This Essay Strategy Got Me Into Harvard, Stanford, MIT

the hardest part of the whole college application process is coming up with ideas for your essays you always want to perfect it and choose the best possible one and that's why it's so difficult and in this video I am literally going to lay out the most comprehensive video guide you've ever seen about brainstorming and coming up with college essay ideas every second of this video is going to be jam-packed with valuable information and so if you want the most out of it I would highly recommend watching all the way through thank you show not tell that's the advice you will see everywhere in books in websites online about college and in YouTube videos and I'm giving you that advice too but what does that actually mean in my Harvard essay I told a story in Stanford's essay which was only 250 words I managed to write a story and in my common app personal statement I also wrote a story and as someone who got into all the schools I applied to I can vouch that writing stories is the best way to go but how do you come up with these how do you get the seed well I want you to have a Notes app on your phone I'd recommend notion which I'll leave in the description below but really any notes app works anything you encounter even a remotely interesting experience I want you to jot down in the notes app now I know about 50 of you are thinking right now how are you going to come up with a stellar college essay idea from checking the mail and receiving a letter well if you're a political science kid you could talk about a voter's pamphlet and how you advocate educated for certain policies or certain Representatives on that letter trust me don't worry about if the topic seems interesting enough we'll find that out in part two just write down anything and don't worry about what college admissions might think or if this would be a good essay now I want you to do this for three weeks so by the end of those 21 days you should have at least 21 experiences to talk about but you're 16 or 17 years old you've had a decade prior of past experiences over a decade and so I want you to spend the next week so the fourth week on coming up with experiences and moments from the last 16 or 17 years of your life by the end of the month you now have at least 28 essay seeds and some of these might be the most meaningless things in the world but trust me it will work but I know what a lot of you guys are thinking right now Risha but you want me to spend an entire month you want me to spend I don't know the month of May or June brainstorming ideas for the essay is should I get started on writing and revising and all that nope I want you to spend your summer doing meaningful things that means go out get a job work an internship continue those activities because that is really important for your common app activities section and the honors you will receive alongside that the essays are important and you will still have a good essay but you'll spend the first month of your summer coming up with the idea and then the next two months or The Following fall of September October working on the actual essays this way you get the best of both worlds not only do you have a stellar essay idea you also have actually done meaningful things in your summer and even had fun so you now have 30 essay ideas but how do you water these seeds and grow them I mean your seed could be making a YouTube video or doing a leaf rake on the weekend how do you grow those into actual essay topics or ideas well we need to categorize them there are three categories for seeds the first one is overcoming an obstacle or challenge this could be mental emotional physical anything the second one is a personal passion or interest that you have some activity extracurricular anything of that sort and the third category is a moment of realization or an epiphany so now I'm going to spin these seeds into ideas let me take you through seed number one which was making a YouTube video well making a YouTube video actually helped me come out of my shell over six years of YouTube help me with public speaking and really opening me up for some personal growth and so this is overcoming an obstacle or challenge my seed number two of a leaf rake that I did it this is a personal passion or interest that I have in service and the third seed that I didn't talk about but watching a YouTube video on the Olympics it's super crazy but that turned into a realization or an epiphany which I could relate to my experience of running now guess what these three seeds that I just mentioned are the essays that I use for Harvard MIT and Stanford as well as my common app essay and I ended up getting it as a middle distance Runner I watched as hitchum algor Rouge in the Olympics video did The Impossible and win two Golds for the leaf rake I spun a crazy story about a war scene and how 50 young boys stood in a single line defense ready to wage war on a pile of leaves you can see how you can take such a simple moment in your life something that you honestly take for granted and spin it something that seems super trivial in the moment but related to your passions and to yourself and come up with a beautiful story in the process [Music] so now that we've expanded on our list of 30 essay ideas it's time to see them Blossom but unfortunately not every seed ends up growing into a big plant all right this metaphor is getting really cringe basically I'm saying we need to cut down on those seeds and come up with the best ones now you may look at your list and be like I've fledged these out like in part two but now I just have five that I think are actually good and that are worth blossoming but that's perfect if you apply it to I don't know 10 even 20 schools you can use those five essays and adapt them to each of the prompts the reason why I categorized it into a personal challenge or an epiphany is because those are some of the most common prompts if you come up with ideas around those categories you will succeed when it comes to Turning those into answers for the prompts that the schools ask you 99 of you watching this video right now are going to apply through the Common App and the number one biggest mistake is looking at those prompts of the Common App and deciding I'm going to do prompt number three and then now let me come up with 10 essay ideas for prompt number three those are going to be really shallow essay ideas instead use my technique come up with those five blossoming ideas and then fit them into the prompt because we haven't started writing yet this is just the idea we can still adapt it and tweak it to fit the exact nature of the prompt so don't look at the prompts yet just lock yourself in the room as Cal Newport would say in his book deep work and finish the essays write all five of them out however long it takes 500 Words a thousand words two thousand words just let yourself run those through freely remember to be true to yourself and authentic if you try to tailor to the admissions officer it won't work it'll come across as shallow [Music] So based on my experience I ended up getting into Harvard Stanford MIT Duke and Boston University and this was all the schools that I applied to in every single one I used a story whether it was one of those stories that I just talked about or a couple others now if this video was helpful I'm gonna tell you to do something no YouTuber does because they're gonna say like subscribe comment which by the way does help with the algorithm if you want to you can but I'm going to tell you to share this with your friend group because I know your friends are struggling so that Snapchat group that Instagram Group whatever you use copy this video and share it your friends might find it helpful thanks so much for watching now watch the next video on my college admissions stats and how I got in thank you

Channel: Rishab Jain

Views: 34,819

Keywords: college essay ideas, how to brainstorm college essay ideas, how to brainstorm for college essay ideas, coming up with college essay ideas, college essay, college essay topics, why this college essay, college admissions, college essay brainstorming, college essays, how to brainstorm, how to brainstorm ideas for your common app essays, how to brainstorm for an essay, college essay topic, how to brainstorm a college application essay, how to brainstorm for a common app essay

Id: -VSuGG46-1I

Length: 8min 0sec (480 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 21 2023