me that all types of people exist in the world we have different opinions and beliefs but we're all just people I still love and respect my uncle even if we have completely different mindsets this unlikely book was powerful in confirming my desire to pursue a career in science the world clearly needs more scientific research and data as it's hard to could argue with facts I want to do my part to contribute to that or we may actually find ourselves with a tinfoil shortage foreign any thoughts if you were assuming you're able to listen as you were reading things no I was um I think um I think there's something there but it's just not like enough um I think it's just still like on the surface is a lot of discussion about like the story behind getting the book and the uncle and um but I don't have an example of what I mean I think you could provide an example from the book without being a book report about what was it that you know um that was so outlandish what was it that made him you know more um specific uh you know that to recognize that there were other people in this world with different opinions it's just you need to you need a few more deeper details yes I would agree with that um I want to show that I I always when I'm editing an essay I always check the word count it's the first thing I do sometimes I get essays that are 500 words over the limit and um and the student is looking they know it's over they're looking for help calling it so that's the first thing I do so it was great that this was only one word over which is very easy to fix um so I thought lots of times essays have like it's like a one note and they're just hitting hard the same theme Here the student does bring up that um you know he's into science um and uh the other thing he brought up is that he is um accepting of others and believes that we need diversity in the world so we did have like two notes in here in addition to the fact that he was and I'd also say he's a good writer so we've kind of learned like three things about him from that perspective and I'd add a fourth thing he has a sense of humor and it comes across and a student if they're not naturally funny should not try to this is not the time to be funny in writing if they're not naturally funny it it can fall flat it works for the student he um he or she did a good job so these are my suggestions my edits um so what I was trying to do was culling it enough to add more in there kind of like what Debbie was saying whether it's a short sentence from the book or more about the student himself or herself I'm just going to say himself so um I don't know again if it's male Primo the first thing I would do is get rid of kind of um answering the question with a question just get rid of it we don't need to you know that that the transition from middle school to high school so at covid's start now these admissions officers know that you know this class was disrupted like in freshman year whenever it was 8th grade freshman year um so covet start I had little schooling and lots of free time insert Uncle Matt he's I got rid of Uncle Matt is a smart guy but the conspiracy theory beliefs have become Wilder with time he told my mom he had a fantastic eye opening but booked for us to read so um I'm just going to quickly say I just I got rid of student arrived and just gave the title of the book that wasn't necessary so the first paragraph isn't bad I would just basically get rid of the first line but um what I got into more was um again tightening but so I'll just let you guys look at the edits but basically what I wanted to do was um the third paragraph however this book reminded me that there are all types of people um I just found that was a little bit kind of trite I just thought maybe he could um this whole part um with varying uh he's got different twice so I made it varying opinions and beliefs but we are all just people I I just thought that kind of landed flat I thought there was a more original way of potentially saying it if you want to keep it in um I also thought he kind of you know made the point but what I wanted to do especially in the end and this is why I was trying to call stuff I just wanted him to be more specific about you know pursuing a science career like you know is it let's say it's engineering and then I would have with my culling I would have um written something like I'm interested in working with Professor X when he does his research on X research um I mean your point is that the even though this question is you know a question about the student there's a way to still pull in specifics about the school so that it makes it feel like that student also knows the school and and and they're tying in what they like about the school to the question yes so it depends so sometimes there might be three different questions and one of the questions might be why this school right if that's the case then there's no reason to do it um I think this is University of Georgia's only question so if it is this is a great way to bring in he's talking about a man of science yeah he does say a man of science right so um so it's a it's a young man right I'm not mistaken um so anyway like like like what specifically and and obviously they're going to say what their future plans are in their major but I'd like to know a little bit more let's say he does say engineering what type of engineering and and why a little bit so I would just um do the research and find out a professor that speaks to him what research or has that Professor done or and or what classes does that Professor teaching right and then I'm just saying then uh since I have an interest in X whatever that is and I and then maybe if there's room then say you know about another professor or I then want to be involved with the robotics Club you know so there's just a couple ways to to just weave in more so that we get to know more about the student and less about the uncle because we're not admitting the uncle so but um but it's a well-written essay I just think it could be taken to another level so um just uh somebody's commenting would the end be a good place to add specific things about the school it doesn't have to be at the end of the essay in this case it maybe makes sense but it could be throughout this you know the the supplemental essay yeah so in this one I thought that coming back to the to the Hat the tinfoil hat I thought that was cute so um I would have just uh put it in you know in the body when he's talking about being a man of science like Debbie said give an example of the outlandish and outlandish quote from the book potentially and um then saying uh you know what he's been studying and what he believes in maybe the quote even goes against what what he's studying specifically so it's a great way to you know that's why he wants to take Professor X's class on whatever the topic is because it refutes exactly what's in the book like that could be a cool thing um so and somebody else is asking do you need to be specific about um like does a student need to be specific about their goals like in this type of an essay again it could just be that I I want to be a mechanical engineer you know what whatever it is um it's it depends on the word count it just you know 300 is a decent amount but they're also you have to answer the question so you can't just ignore the question and then talk about whatever you want so he does answer the question but then there's definitely ways to cut it down we don't need so much background um that then it gives him room to add more to it while still supporting this whole idea of of the book and transition and begin to question things and to become intellectually curious in high school and delve more deeply into um academics that he is interested in uh Ellen somebody else is asking what if you don't know which specific major but rather the general field you want to go into that's fine too right yeah like you're saying like he could say you know he's interested in engineering he doesn't need to specify you know electrical mechanical civil yep yep exploring different types of engineering yes exactly I I know yeah so it can be Broad and it can be saying I have varied interest and I'm looking forward to um narrowing them down at college or just learning more about these different interests to see where my college experience takes me yeah there's nothing wrong with um not knowing exactly what they want to do because the odds are they're going to change their mind one or two or three times so and colleges know that but they just want to know in the student's voice what they're thinking about today and that they are intellectually curious because they're applying to be students and that they you know have academic interest in mind and how they're going to contribute to the campus Ellen somebody has a very good question you talked about um you know that students as one example could reference specific teachers specific classes to kind of show that they you know know more about the college where would a student get this information so what would they look for it yep yep so it's all on the website they would go under like uh their potential they could see what majors the college offers in general to make sure that the college has the major that they're interested in because some Majors can be very specific um and then once they do that they click on under that major generally and then the different courses come up and or they can go into the department and under the department they can uh pull up all the different professors and then if they drill down on a specific Professor often they'll show their research and maybe books they've written and sometimes they can there's a link to the research and they can read the paper so there's a lot and classes usually have descriptions so they can see what interests them and and this is my example of if they do these things they'll get to know the college better and hopefully find out if it's a good fit for them it's a great way to get to know the college I mean quite honestly one exercise is to if a student has an idea of a major is to look at the major look at the requirements you know that that both the college might have and then the specific major might have and then pretend and say if I went to this school and um this is what I was going to major in what courses interest me like you know what would the courses be that I want to take and are these you know enough that it would give me you know the you know the direction that I want to go in after college so I think just looking at these classes for both the purpose of the essay but also for the purpose of really better knowing the colleges is great exercise exactly so as much as students dread this part of the process it really does benefit them in the end and it makes it easier when they get accepted into the colleges they do if they're lucky enough to have choices that they just have a better feel for each College when it comes time to make a decision but this is a good one somebody said that they noticed that you were using grammarly would you recommend that program yeah I mean that's what I use I I think it works well but I know there are different options out there and so yes okay all right so now I'm gonna go to this happens to be Villanova so um why do you want to call Villanova your new home and become part of our our community so this is a why Villanova uh why this college question and you know communities put in there too so it could be you know kind of like what community speaks to you idea so this is kind of a double one um so the student says a service Community Learning basketball Philadelphia I'm excited about it all I will enter the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences as an exploratory Arts major and I'm strongly interested in studying geography a field of study not offered at my high school I specifically feel that Villanova's passion for service matches up with who I am I have been part of the Miracle League of Southeastern Connecticut for four years and hope to see my role as a service member continue to develop at Villanova University such as the Special Olympics Pennsylvania fall festival and Saint Thomas of Villanova day Villanova's tight Community um feel makes it truly unique every time I've visited the campus everyone has been welcoming and the high percentage of students living on campus contributes to a tight Community feel anova's Transportation options make the concept of leaving New England a little less frightening for me as a freshman as a massive basketball fan I'm excited to attend games but I feel like Villanova's basketball culture is just a sneak peek into the greater Villanova culture of support and excitement so thoughts on this one Debbie I mean I mean I like it and it's got some special specifics about the school I said I don't know I feel like I could though add a little bit more and I don't know what your thoughts are about the playing up on the basketball I mean of course they're known for that but I don't know if that's enough if that's something you want to hang your hat on for the reason why you want to go there yeah exactly like that doesn't go that far it can be woven in but I wouldn't put waste a lot of words on it yeah yeah um and the student is 36 words over so it needs to be cut no matter what so that could be a good thing to cut if need be especially the extra stuff around it like yeah right in the top we know basketball is important so um so there's some low-hanging fruit that's easy to pluck so that could be one angle um so I definitely wanted more specifics like the student talks about geography right and and so it's a field of study not offered to the high school that's all we know about it like like why does a student want to study geography do they know nothing about geography and they're interested in it because they've never been able to study it or have they been studying it on their own like is that just coming out of left field because they have to choose something like it like that just gave me pause um so I called this a lot because a it needed to be 36 words but B I wanted to make room to put more specifics in so um I actually took the liberty to you know write up some stuff within it for the exercise so um I you can see I called quite a lot so service Community Learning basketball Philly instead of Philadelphia right um I'm excited about it all exclamation point um and then as an exploratory Arts major I don't need you know they'll be entering because that's what they if if they're in the College of liberal arts I looked it up they have to be an exploratory Arts major and admissions knows that I'll I put in a contraction steady geography and then I went to the geography page and I looked at how they um describe it and I made this up now whether or not it's exactly right I don't know but I wrote um exploring geospatial Technologies as it relates to globalization and its effects on the earth so your point is you're giving a specific like a specific example exactly of what it is about geography that excites a student that is why I gave it some you know pointedness and then on my own I've dug into X you know maybe the student Goes Down YouTube rabbit holes maybe the student has taken a course in geography through edx Maybe they're constantly you know looking at their globe and exploring you know finding out about different you know countries and looking them up um maybe they won a geography B I don't know but I would like to know why the student is interested in it and then in turn and I'm excited to take Professor X's class you know so on you know a specific geography class all right so Villanova's passion for service match is mine it's not up up with who you know matches up with who I am just matches mine um having been part of the Miracle League of Southeastern Connecticut for four years I'll continue helping people I looked up what it was with special needs so I'm describing what it is um through Villanova's Special Olympics Pennsylvania fall festival and during Saint Thomas um of Villanova day so I just thought that it was a little bit tighter um and then um every time I visited the welcoming campus and um the campus can be capitalized um just like college or university when you're talking about specific one um I become more excited like that could be completely gone because hopefully they know the student's been visiting but it could say but if it needs to go um if it doesn't need to go that's just a quick way of tightening it last time I discovered x what was it you know I'd love to know you know maybe they sat in on a class right I don't know I'm just making this step up and then ending it with um as a massive basketball fan I'm excited to attend games but I've learned Villanova's basketball culture it's only a glimpse into Villanova's um supportive and caring Community as a whole I just think that's a little bit of a stronger finish but um even still if something had to go that's still a little fluffy but but I think it's a little tighter so that was my goal was to make room to put in the specifics while still keeping the outline of the essay because I think outline it's fine I just wanted more specifics so that is the end of my part of the presentation but I'm happy to discuss this here yeah so somebody really really related to this um Apple what if the student had already explained their interest in geography as a major as part of like the personal statement essay yeah so I would um maybe give a tiny nod to it just a teeny reminder um possibly uh um end or go in a different direction then highlight something else and highlight you know the clubs they're interested in just give new information so yes if it's redundant don't do it or just do a quick type of thing um you know because of my interest in you know uh rocket science you know or or you know yeah whatever I mean that's not a good example with the geography I like your idea of if you know if they already talked about this in their personal statement then they maybe should explore other things that they would want to do on campus you know um you know with clubs yep exactly so you know because of my Um passion for geography like alluding to you know that I I know Villanova's a great fit and um I noticed that you also you know there's a type of Geography Club whatever like go look at clubs see what might relate to geography or in addition to my passion for geography I'm also into um you know racquetball you know whatever whatever it is so somebody's asking and I think you know it's it's fair to kind of clarify our language um somebody's saying what's the difference between a personal statement and a personal essay okay so they're they're in the Common App there's the some people call it the main essay because some people call it the personal statement some people call it the personal essay that is the part the one essay the 650 essay word essay excuse me that is common to all the colleges everyone gets it when the Common App the common part of the Common App goes out um then the college specific essays or supplemental essays are under each individual college so when people talk about the main essay the personal statement it's the same essay the 650 word essay but to that point Ellen it is the same essay but in theory a student could tailor that essay a little bit to each college do you want to talk a little bit about that you could however yeah just be careful you have to remember to do it because if they forget and it's very specific to a college or like sometimes students think about um doing um different Majors playing for different colleges because sometimes a college might not have a major they want so it's okay to do you just really have to be mindful to not forget to change it so maybe it just explain slightly like how they would actually um you know yeah so like with the supplemental essay especially um like let's say they're they have an ending that they really like and they might say something like at um you know X College I plan on you know singing with um you know the specific acapella group and um you know uh knitting with um I remember there was a group called The nitwits you know like doing certain activities that they just go and maybe they like to dance too so maybe there's a dance trip they're interested in and each school they go and look up the different things and put insert them so if they have a main um kind of format I would highlight each section for the insert different club name for example or um major so they it catches their eye and I guess what they'd have to do with the Common App every time is take the personal statement out so they don't forget to put a different one in in that case you know the supplemental essay is one thing because that's going to go under the specific college but with the personal statement if if they were to play that game so to speak I would not have one sitting in the Common App so that I would have to remember to put one in and then I would hopefully choose the right one that matched the college that I was sending it to does that make sense um I'm gonna stop my um I'm going to stop sharing this did you want me to show the uh uh well well um yeah hold off let's just answer a few more questions I'll just stop the sheriff that's okay yeah um so I lost the questions okay um so somebody is asking can you explain again where um a student would find the supplemental essays so when they're in the Common App they have to put the colleges they're interested in and when they um so there's a college specific section on the Common App and they drill into that college and then there are questions and they might ask you plan on living on campus you know do you have any people legacies you know they ask different questions and in there there can be um that's where under one of those tabs for the college specific to the college will be the essays if they have them they can also Google do they have essays type of thing but that's where they're going to be answering it and putting in the essay you want to talk a little bit too I mean we've focused on supplemental essays but there are other essays besides the sub the personal statement the supplemental essays what other type of essays might a student have to write for a college and when would they know that okay besides the additional information section I'm thinking about like for honors or for scholarships okay okay thank you yeah okay and I had talked about that earlier I just wasn't sure what you're talking about so yes as they're filling they might have to write a you know why do you want to join our Honors College or when they're choosing Majors under this for each but they may you may not know that until you apply and say you're applying to the honors exactly that's why I said it's important for them to answer all the questions under the college each specific College because they might say What majors are you interested in and if they hit architecture architecture could be the only major that kicks up an essay so it might be you know not you know your friends applying to the same school and they're not applying to this School of Architecture so they're like oh there are no supplemental essays at this college and that's why I'm applying and or maybe they aren't interested in the Honors College so yes answer every question because an essay or two might pop up it might be Auto populated because of how you answer the questions um Ellen somebody is asking if you've ever worked on essays related to the quest Bridge application I have not had the pleasure to do that I do have a friend um whose daughter's the application who we who you worked with a family it was called it was possible yes the Posse Foundation the quest bridge is according to my friend incredibly complex lots and lots of essays very very in-depth um so I and they're vital to obviously right well um I don't think it's necessarily that there's anything unique about the questions I just think they ask a lot of questions so it's um important to uh Roy brainstorm and figure out which aspect of a child each question should address again so all sides of the student is covered so they seem interesting and have depth so that's a bit of an art like dude an outline and try to figure out what character traits do they want to bring um out about a student you know what um skill sets uh what passions and drives what adversity they might have overcome like those are different categories and then put in ideas under those headings but you know look at the questions and see figure out what they're really getting at is this you know like the idea of a yss essay like it doesn't look like it's a wise essay on the surface but when you drill down to it that's essentially what it is now Quest Bridge isn't going to ask that question because it's a broad thing for you know all the colleges in in the program but that idea just try to figure out what it's being reduced down to and kind of along the lines what you're just explaining um Ellen and I did a session I think it was like two weeks ago on the Common App and um it's actually published on our on the road to college YouTube channel um but it was really kind of a similar idea of looking at I mean we went into specifics on the Common App but looking at all the pieces of the Common App and kind of what story you want to tell about yourself what you want to highlight and it's very it's kind of similar with you know the essays as well I mean the essays the supplemental essays are part of the Common App and it's really figuring you need to kind of look at everything holistically and decide what you know if you have the opportunity if a school's asking a supplemental essay then you know what do you want to highlight there there versus someplace else in the rest of the the application so um I only bring this up because I think a stronger application looks stronger if it's kind of planned out as opposed to oh I'm submitting this tomorrow and I just realized I have a supplemental essay and I'm going to write it tonight you know like um and that and that's why I do go and drill down on each specific College early so that they're not thinking oh you know tomorrow I'm going to send out this application and I'll just quickly put in my major and then they find out that there was an essay hidden there and now they have to write a 200 word essay and they're going to write it you know quickly and it's not going to sound great so that's why it's important to do it all early it's just see again put it in an Excel spreadsheet or something just to see all the essays um so Scott's asking how far back do you recommend going when using examples of goals or activities for example my child one use the example from elementary school I would say so what I recommend to people so my daughter did a lot of theater right so instead of like harping on things she did when she was really young she did a collective of you know that she was in 26 plays starting at age 10. so I think in that type of a context it's helpful to you know consolidate it but unless the student you know was received some kind of State honor something really impressive I don't generally you just focus on high school but I think if it's looking at the expansiveness of how long a student's been doing an activity I think quickly mentioning the beginning date is helpful but I don't know it was it Awards it was an award or an honor is that what the question was yeah it was just more an event okay yeah like yeah yeah personal event okay yeah I mean let's say it's in an essay it could be a jumping off point of an asset it could be you know and then the student you know reflects back on how that made was a turning point in their life or began them you know like it's on this direction of being interested in engineering sure there's nothing wrong with the sentence or you know a little bit about that but what I find is that students can spend 80 to 90 of the essay talking about when they were five six seven and then there's nothing left for today so it's very important there's nothing wrong with doing it in the context I just said but only put maybe 10 of the essay into that because the essay should be about reflection showing growth maturity um moving beyond that how that was a starting point for them um somebody is asking about a resume and um some schools you know say it's optional do you think it's a good idea I you know I'm a big believer in resumes for a number of reasons um they if there are only 300 characters for each activity in the Common App that's there's very little room to expand upon an activity uh you control the resume I wouldn't have a resume longer than one page um but you can fit a lot into that resume and I think if it's well organized um it can definitely be a benefit some schools yes let a student upload a resume and if they do I would definitely let them up I would definitely have them upload it when I work with students one of the first first things I do is make a resume with them it's really helpful for many reasons I think it gives them a lot of confidence I think they're I'm impressed to see how much they've done I think the grouping of the different activities gets them to begin to see how they have depth it also shows where there might be some holes or maybe they can expand upon an interest it's also great if for their interview to have a resume I used to do interviewing for Wellesley I rarely got a resume and um I remember one time I got a resume and it had a bunch of grammatical errors in it so that wasn't great but uh and it's also a good thing if you're going to introduce yourself to an admissions officer showing demonstrated interest to attach a resume so those are just and and you brought up scholarship essays Debbie great to have a resume if you're doing scholarship essays which usually often comes after they're done with college applications often a lot of you know scholarship essays can be in the spring but then they can use these essays that they wrote they might take one or two lines out of them or they might be able to recycle a whole one of the essays which makes their life easier um somebody that is asking does the Common App have to be completed in one sitting I would not recommend even I think I think it's no it does not have to be no it should be a working document that they come back to and you know if they have to get it done you know I hope it's early they have time but I have worked with students that you know we've gotten I've helped them to get it done relatively quickly but it's like writing it needs to sit you need to come back to other someone else has to look at it it has to be activities can be tightened um and again the mistakes have to be looked for and you can also make a um PDF print out of it so that as another way of reviewing it so you don't have to only review it online and sometimes that's just easier you know when you have a paper version of it to kind of go through and Mark it up yep and it comes out to be roughly about 13 Pages if you don't get into like the supplemental essays the main part of the coming up so I'm just reading this one question you mentioned not referring to location but what if our student is intent on moving back to an area where we used to live because she loved it so much much more so than where we moved to and currently live would this be acceptable for a why this school yeah again there's okay there's nothing wrong with location as long as like that's a specific reason to mention it as opposed to I love warm weather well how many states are in you know are located in the South and and the west where it's warm so generalizations like that you know like some I worked with a student who was applying to Tulane and she was just talking all about New Orleans and that's all she talked about and it was I had to tell her it wasn't a travel log that she had to be specific and she could give a nod to uh Tulane's you know to the New Orleans beignets but that then she had to get specific about the University so I think the reason to bring it up is a great reason um because that shows that the student knows the area and they're drawn to it because they have um have been there um yeah and so I think it's just it's about being specific the details is it a good idea to write about how a family members illness um it was something that to make who they are and motivated them you know to to do do a new um Hobby yes um what they have to a student has to be mindful of is not talking more about the person with the illness than they talk about themselves so sometimes a student will write about Grandma and cooking with Grandma and Grandma's Heritage and at the end the admissions officer would say too bad grandma didn't apply because we really like to accept her into our college and they don't get enough to know they don't get to know much about the student so I think it's a technique there's a way of referencing like some like a a prior event or a person but not you know using too many words um to describe it because you want to use the words more for the student and just reference um the other person yes yeah through my uh parents um you know experience with you know put in whatever the challenge was I you know I had to grow up quickly and then that's one sentence we know there was a struggle and then they could go into the ways they grew up and what trajectory came from it um some somebody's writing I've heard that some schools actually prefer less than the 650 words that they allow for the personal statement what what are your thoughts about this so some people say that I mean your admissions officer is a board speed reader they have so much to read and they only have you know less and less time they're given and so some people say that admissions officer will be happy to read 550 words and we'll thank you I don't know I most students that I work with we you know we have to get it down to the 650. so and I see them get accepted to colleges so if if the student has said everything they need to say in 550 words and they've made their point and they feel good about it that's fine but usually if a student is really you know trying to cover all their bases often you it's rare that I get a stu unless a student is not so again I get like there's just one theme and if a student is just sticking with one theme that you know they love baseball that essay can be short but I would always say take that baseball theme and tie it to other things that they love in Life or other ways they've been challenged or faced disappointment whatever the connection is with baseball and then tie it to two other things in their life events experiences and then suddenly the baseball essay is much more expansive and is going to naturally be 650 words and we're going to get to know a lot more about that student um so another person wrote uh I'm writing an essay about an event that was technically in Middle School the end of eighth grade it's a large accomplishment they advance to the word worlds in robotics is it okay to use that as their personal statement end of eighth grade yeah I mean there are no hard and fast rules I I think obviously that's impressive and then I imagine it's going the student would then talk about what they've done since eighth grade I don't think they hung up their robotics hat right I imagine they continued with it or maybe after they did that they found something else they became passionate about so I can I think you could use it even like you know to describe it at the beginning of the essay I just wouldn't use it as the whole essay since it was something that was the end of eighth grade exactly because hopefully you've matured and had other experiences but yes I think it could be a definite starting point or it could be referenced in the essay um yeah I mean what has happened since and and or what changes or you know did you experience through that um event that has shaped you today you know how did it help bring bring you to where you are today in your life but yes I I think touching upon it is perfectly fine I don't think the whole essay should be about it if that's going to be yes um what's your recommendation and how long do you think it does take to do the Common App the personal essay you know supplemental it's like how much time should a student be expecting to devote to to this to really and when I say time not just like oh it took three hours but you know was that over um uh you know a weekend was that over two weeks like how much breathing time should they also give in between yeah so I could see the Common App could definitely be done over a weekend you know over a day like not the essays right so so just so you're saying just the filling out of the sections and the most important section is the activities section yes exactly absolutely and um that's the type of thing you know they want to come back to but I think that it could get to 80 90 95 done you know over a weekend um but again it's good to come back to things with fresh eyes it's important to leave time but the majority of the work could be done like that could be done probably in two three hours it might not be your best work but it can definitely be filled in but the essays the essays need time they need time to breathe I do and it's like six to eight times depending upon the student how how many times right to plan it to you know you should spend the time to plan what you want to focus on again you know maybe if there's multiple essays and um and then time to outline so so this time before even getting to the writing which will be well worth it um and so often the first essay I get from a student doesn't get used it's often too common of a topic or um not enough detail exactly no depth to it um yeah so but but that's part of the process so that gets set aside you know it but through that first reading of that essay I learned a little bit more about the student and I'll say well could we expand upon this area um and sometimes we just have to go back I've got a brainstorm with them sometimes you just gotta start completely from scratch so everyone's process is different and everyone's level of writing is different and I think students grow a lot as writers through this process so that takes time writing is rewriting and um I at the end if they become better writers which of the student works the process they will become a better writer it's going to make their life easier in college and I just have a lot of students to come back and and their parents just say that the student's writing has just improved greatly because grammar isn't taught a lot in schools anymore and um and they have been written in this type of a genre before too so it's a learning process so maybe Ellen if you could share this last slide hopefully um you've gotten some good tips and um ideas about how to approach the supplemental essays from what um Ellen talked about tonight and the examples we showed but um if you know you want any extra help um we have we offer two packages actually one is a common app package and it can range the gamut of if you want help with your student to actually fill out the Common App and you know again you know going into the sections the most important section being the activities section and really deciding which activities you're going to include and how you're going to write them up um and that's one package or if you just want help with um essays and we kind of lump them together um it's it's uh you know you can use the time to either focus on the personal statement that that main essay or if you have a come a you know several different supplements we can work with you also on figuring out the supplements or combination of the two so um we're pretty flexible how that essay coaching time is used um we just are here to help students and families however they need help with to get the process done I mean this is we're technically still the end of July um you know students have the month of August I just really encourage you know whether you work with somebody or do it on your own to use the month of August and and get started you can probably finish most of of um the essays and the application in August and wouldn't that be nice before uh starting school um so that's just my my plug to really get students started and focus in August and then the fall will be a lot more relaxing there'll still be hiccups there will still be last minute things that need to get done but um it will will be a lot smoother if you can get the bulk of the work done in August yeah I think um parents and students underestimate the fact that they have another class and it's called AP college admissions and that is what happens in the fall and the more they can get their summer homework done for the AP college admissions class the better off the student will be for um to then make sure that their grades continue to either rise or to stay the same so when colleges see their first quarter or semester that the grades are on par with what they've been doing on the Pat in the past or have improved um so if anybody has any lingering questions uh feel free to send them to me you can send them and I will you know either I can answer them and I'll pass them on to Ellen um at Debbie road to college.com and um um you know we I answer a lot of questions from uh Ellen and I do from Common App questions to student loans to finances so um feel free to reach out and again hopefully this was helpful I see you see some like last minute questions if you don't mind um sending them to me through email that would be great I can't believe Ellen an hour and a half does fly by um uh and um uh and a recording to this will be set a link to the recording will be sent out tomorrow so um you can watch it again and watch and I really encourage you to go to the YouTube channel um and look at the Common App session that um we did a few weeks ago and even there's a session from a year ago about common app mistakes and I think we're going to be repeating that in a few weeks okay thank you everyone thank you Ellen thank you for the people who submitted their essays it was very helpful and hopefully they got good feedback yes thank you that was very helpful okay take care bye

Channel: Road2College

Views: 2,085

Keywords: college application essay, supplemental essay, why us essay, common app, college application, college application tips

Id: _a7FgnYsjDQ

Length: 82min 31sec (4951 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 31 2023