Don't Force It: How to Get into College without Losing Yourself in the Process

Standout College Essay Secrets: What Parents Must Know by June of Junior Year

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In today’s episode, I’m joined by Holly Schreiber, Joanna Graham, and Andy Friedman for a deep dive into what really makes a college essay stand out. We share why students should start early—way before senior year kicks in—and how the best personal statements reveal something real, not rehearsed. From creative brainstorming techniques to honest talk about why AI won’t cut it, we cover what works (and what doesn’t). If you want the inside scoop on writing essays that actually matter, don’t miss this one!

Register to attend or receive the recording of our upcoming webinar, Protect Their College Options: What Sophomores Must Do Around Testing This Summer: https://signeteducation.com/events

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Access free resources and learn more about Sheila and her team at Signet Education at signeteducation.com or on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheilaakbar/.

Holly Schreiber:

And if we're really struggling with the reflection and that sense of personal growth, it's one of the reasons why it's a great time to have those conversations now, because it's not too late to plant seeds of reflection, and they may go out and have more conversations, right? You know, that difficult conversation where they overcame differences, they may begin to reflect on the things that are happening to them going forward that may influence their essay as well.

Sheila Akbar:

Hi folks, welcome back to the podcast. It is almost the end of June. I know I say this at the beginning of every episode, but I really cannot believe it. Where has the time gone? And I hope all of you are, you know, enjoying the end of the school year in the beginning of the summer, and staying safe and as San as possible with everything that's going on in the world. Just had to say that today's episode is a replay of a panel that I convened at the end of May with a former Georgetown admissions officer and two expert writing coaches to talk about the role of the essay in the college application. How you go about choosing a topic, what are the kind of standard do's and don'ts, and how do you as a parent support a teenager through this process? I know we had a lot of fun in our discussion. I got a lot of great feedback from audience members and people who have watched a recording. So I hope that you find it helpful and even inspiring. If you want to share it with your kids, that might be a great place for them to kind of get a grounding. And what is all this writing that I need to do for the college application? And we are going to have another one of these panels in August, but we'll be focused on the supplemental essays, those more school specific essays. They are officially released August 1. So we're going to do that one in August. So stay tuned for that. And I also wanted to draw your attention to an event we're doing next week on testing, on, you know, sat and a c t test, optional. The whole bag. I've got a great friend Akil bello joining me to discuss, What should parents be thinking when they are trying to figure out how to navigate testing for their high schoolers? And this will be really relevant for parents of those who just finished their sophomore year, so those rising juniors. But if you're a parent of a rising senior, and you still haven't tackled the question of testing, whether you should do it or not, that might be really helpful for you to tune into as well. So you can check the show notes for information on that event happening June 25 or you can go to Signet education.com/events, and you will find all that information there, as well as recordings of past sessions that we've done. Okay, enough of me yapping. Let's get into the panel. All right. So I will start by introducing myself. I am Sheila Akbar, the CEO of Signet education, and we do a whole bunch of things today. Of course, we're here to talk about college essays and in addition to college admissions consulting, we also do tutoring, SAT prep, executive function coaching and graduate admission. So we like to think of ourselves as kind of a one stop shop for all of your educational needs. We typically work with eighth graders and up, and we do make some exceptions to that rule. With that out of the way, I want to introduce our lovely panelists today. I've got three of my absolute favorites, and I'm not just saying that three of my absolute favorites here at Signet. Everybody's been here for several years. They are core members of our organization, and they work with so many of our students and the parents who work with us, just like a rave about these people. So I'm really excited that you all get to hear from them today. I'll start with Joanna. Joanna is one of our Admissions Consultants, having a background in college admissions herself and then running her own business as a private consultant. She brings a lot of expertise in a range of school types, particularly highly selective schools, but she's worked with all kinds of students aiming for all kinds of places. Welcome Joanna, thank you for joining us. I'm doing a very short introduction. Of course, you can look up the full bios, illustrious bios, of our people on our website. Next I'll go to Holly. Holly's actually a dear old friend from my grad school days. Holly does everything at Signet. She can help your kid navigate the college journey. She can help with the coaching or the tutoring, the test prep. Holly does a little bit of everything, and she brings such a special perspective and so much love and support and gentleness that we all need. So she's really great at connecting with all kinds of students. Hello, Holly. Hi. Yay. And last but not least is Andy. He's a self described word nerd. I am not calling him that. He's called himself that many times. Andy is one of our he does also a little bit of everything, sort of like Holly, but he really specializes in the college essay writing and humanities tutoring, and you'd be amazed at the stories that he can pull out of your terse young men who don't tell you anything, they will tell it to Andy, and he will help them get it on paper. So I'm really excited for him to share some of his magic with you as well. Welcome, Andy. Great. Okay, so I'm going to start with just a little bit of grounding here. We are here to talk about stand out college essay secrets, what parents must know by June of junior year. Now that timing piece in there is not just a strategy to get you here and create some urgency, though. It is playing that role. It is really something that I want all parents to know before the school year ends. You can't just tap out and turn your brain off and think, Okay, we don't have to worry about anything. Actually, this is the time to get your plan in place so that you can use the summer to your advantage if your student is applying to college in this next cycle. So our juniors are all starting to brainstorm their essays and creating a writing plan and schedule, mapping out topics, all of this before the school year is over, because we know summer gets crazy, we know there's travel, we know there are camps, there are all sorts of things that they're going to be doing. So we want this plan in place before they go off to do those things. And it's harder to make that plan. And if we plan ahead, we can kind of fit those things into our plan and work around them. And then the last piece of our subtitle, it's a long subtitle, even if you're in a family of great writers, I have so many parents who are like, Oh, I'm an editor, or, you know, my husband's a great writer, so we'll be fine on the writing side, and you may be fine in, you know, the editing phase. Maybe that's like a real place that your expertise can help. But I bet you, a lot of you don't have the kind of relationship with your teenager where they can be super vulnerable and try out ideas on you and feel comfortable showing you their writing or telling you you know what their personal values are, what their ambitions are for the future, not because you're already kind of bad parent. I'm sure you're all very good parents. I mean, you're here. You want to help your kids in the in the best way you can, but that's just the relationship between teenagers and their parents. So I want you to know there's so much more involved than just making sure the words are grammatically correct right, or making sure that we stay within 650 words on our essay. There's a lot of self reflection, a lot of vulnerability that has to go into this, and sometimes having somebody else in the mix can really unlock the magic. All right, I want to again, ground us into what kind of essays even go into a college application. You've probably all heard of the personal statement. You might call this a personal essay, or the common app essay, it's the main essay that goes to all of the colleges that your student will be applying to, if you're using the Common Application Platform. So it's not supposed to be about a specific school. Is really supposed to be about your student and something that's broadly applicable to all the schools that they're applying to, and we're going to talk a lot more about what's the goal of this essay, and how do you choose a topic, and all of that. But beyond this personal statement, there are also supplemental essays. Now these are essays that some colleges ask for. Not every single college has these, but these are usually shorter and much more specific to each school, they ask questions like, Why do you want to go here? Or respond to our mission statement, or tell us about your most meaningful community and how you'll engage that community here, right? So your student does have to know a lot about the school that they're applying to, and it really does allow admissions officers to imagine, how is your student going to contribute to their campus. We are going to have a whole webinar just on supplemental essays later in the summer. So since you've registered for this, you're going to get a notification about when that's coming up. So we're going to kind of table the that topic for later. And then, even beyond these optional supplemental essays, there are sections of the Common Application, which involve writing. You might not think of them as an essay, but there is an additional information section. They have shortened it this year to 250 words, but this is where students can explain things like a medical condition or leave of absence or maybe a late diagnosis of a learning difference, if they want to disclose something like that. So it's much more informational factual than a story that they're telling, but you do have room to kind of explain larger contextual pieces. And then, for a long time now, I guess since 2020 the common app has had a section called the COVID essay, or the community disruption essay. It was kind of how they framed it. This. Year, they've changed it to be called challenges and circumstances. So they really do want to hear about broader challenges or overall circumstances that are impacting the things that they might see on a college application, like the grades or how involved they were in extracurriculars. Right? If there's a family circumstance that would be helpful for them to know that explains why the student is not involved in a bunch of extracurriculars, right, things like that. So there are places for that on the application, so you don't necessarily have to feel like you need to disclose all of that stuff, or cram that in to your personal statement, which is what we're going to talk about today. And then there is one more type of essay some schools are not on the common application, where they give you the option to use their own platform for applying, as opposed to using the Common Application. Though you might have a choice between the two. Like the University of Texas System, you can use the UT apply system, or you can apply through the Common Application. Now some schools don't give you that choice, so the University of California system has its own application portal. Georgetown for this year and next fall, will still have its own application portal, though they're joining the common app in 2026 MIT has for a very long time had its own application portal, and it's given these schools the freedom to ask different types of questions and require different types of essays. So on the UCs, they give you eight prompts. You choose four of them. They're 350 words each. Georgetown has its own series of essay prompts. MIT has its own series of essay prompts. So we will probably touch on this a little bit as well, because it's kind of a mix of that personal statement plus the supplemental, very specific question, because it's only going to one school. So you kind of approach that a little differently. Okay, I'm going to stop talking. Well, no, that's not true. I am going to talk, but I'm going to stop giving you information, and let everybody else give you the information. And we'll start with Joanna. Please, if we could, how would you describe the purpose of the personal statement in the college application. When you were reading these applications, what were you looking for?

Joanna Graham:

Right? Thanks, Sheila, the I tell students all the time, the personal statement really is your flagship statement to the admissions committee. So it's, you know, it's a student planting a stake in the ground and basically saying, here's something about me that is not necessarily going to be evident through my transcript, or maybe even through the activity list. And so it's all of those wonderful things. You know, we talk a lot about a survey that's an organization called NACAC, which is a group of of admissions counselors that they run every year. And by and large, within the top two just behind academics, is something called positive character attributes. And so, you know, the personal statement is a great place for students to start revealing what some of those positive character attributes are, because those are things that aren't necessarily being measured in a transcript. I think the one thing I would mention too, and we'll obviously dive into this much more, but I think the other thing, just to keep in mind about the personal statement is because what I've probably described feels like something where students now, just now just want to talk about everything. They want to talk about how much grit they've had, what a great leader they are, how they've mentored. It's also not the kitchen sink, so it is sort of that flagship statement. So you want to make plant your stake in the ground. Say, here's who I am, here's why I'm amazing. But you also want to make sure that you're being very cognizant of the fact that this is not the kitchen sink, where you can, where you can sort of dump everything in there as well. So it is a very much, I think, an art and a science of balancing, you know, confidence with a very balanced and tempered

Sheila Akbar:

Thank you, Holly. I'm curious, what would you add?

Holly Schreiber:

Oh, I love that. And I think, I think having those, those two things in mind, right? You know, it's like, okay, this is, this is the big, the big sort of statement, and something that defines the application. And I love to see, instead of the kitchen sink, finding some aspect of all of those things that you want to include, that you can tie into something, if that makes sense, right, it's like what is a unifying characteristic or value that really sheds light on your extracurricular commitments, on what's going to be talked about in your letters. So rather than it feeling like all these disparate pieces, the essay can can feel like it's unifying your application and enlightening all the other pieces without feeling like, again, the kitchen sink, right? So for me, unity is one of the biggest things of like, how do we tie all of these voices, all of these numbers, all these statistics, into a person, an image of a person?

Sheila Akbar:

I love that. Andy, what's your perspective on the personal statement?

Andrew Friedman:

I couldn't agree more with Joanna and Holly. One way that I put it to my to my students, regarding the kitchen sink issue is you don't have to put everything about you onto this page, but everything you put on the page should be really you, right? Which speaks to, I think one of the leading values all of us have is things we aim for, is for authenticity to just ooze off of this thing we want it to be. Uniquely them. And then another thing you know that I tell students, usually right at the beginning is the way I understand this, and the sort of guiding question for us at every stage is, what about you? Value, identity, passion, interest, goals, etc. Do you want to convey to this admissions officer slash committee, so that they say, Yeah, we want this. We want the student on our campus.

Sheila Akbar:

Now. These are all wonderful, wonderful descriptions, and I'm just putting myself in the shoes of a parent listening here is like, how do we what? How do we do that? How do we start thinking about what we want to convey in the personal statement, as opposed to all of these other essays, right? Like, what content really belongs here versus somewhere else? And I know that can be, it's really hard what a parent is thinking about it. But about it, but just imagine you're the teenager, like they've never had to write anything like this before. Whatever they've written, it's usually not about them, right? And so this is like a really kind of cringy exercise in talking about yourself without sounding arrogant or bragging, or, like, you know, nobody wants to sound self important, or, you know, any of these things. So how do we walk that line? And where do we start? Andy, you're still on my screen, so let's start with you. Like, how do you start this conversation with your students?

Andrew Friedman:

Yeah, so just picking up where I left off. Rarely when I asked that question, or actually don't ask. If I tell them that that is a guided question, will they come out and say, oh, yeah, 123, these are my deepest values, or whatever. So we get it about it in other ways, I have stolen some great tricks from both, well, all three of you in terms of getting the ball rolling. But for me, it's just trying to have, you know, just regular old conversation in the guise of getting to know them, you know, and finding out what's really important to them. So, you know, I don't really ask them to Okay, list your basically give me your resume. It's just tell me about something that you love. What are you passionate about? What do you spend doing? What do you lose all sense of time and things like that. And I won't, since I've already stolen them, I also steal them in conversation. But Sheila has you have a great tool which might want to share.

Sheila Akbar:

I assume you're talking about my show and tell exercise. Yes. I know Holly also uses it, so I will tell you, yes. I also consult with families and work with students. And my favorite part of this whole process is working on the essays with them. And you're right, Andy, a lot of the times, it's just something that comes up in conversation as we're just sort of getting to know each other. And I rarely ask them, What are you passionate about? Because I feel like everyone's allergic to the word passion, right? They have some idea of it in their head, but when you ask them questions like, What do you lose track of time doing, or what can't you wait to do when you get home from school, that's that's a version of a passion, right there. But the show and tell exercise that you're talking about is very simple. It really is. Show and tell, I asked them to bring me three objects that are really meaningful to them. And it could be of like a picture of something. It could be something that they just end up describing because the object either no longer exists or it's too big. Though. I did have one student take his computer outside so he could show me his pole vaulting pole, which is enormous, but, you know, the whole experience was very charming, and we did end up writing about pole vaulting in his essay. Holly, I think you know the student I'm talking about. So, you know, you're always surprised. I'm always surprised by the things that they they bring in. And usually the the thing we end up talking about is not actually the object, but it's something related to the object. It's some piece of the story, right? I had a student bring in his grandfather's time piece, and we talked a lot about his grandfather, because I thought maybe that's where this was going. But actually, he has this really very philosophical and deep practice of meditating on time, like the idea of time, and this old time piece is actually stopped on a particular date, like, way in the past, before he was even born. So we had that really interesting conversation. I've had people bring in a letter from their dance teacher that was really meaningful to them. You know, an award. They won, things like that, but it's usually never about the activity or the award. It's something that they learned about themselves that is tangentially related to that story. So there's one exercise to start you up, but Holly, I'm going to go to you next. Like, where do you start with students, especially those who are so intimidated by this, you know, we want to get this right. Their whole future is. Writing on it. It's not but they feel like it is. What do you do?

Holly Schreiber:

Yeah, I mean to answer that sort of feeling, I first like, welcome them, to bring all their bad ideas to sit with us at the team Hall. I really feel like in the early stages, this is a broad brainstorming, if you know, they may have to write a dozen or more essays, including the supplementals, so I try to, like, bring down the pressure and just say, like, we're searching for all sorts of ideas here. And then I'll use either the prompts I like, using the prompts of the common app, and I think we'll talk about that later, or the activity that you have the show and tell. And I think my big thing is, as soon as I hear a story, right? You know I got, I'll dig and I'll dig, and it just asks more like, oh, what made you start doing this? Why do you like it? Why is that different from the other sports you play? What you know, what brought you into this? Those kind of questions. And then I'd like to tell, like, reflect back a little about what I just heard and what that makes me think about them, right? You know? Like, I love this story, because it really shows me that you're the kind of person that gathers people together, right? Like this certain form of a leader that's really important, even if you're not end up being the best or anything. It's like you're a gatherer. And then check if they agree. So part of what we're doing then is figuring out is they can see their own stories and hear them back and realize that they have them. And then I think after that, it's kind of fun, I think, looking in the mirror in a little way, so they're much more willing to start sharing little things that they might not think are important. And then we can get to get to some really good stuff.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, I can think of so many stories just reflecting back to a student what literally, they told me, and they're like, Whoa, that is pretty cool. Joanna, what would you add to this?

Joanna Graham:

No, I also say I'll plus one to everything that all three of you have said, you know, I and I think every everyone has sort of their own, you know, sort of their own version of an exercise. I love the show and tell exercise. Sheila, I do one that I call EPA with, with students I work with, and I in EPA stands for expertise, purpose, authenticity, and so I ask students to think about what are, what are three things that you're really good at? And it could be a technical skill or it could be a soft skill, you know? So it could be, I'm great at soccer. I'm really great at coding. I love scratch. I'm a really good listener, you know, my friends, I'm the person people come to when they are having a bad day, because I'm a great listener. That's the easy stuff. And then we talk about purpose. And purpose very, I think, very similar to show and tell for you, Sheila, purpose is I ask students, what will get what we get you out of bed at 5am on a Sunday morning, because 99% of the time it's not scratch, it's not coding, it's not calculus, it's going to get them out of bed. It's going to be something much deeper, and that's where we start the conversation, and then that segues really nicely into a conversation around authenticity. And I'll have students go out and talk to at least three people in their life, and I make sure that they're they're folks who are coming from different concentric circles of their life. Because the idea here is that at the end of the day, I think we all show up as slightly different versions of ourself, in front of our parents, in front of our peers, in front of our soccer coach, and so by going to different people from these different concentric circles, students can get a sense of how people perceive them. And the idea here is not necessarily to highlight the fact that we're that we're being, you know, we're not being authentic. It's really just to sort of look for those trends and those commonalities that do show up consistently, depending on who we're, you know, depending on the situation that we're in, and that now starts to give us something to talk about. So what are the things that get you out of bed in the morning? What are some of the things that people say about you and that sparks a conversation around you, kind of to your point, you know, the the meaning behind what we do, what we do, why we why we appreciate the things that we do, why we kind of keep going, maybe keep, maybe keep going back to a well, that's, that's, you know, is maybe seemingly not full, but that really sparks, I think, a lot of, hopefully, a lot of creativity with with most students, to really think a little bit more broadly about why they're doing the things that they're doing, and why they're being so intentional about some of these

Sheila Akbar:

That's great. It's really helpful too, because I bet you, most teenagers don't think they have any expertise. They don't think about something as a purpose, or they're certainly not using the word authenticity, as much as you know us middle aged people are, who are all seeking, where's my authenticity? I have to find it again. So I really love that. That's so great. Now, Holly, you mentioned the prompts, and one thing I was reflecting on as you were all talking is none of us say, ask, literally, a prompt to a student, though, Andy, the one about losing track of time. There's something similar in one of the prompts around that, but it's not exactly how it's phrased. So I'm curious in our panel here, how do we approach the prompts? And we don't need to go one by one, but like generally, how do you talk about the prompts? And what are your thoughts on choosing Joanna? Let's start with you.

Joanna Graham:

So I will, I'll tee up the prompts after I have some of these initial sort of creative brainstorms with students, and the first thing that I ask them is just for immediate gut reactions. And it can be love this, hate this. Don't have a thought about this, but I asked them to at least pick out a couple that feel like they sort of, you know, they could land at either end of the extreme. Because I think a lot of students find the diversity of questions a little bit overwhelming, and so if you can pare it down and find and every student will find at least one or two that they naturally gravitate towards, that, even if they don't love them some, you know, sometimes it's the best I can get is these don't suck that much so, or I think I could come up with something like and that's a great starting point. And so we'll and we'll go from there. And then we'll sort of, we try to use, I try to remove number seven, which is sort of the the general, if you don't like any of these questions, write about anything. Because I sometimes find that that can be for an already overwhelmed student, giving them a blank canvas, I think sometimes can almost be more challenging and sort of feed into that anxiety. So at least try to start the conversation with with with the first six.

Sheila Akbar:

Great. Holly, Andy, what would you add?

Holly Schreiber:

I actually do it like a little flip flopped. I start with number seven, the do your own thing, just to say, Guess what? You know if these prompts don't work for you, if your creative energy is flowing in a different way, if we discover something that doesn't fit, you always have number seven. You can always go the way you want, and there's you're not penalized at all for that. So I kind of do that to, like, open up the field, just to say what these prompts are, just to get you thinking, you don't have to stick with them. You can start with one and it turns into another. And we kind of treat it as that right, like this is, this is a stage of brainstorming, and the reason why the common app has kept them the same years and years in a row is because they are really good questions generally, and they get at qualities that make for a good college experience, like resilience or gratitude or self awareness or academic passion. So that's that's the reason why they're there, and you can elicit a great essay about an important characteristic that has nothing to do with their prompts.

Sheila Akbar:

Andy, what do you think?

Andrew Friedman:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. In fact, I do something very similar to Holly, which is to say, number seven is there because what you write doesn't have to fit any of the prompts, right? So it's the it's then the common app telling you these are all just to spark ideas, right? And don't worry if about fitting your answer to a prompt. They don't really care which one you choose. I'm not even sure they look at what you choose when they're looking at your essay. The second thing I try to do is, as we're going through the prompts, is just broaden the scope of the questions as much as I can. And often, when they read it the first time they have something in mind, or they've heard things about what this essay thing is all about. For example, a lot of them think that, and I'm sure we'll get into this, that it has to be about some huge thing in their life, right, something cataclysmic, or, you know, something big at the very least. And so I, you know, I tell them right away, it's really not about that. It's not about being dramatic. And then there's other ways that questions could appear narrow, to just say, well, actually this think outside of school, think you know, I'm the weekend. Are you part of a religious community, right? So just that they don't feel penned in in any way by the prompts.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah. I think that's a really important note to share. Is that usually when students get a prompt, it's from, you know, their history teacher, and it's almost a rubric of, I want to make sure you cover this and you have this structure, and you'll get so many points for X, Y and Z, and that's just not how it works on a college application, I often remind students there are seven of them. You can choose anyone you want, and we don't have to choose before we start writing. Right? What's more important is that you choose the story that you feel really good about, that we feel encapsulates, you know, all the values and the really special qualities about you, and we'll figure out what prompt applies later. It doesn't really matter, right? We want to make an impact with the story that we tell, not necessarily the question that we choose. So it's almost like the interview advice that you might have gotten of like whatever question they ask you give them the answer that you want to give them, right? And it doesn't if the answer is really good, it almost doesn't matter how related it was to the question, right? So that's kind of the frame of mind we want to approach these with. So we have thrown out a few brainstorming exercises so so far, but I would love to hear if there are a couple of other quick ones that we can share with parents, so they can kind of get an idea of where to begin. Holly, I'm going to throw back to you, what else you got?

Holly Schreiber:

I mean, I have to talk through extracurriculars. That helps for brainstorming, for the activity list and things too. But just like, you know, why do you love doing this? What are you? What are you getting out of this? You know? How are you choosing to spend your time? I also love the like things that wouldn't make it on there, like they love crocheting and maybe that would make it on the activities list, but like things that you you do. That you don't know why, right? Like, it's just fun or soothing or relaxing, though sometimes can tell a lot about a person's character.

Sheila Akbar:

Joanna, anything else, yeah, so, um, the the other exercise that

Joanna Graham:

I enjoy doing with students is, is something that I that I call the top 25 exercise, and it's, it's really just a riff on an old Duke University essay prompt. But I'll ask students to set a timer and write down 25 things about themselves. And it can be, and I always tell students, you know, there are no rules other than the fact that these should just be things that are personally significant to you. And so it could be a song title, it could be a movie that really changed your life. It could be a story. It could be, you know, it could be an adjective. But I find that when students, when students are sort of forced to start listing out things that they find personally significant, you'll, again, you'll find a lot of these commonalities, very much like the other exercise I was describing, you'll start to see some trends. And again, it gives us a place to start talking about potential ideas. And oftentimes it's the it's the really seemingly innocuous things, you know, like, I had a student who talked about how for seven years straight, she ate the same thing for breakfast. And it wasn't until, you know, I forget what happened exactly, but something took, you know, sort of took her out of that routine when she had this, you know, just this epiphany about the importance of change, essentially, or disruption. And so it's sometimes these very small, sort of seemingly, you know, innocuous or routine things that really spark a great conversation. You know, that can they can stimulate a conversation about growth. They can stimulate a conversation maybe about something that they've maybe been putting off, quite frankly, but it's, but it's a great way to start getting students to really think about, you know, as I go through my daily life, what are the things, what are the things that I do? Why do I do them? Why are they important to me? Why are they significant and and that oftentimes can be, can be that kernel from which, you know, fantastic essay starts.

Sheila Akbar:

That's great. I'll throw one more out here. And it often happens while we are looking at the prompts with that kind of quick reaction thing that you were talking about, Joanna, sometimes my student will be like, Oh, I could use this story. We've, you know, brainstormed a number of stories. I could use this story to respond to number one or number two or number four or number seven. It ends up being a story that they can use in multiple places. Probably means that sent that story is very central to who they are, and that's like a really good indication that we got to dig deeper into this. And this is probably a story we're going to want to use. Andy, before I move on from the brainstorming ideas. Is there any exercise you like to share?

Andrew Friedman:

I think we've covered all my tricks.

Sheila Akbar:

A lot of the times it is just listening.

Andrew Friedman:

They tend to work well, yeah. So you don't need to really find.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, that's great. That's wonderful. So as we are, let's say we've brainstormed an essay. We've chosen a topic, are there do's and don'ts? Are there things we really should not be writing about as we're moving into this, you know, the fuller draft of the essay? What do you think, Andy?

Andrew Friedman:

Yeah, I was actually looking at a presentation I did for a Boston School that actually came up with a list of do's and don'ts. I won't go through the whole list. I'll just get just to get the conversation started. So it should not sort of recapitulate your resume or activities list, right, or really anything that they already know, right? This should complement all of that. You should also it should not be bragging, right? That's a fine line, because it's obviously self promotional, ultimately, but there's a way to phrase things that don't come off as hottie, don't use cliches, don't quote Albert Einstein, don't spend too much time in the pre High School past, right? There are ways to do that as well, but we don't want sort of the bulk of anything happening before high school. Don't use fancy words unless I permit it this. Well, I'm sure we'll talk about more. But if you're talking about something that is maybe traumatic, which is okay to do, right, you also you want to be careful, but we don't want to focus on that or sort of wallow in that. We definitely don't want it to be sort of a pity party or a trauma dump, right? And I'll leave it to the others to talk about how we actually work with tricky material like that. And, oh, the other one is something we already said earlier, don't try to cram in everything about you.

Sheila Akbar:

Very helpful. I think it's pretty comprehensive, but Holly or Joanna, was there anything you would want to add to

Joanna Graham:

Thing that I would just add to that is just in this is a sort of a plus one, is what Andy mentioned. But just keeping in mind that remember whose name is on the application, because I find sometimes that students, again, in this, in this attempt to, you know, sort of defer, maybe deflect attention. Essays can, sometimes they can. They can start fixating, maybe on someone who's particularly influential. Or there's a prompt that talks about, you know, that asks students to think about maybe a conversation or a debate that they had with someone, and it becomes if the topic starts veering away too far from the students. I think it's always, you know, again, you you have limited real estate in this essay. And. I think it's always just important to remember that the focus ultimately should be on the student and the student experience.

Sheila Akbar:

That's great. So I'm going to switch gears just a little bit. One of the moms is worried that her kid just does kind of everyday, normal stuff, nothing special, lots of video games and chilling. How do we get an essay out of a kid like that? I'm going to go to Andy. This is your, your specialty. I feel like,

Andrew Friedman:

I don't know if it is, but the more you say it, the more I get nervous that, that maybe I've just gotten lucky. But what I think it does help, especially with, as you said, the terse teenage boys, having been one myself. So maybe there's sort of a resonance there, and I'm able to get something out of them. But I think this follows from a lot of what we said about how we tee up the prompts, right, especially saying it doesn't have to be something, you know, something massive and dramatic. And often those essays actually don't work out all that well, because I think some students feel like the drama will take care of the import of the essay, but one is not the other, right? This is about you, not about a car accident that you happen to be involved with, right? It's about the aftermath, right? What? How did this? So most essays, most good essays, at least, come down to some sort of reflection, internal transformation, moment of growth, minor or major revelation. And you don't have to have a dramatic life, or some you know, create extraordinary sort of life for those to happen, right? And they can happen in small ways. For example, maybe there was a subtle shift in your relationship with the friend that you game with all of the time, right? And actually, that sort of spurred you to a new kind of maturity, a new sense of understanding of what relationships are really all about what you're looking for in relationships, and what could be bigger in life than relationships. So it's not about the sort of the externally big and dramatic. It's more often about the internally dramatic, so to speak.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, that's really well put. And I think what college is really like are self aware students. And so self awareness can come from all kinds of things. It can come from big things, right, like a car accident or a move across the country or, you know, something like that. But can also come from really small things. And so I always encourage my students to not censor themselves because they think it's not important or not impressive or not exciting, right? Like, I'm going to be the judge of that. It's your job to just tell me all the stuff. Holly, what would you add to this conversation?

Holly Schreiber:

I tend to think big important things. Like, there's nothing bigger important than honesty and vulnerability and, you know, making connections and things. So I think that with a student, where it may feel like, okay, they kind of hang out. They play games. A lot. They do that, talking about those things like, Why, what's the meaning behind them? What does that bring to them? And if we're really struggling with the reflection and that sense of personal growth, it's one of the reasons why it's a great time to have those conversations now, because it's not too late to plant seeds of reflection, and they may go out and have more conversations, right? You know, difficult conversation where they overcame differences, they may, you know, begin to reflect on the things that are happening to them going forward that may influence their essay as well. So I think sometimes working on an essay with students like that can can be really difficult. It's also has potential to be one of the more transformative relationships, because they can learn to reflect and be a little vulnerable and realize that's actually really valuable and a strength.

Sheila Akbar:

point, right? I mean, I know you, we have all talked about this individually, like the work that we do. We love it so much, not because there is this beautiful, shiny essay or a college pennant now on the wall, right? That's all great stuff. Of course, we want our students to be successful in those regards. But the thing that is so satisfying, it's so meaningful to all of us, is that we get to watch this kid grow in their understanding of themselves and their ability to communicate that to other people like those are two just crucial life skills. And if you can help your student start to develop those things now, they're not only going to be in a great place for their college applications, but for college, for having relationships with professors and mentors, for doing job interviews, for, you know, setting up their career for networking. It's just so important, right? So there's this kind of twin goal we have of like, yeah, we want to produce a good essay, but the good essay is going to come from that deep introspection. So really great.

Andrew Friedman:

I actually have a triplet goal, because being a word nerd and a grammar geek. My secret mission is actually to teach them about dangling modifiers,

Sheila Akbar:

Right, right. Let's the semicolon. Let me teach you how to use the semicolon.

Andrew Friedman:

They're gonna eat their vegetables.

Joanna Graham:

Oh my gosh. I don't know how to follow up after dangling modifiers. And I think the only thing I would add is that, you know, I always, I think, especially when students are hung up, because they get in their own heads a lot about, you know, well, I just do this, or I'm, you know, I'm just doing this or that. And it doesn't always, you know, feel enough, because, again, you know, Comparison is the thief of, thief of joy. Here, I'll ask a lot of students too, because, again, you have in Sheila, you would reference this at the beginning, you know, you have to think about your application holistically, and so, you know, if students are, you know, not to go back to the video game example, but you know, if that's if that's something that really brings them a lot of joy, but that's a way that they're building connections organically, or maybe mentoring younger students. I always ask them to think a little bit about the impact, like, you know, is there one person whose life would be different if you hadn't done this activity, or if you hadn't like, if you I had a student, you know, a few years ago who, who's, admittedly, when they started, their parents made them go coach, you know, neighborhood swim team in the summer. And, you know, after, after the first two summers, he hated it. The third summer, he was thinking about not going back. And I said, you know, is there who's going to miss you? I'll bet you there's at least one kid there who, you know, who would not be, who would not still be coming back to summer swim team, because, and this was a kid who was, you know, was, was not the best swimmer, but was such a cheerleader for everybody else, and made everybody, you know, feel, feel a little less, you know, self conscious about about their abilities. Now, when you think about, you know, the things that teachers are going to be writing about in letters of rec, that was a consistent theme that came up in letters of rec about just how he would put his own personal performance aside to be able to help and collaborate with his peers and others. And so this was something very consistently that we saw throughout and so something that was seemingly small to him, you know, coaching neighborhood swim team. It wasn't a competitive swim team. It was, in his words, you know, he's like, Well, I'm just, I'm making sure little kids don't drown, and teaching them the basics. It ended up it's the little things that are the big things. When you think about the impact, and I think again, just flipping the lens is such a great way to get students to really reflect and start seeing you know that the things that they're doing do make a difference and do have an impact.

Sheila Akbar:

That's so great. So we've talked about how to get an idea, how to choose a topic, how to use a dangling modifier. How do you know when you're done? And how do we deal with the word limit? Holly, I pick on you.

Holly Schreiber:

Oh, the word limit. I tell people to go over in writing and brainstorming. I want word vomit. I want all of the random details that come out, I often tell them to pretend that they're, like, obnoxious first year college, creative writer, and just like, go way over the top, because it's like, you get all that richness and those choices, and then editing is a separate beast that we can handle later. And you know, you just want to have a lot of stuff, so I try to, like, have that not be an impediment, you can always trim down, and that usually makes the essay better. So and sometimes getting help with trimming is great, right? Because if you you might be in love with a part of your writing that needs to go, and having an outside voice to help ease that process is, is great. Well, how to know when you're done? So there is a thing as as asking for too much feedback and continuing to mangle personal statement, that's perfect. So I think for me, what I encourage students is like, I ask them if they're proud of it. That's a hard question for some students, because, you know, if they're, if they're perfectionist or, you know, there's some barriers to them being proud of it. But that, to me, is it's an ultimate moment when we've reached and sometimes students will tell me they're just like, Oh, I just, I just, I really love it. And then, so that's the thing. And then if you do show people it, and if the impression that they get from it is what you're intending, or fits right, feels like you, they think it sounds like you. Then I think that's a good place to stop messing with it. You make sure it's free from error, and then it's ready to roll.

Sheila Akbar:

That's great. I see Joanna and Andy nodding along vigorously. Either of you have anything else to add to that?

Andrew Friedman:

Sure, I say a lot of the same things that holiday says. I also say, if they're working with with us or with me, I tell them that I've never had a problem getting down to 650 which is true and well, obviously there's different ways to get to 650 What I mean is, I've never gotten down to 650 and not been happy with it right? Felt like it was missing something, right? And the more we distill, the more concentrated it tends to be. There are limits, of course, but that's why I want to see much more than six, if we, if we're, if the first draft is 650 we might be in trouble, because I'm going to machete that down to 200 right with you, of course. Yeah, right. So we need, we need to start with more.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah. And I love that. The the limit is there, because it forces us to get creative. And I. Think it's great opportunity to teach students. Hey, we could use a piece of dialog here to convey all of this stuff that you've got in 200 words. One character can say a sentence and it would, it would convey the same thing, right? So they are learning more sort of tools of communication and the craft of writing. I really look I like doing that. Okay, this is the last one I'm going to the panel, and then we're going to go to audience questions. What is the parent's role in all of this? We've talked about, like, what we do as students, what we're expecting students to give us? Well, what the heck does a parent do while all of this is going on, or if they don't have outside help, how can a parent be productively involved in this process? Let's say Joanna, let's let's hear from you.

Joanna Graham:

So I think that there's, you know, I think that there are two ways parents can be can can be supportive and help in the process. You know, if you're, if you're working directly with your students, I think laying some initial ground rules when you as you get started is really important. And I think the most important one is that there isn't an expectation that, as a parent, you have to read the essay. And I think that is incredibly liberating and empowering for students. It's not that they have anything to hide. It's not that they're going to write an essay talking about how terrible, you know, their childhood was. But I think there is something you know, when the approval of parents, I think is so the need for that approval sometimes is so strong with some students, especially high achieving, high performing students, that that additional layer of pressure I find can can almost be paralyzing for some students, because they want it to be coming out of the gate. And so I think giving your student permission to write in a bit of a vacuum and not asking, not asking for their Google password or not, you know, and also maybe not hacking into their Google account to look at their essays is going to be important, but I think from a brainstorming perspective, you know, using some of these exercises that we've talked about, you know, there's, I've heard a couple of, I've heard a couple of coaches and consultants talk about the the role of the car ride, because, you know, getting your teenager to talk to you sometimes is really challenging, but if you are driving somewhere, maybe if you are driving to go visit colleges, and you happen to have eight hours in a vehicle together, this is a great time to have a conversation with them and tee up some of these questions. You know, it's, there is, I think there's something very freeing when a student doesn't necessarily have to be looking at you and making eye contact, but you can just sort of chat and have a conversation, and it will be looking out the window. And it really does change. I think the just the the feeling and sort of the sentiment behind that conversation. And you'll it's amazing how candid students can be when they don't necessarily feel that they have to be making direct eye contact with you in the entire time. So I'll pause there. They're probably, this could probably be a whole webinar in and of itself. But, yeah, I think so. Holly, what would you add? What, what role can a parent play?

Holly Schreiber:

I guess this would make me like a little cautionary thing. Sometimes all, um, parents will try to decide on the theme, like, what the essay is about, because this is important. And I just want to emphasize that the topic is not always the message. So if, if your kid is like, I don't talk about coloring books, like, how much I really love my coloring books, and I just made that up. But like, don't be like, there's no way there might be something so beautiful and deep and profound in the coloring books essay, and it can be amazing. So I think sometimes that, like, desire to help and like find themes, is like, really, you know, it's just on the surface, and can shoot down some really beautiful ideas. So I think, be sensitive and always ask more questions. And like, there's there are bad ideas, but like, let them blossom before. Usually, you know, everyone will realize by that point, but I that would be my suggestion for parents, is to just always ask more questions if something like that comes up.

Sheila Akbar:

That's a great tip. Andy, have you had any experience with this? What? What do you think the ideal role for a parent is to play?

Andrew Friedman:

I think it depends on the the existing relationship, you know, if it's the kind of relationship we're working, you know, getting feedback on that sort of thing would help. Great. I often use or or rather, ask students to ask parents about certain events, right? Just to get that other special perspective, obviously, parents see thing you know, see aspects of their of their children might not be aware of. They also might be a more reliable, or just better remember of events. So sometimes, just actually, right? It could help definitely say that.

Sheila Akbar:

That's great. Okay, we're gonna pivot to questions rather asks. Is it important to tie the personal statement to a potential career goal or major? I will give you a quick answer, and then I'll turn it to the panel. You should not do that most. Most colleges that ask for supplemental essays ask about what's your potential career goal or academic interest. So you will be cannibalizing the material for an essay that is required, and usually much more determinative of if you're going to get in or not to that particular institution, if you talk about that in your main essay. So I like to see a surprise. I like to see something. That we couldn't guess from what they've done in their extracurriculars or their summers or the classes, they've chosen something that this application is not going to ask for elsewhere or indicate elsewhere. But panel, what do you guys think?

Andrew Friedman:

I would say absolutely with one exception, when asterisk and I have worked with a couple students, one of them is at MIT, not we don't know if it was the essay. It's obviously the essay that got her but her life's mission and her passion is just like for very deep reasons directed towards what she wants to study and what she wants to do, what she wants to contribute to the world. Occasionally, there are teenagers like that, right? Who are so driven, not that she didn't have any other interests and stuff, but like she had to write about this. So that occasionally does, does happen, but usually, if there, if it's that central thing, there's other things to say about it as well. If those supplements come up.

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, that's a good point. Joanna and Holly. Anything to add?

Joanna Graham:

I'll offer one other exception, similar to Andy's. I think if a student has had a last minute pivot in terms of what they're thinking about doing, so if they've spent the first three years of their high school career thinking they were going to be a humanities major, all of their extracurriculars align with that, and all of a sudden they're applying as an engineering major. And I think the other piece is, if there are no additional supplemental essays, that can be a place where the personal statement can explain maybe the transformation or the personal growth process that went into went into that pivot. And so it gives a little bit of context. And so, you know, in those cases, I don't necessarily counsel the students to use the essay to come and say, I want to study this For these reasons, but really talk more about, sort of the personal growth rate, so in a very indirect way, present, sort of how they've how they've arrived where they where they are, because, again, it gives them an opportunity to sort of share a little bit more about about that journey.

Sheila Akbar:

That's great. Okay, I'm gonna move us along a little bit. We have a question about AI in the development of their story. So I don't get the sense this is about like using AI to write the essay, but to develop the topic. And what do we think is going to happen with this? Are more colleges going to come out with explicit policies about AI? I don't know who wants to take this one.

Holly Schreiber:

I think you know so much more about policy future direction, Sheila, but I just can't see it like to write a truly original personal essay. I cannot see how it would save you that much time, like, when, when all is said and done, to, like, go back and reinsert yourself and your ideas and the memories and and those kind of things. To me, it just feels like, okay, like, you know, maybe it made you feel better in the process to bounce ideas off something, but that also could have been a person. I mean, I think we're fulfilling that role. And if people are using AI for topic development, it's probably in replacement of a person that would actually perhaps be more effective, right?

Sheila Akbar:

Yeah, and you mentioned, I kind of know the policies. It's kind of like the way my brain works. Only a few colleges have made explicit policies about the use of AI in applications, but this is changing, and we do expect more colleges to say you can use it, you can't use it. We'll use a checker. We'll not, you know, whatever my recommendation is to make sure this really sounds like the student and not like a robot, which is hard to do if you're really relying on a tool like AI. So yeah, it's harder, it's hard work, but that's how you get the benefit out of it. Okay, do we have other questions? Because I got a whole bunch of other questions I can ask the panel if there's no one else with questions. All right, I want to point out this is something that has kind of come up in most of our answers. There are strategic concerns, right? The college application is not just the essay, right? Right. There are a lot of moving pieces, and you've heard us say we want to make sure that the essay ties these pieces together, answers questions that other parts might raise. So we really want to think about showcasing the strengths and the fit, but also piecing all of these different pieces of content together, not just the various essays, which we do want to map out, but also the essays against the activity list, against the transcript, against what you think your recommenders are going to say about you you know, versus information about the high school you're applying from in the college that you are applying to. Right? So there are a lot of strategic concerns here, and it's not just about being a good writer or a brainstorming partner, in addition the accountability and project management is such a key piece of this, we typically create a really big spreadsheet with all of the essays and the word count, and then we're looking for, well, this is kind of this same question. We can reuse this, but then we got to pull this piece in and we kind of map it all together so that students aren't writing 40 essays. But, you know, just because there's a plan doesn't mean your students can follow it. So the relationship, the regular meetings, you know, the the text nudges, you know, the I want to see this draft by this date, and then I'm going to give you my comments. Can really help keep things moving and make sure nothing is falling through the cracks. And most importantly, I'm going to say, parents take. The stress off your plate, right? You've got enough on your hands with a teenager in your house, and you know all the other things that might be going on in your life. You don't have to do this. You don't have to take this on. There are lots of places that can help. Obviously, we do this kind of work, but your high school counselor can help. If your student has a relationship with their English teacher, or somebody else that you know is a great writer who really knows the student has that relationship. You can lean on them, an older cousin, things like that. So don't try to do it on your own. It takes a village, and this is one of those places where you really should not be embarrassed or hindered from asking for help. So please, please, do ask for it. There are lots of people who definitely want to help you and your kid. We did it. We covered everything. There's nothing else to possibly know about essays. So good luck, and hopefully we'll see you at another one of these. All right, folks, I hope you found that so helpful. It is a lot of work, and it's very difficult. It's it's something most students haven't done before. So I do recommend you start earlier than you think you need to, to give them the time to really reflect and surface topics and talk to other people and figure out really how they want to present themselves in this part of the application, and get some strategic advice from a college counselor or an independent consultant or whoever it is you might be working with or leaning on during this time to see how this piece, this essay piece, might fit in and complement everything else that you're going to be sharing in your application. Because that's really important. All right, that's it for me today. So we are going to take some time off in July and August, but we'll be back in the fall. If there are topics you really want me to cover, or people you really want to hear from that I could have on the podcast, please reach out. I'm always happy to hear your ideas and feedback and otherwise take care till next time, we'll talk to you soon. Bye.