College Essay Discussion with Best-Selling Author Koren Zailckas

Leonora talks with Koren Zailckas about her experience helping students with  college essay writing and about supporting her own child in the college application process.

If you have questions or topics you'd like us to discuss on future episodes, email us at hello@seeingbeyondadmissions.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Hi, welcome to Shaping Your Narrative, the College of Missions podcast. Today I'm very excited to be here with one of my favorite colleagues, Corin Zelkis. Hi, Corin. Thank you for being here today. You're my favorite too. By way of introduction, Corinne Zilkis is a New York Times bestselling author of memoirs and novels, including Smashed, Fury, Mother Mother, and The Drama Teacher. This year she also released a poetry collection, The True Story of My Domestication, which I just learned right now, which congratulations. Her books have been Barnes and Noble Selections and Target Book Club Picks. She has appeared on scores of television programs and national media outlets, including The View and Anderson Cooper, and she studied creative writing at Bennington College and Syracuse University, where her mentors included superstar memoirist Mary Carr. In addition to writing books, she has spent the last six years helping high schoolers craft college admissions essays, a role she loves because it epitomizes the old memoir adage, you don't just get credit for living. Thank you so much for being here, Corin. Thank you for having me, Leonora. As I mentioned, you're one of my favorite people to work with, and for everybody uh listening, Corinne is an incredibly prolific writer. From my personal experience, I will say that one of your best skills is actually taking notes. I think it's really amazing how quickly you pivot with edits and how fast you're able to come up with new ideas. And I just, Corin is just a brilliant, not just a beautiful writer, but also incredibly sharp with that, which I think is like one of the most important skills actually with college admissions essays, because you are writing for a specific audience, as always, but in this case you're also writing for an audience of multiple people, which is really hard to do, right? You're trying to anticipate how a bunch of unknown people are going to interpret the work. With that in mind, um, I'm curious about how you kind of think about approaching the college essay writing process, how you deal with um that challenge of writing for people where you don't actually know who the reader is gonna be or who the committee is gonna be after even the first read.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

Right. Yeah, it is. I mean, I love it because I um kind of grew up in the school of memoir. Um I studied with Mary Carr, who wrote The Liars Club at Syracuse University. Um and so I think like my approach to college essay writing is very much informed by memoir, um, which is like Mary Carr always used to say, um, you don't get credit for living. Um, you have to, you can't just report what happened to you in in writing memoir, you have to find some wisdom from it, um, you have to be able to make sense of it, almost like metabolize it for the reader. And I think that college admissions essays are very much like that. Um, because really, if you're just reporting to me um something that happened to you without making sense of it for me, telling me how you grew from it, um, how it informed, how you see the world, um, how you act in the world, um, then you're not really um communicating what you need um in order to get into college. So um, so yeah, I tend to think of essay right college essay writing as memoir writing on crack, like only because it is it's like one of the most important stories that you can tell, right? There's I was I have my oldest daughter is applying to college this year. Um, and I was explaining to her um in the car, I was like, yeah, it's one of those few instances where you're sort of telling a story in order to manipulate people into having the effect that you want, which is really funny because I um I wrote this novel a few years back called The Drama Teacher, which is very much about like um kind of a carn artist who is manipulating people. Um and I think in some ways I've always felt that all writing is a little bit like that. Like you're, I don't know, you're writing to have an a desired effect, right? Like I'm I'm writing this section so it's gonna pull at your heart strings. Or I'm writing this section to give you um a feeling of uh comedic relief after something tough just happened. So I'm always aware that I'm trying to evoke a certain feeling in somebody. And in college admissions, we're really trying to get their attention first thing, um, to be likable and relatable, um, and to show that we like have um an interest and curiosity in other people and learning um and awareness about um what it's like for people outside of our own immediate beliefs and surroundings. Um so there's a lot of things you're trying to communicate in this one piece of writing. Um, and that's what makes it challenging and that's what makes it so beautiful and fun.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Yeah, I I like that you compare it to memoir because I often that that's often how I think about it too. Um it's just really interesting to have someone at such an early stage of life being asked to write memoir, right? Because there's so much that's remains unshaped about who they I mean, they don't even have a fully developed prefrontal cortex yet, right? Like and yet we're asking them to reflect and and synthesize these experiences, which is also not a natural way to go about life.

SPEAKER_00 5:30

No, it's not, right? Because it we takes time for us to digest experiences in life and certain experiences we have mean things for us that are different at 20 than they do at 40. We have more understanding or more just context. But there is, I mean, it always kind of bugged me a little bit. Like I wrote my first memoir Smash when I was 23, almost like there's this thing in memoir where like lots of craft books will be like, don't even sit down and try to be write a memoir until you're like 36, you know? And so it was almost like this this snooty attitude that unless you have um traveled to far-flung corners of the earth and like had these exotic experiences that you don't have anything interesting to say. And I always felt like that's not true. Um, and also, I mean, I think my experience in publishing Smashed um was that like people were dying for like a young person's perspective and voice. Like it wasn't something that there was a lot um out there in publishing at the time. Um, and I think uh it's really, I don't know, young people have a really, really wonderful finger on the pulse. Um, they've got a lot of times a new and fresh perspective than the generations who've become before us. They're really interesting. Um, and I feel like, especially if you're just like zooming really far in on what makes you you, your experiences, things that only you can say, that is going to be fascinating for the reader.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah, and I think college admissions essays are exhibit A, that young people actually do have interesting to things to say in memoirs. There's like some some of the most fun things I've ever read have been a one-page personal statement, you know, they stick with you.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

Definitely. Like I can still remember ones from years ago, just because it brought me this slice of life that I didn't know about otherwise, or it taught me something, or it made me realize that young people today think so much differently than they did when I was um growing up in really cool ways. I feel like as long as you kind of give the reader an experience, um, it's gonna be memorable.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

Yeah, and and there I think another thing that I get from it that's so encouraging, I guess is the word, is how much energy young people have and and optimism and you know, vision for the future that can sometimes feel extremely refreshing when the whole world feels so difficult. You know, it's just like that energy of like the 17-year-old who's ready to transform the world, you know. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

And I mean, and that's what we always want in these essays, right? Is like to come away feeling inspired, um, uh to have that positivity. Um, but it's genuine, and so it's a wonderful belief that the world actually can change and we can do something about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:14

I actually, this is a little bit of a tangent, but what you were saying about young people having an interesting perspective reminded me of when I was in college reading through a journal that I had from when I was in the eighth grade, and our eighth grade teacher used to give us points for writing in a journal. She didn't care what we wrote, you just write and she had hundreds of prompts and you could just write on anything, and it was really fun. And I would sit down on Sunday night and just like write and write and write and write. And some of the things I wrote were just so funny and so insightful. And it was I was 13 and I remember reading this when I was in college and looking at some of the vocabulary words. I read a lot of Anna Green Gables at this time, so I had a very extensive and interesting vocabulary. But some of the I was like, my gosh, I'm at Yale right now and I've forgotten these words. Like, am I getting stupider as I get older? I was like, I don't even know these words anymore. But one of the stories that I one of the the journal entries that I wrote was about how like I I didn't like killing bugs, particularly like because well, I guess it was in the sense of cockroaches. I I hated cockroaches, but I also didn't like killing them because I imagined their communities missing them. It it's a riot. Like I had this whole world that I had imagined, like, you know, like I hate them so much and I don't want to see them and I don't want them to be here, but I cannot kill them because like what if like their families miss them and they don't come home and like who knows, like these roaches might have, you know, little like buggy like doctors and lawyers and psychiatrists inside the walls of our houses. We don't know.

SPEAKER_00 10:02

I think that that's amazing, Leonora. I love that you still have this artifact. I think very similarly like when there are ants in my home because we're like such a such a community in the summer um here in upstate New York. But um, and that's that would make such an incredible essay or voicey little supplement, you know, like it shows so much personality.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

I used it as the um inspiration for one of my application essays for graduate school. I I had found it, and and one of the things we had to do was write a character study. And so I ended up writing a character study about this cockroach who's a secretary in this bug psychiatrist's office who had like severe trauma from having been through like a Holocaust, but it was actually, you know, like a bug bomb. And like she had she had been out partying and like freewheeling and wild in her young days, and there was a fog, you know, there somebody had fogged the apartment. Like it was is told in the sense of like a nuclear bomb, but it was, you know, a roach fumigation. Um, and the psychiatrist had saved her, and then she ended up like having the rest of her like existence be like very, very rigid and like within the lines because she's protecting herself from yeah, from having any kind of harm again. And she ate the same thing every day. She ate a piece of cardboard for breakfast in the morning, like her cardboard toast every morning and never left the walls and lived by the straight and narrow.

SPEAKER_00 11:31

We want you to turn this into like a short animated film as well. It's amazing. But no, it it because it's so it would make such a good film, and it probably made such a good essay because I always feel a little bit too like um when I'm writing college essays, um, I always think of that line from uh it's like in there a million times in Saves the Cat, the classic film writing um instruction manual where it's like all mil all movies are based on irony and contradiction. And there is like such a relatable contradiction in there. Like these are disgusting. I hate them, but I don't like killing them. And I'm such an empathetic person that I can imagine their family's loss.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Um I don't want to be responsible for that. Yeah, yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

So um speaking of which, this like kind of idea of me drawing on a journal reminds me of something that I always wished that that teenagers would do, which is like write down their experiences because I have such a hard time remembering specifics, even if they have very formative experiences that are important to them. When we start talking to them and asking them what actually happened, they have such a hard time remembering and um and getting that down on the page. Um so what are some of the things you think about when you have a student who is having a hard time remembering those details and having a hard time writing them down? Um what are some of the ways in which you go about drawing out like specifics and examples when when you have students who struggle?

SPEAKER_00 13:09

I mean, I think for sure, and it is a common problem, right? Because you a lot of students come in knowing what they want to say. Like they're like, Yeah, I've got the wisdom, like and what I learned from it. But of course, part of telling an engaging story is like letting us see each step in the process with a lot of specificity and little anecdotes. Um and sometimes when they're drawing a blank on those, um I also studied journalism at Syracuse, so I kind of like when I'm working live with a student, like you and you actually have me there, um, you know, I'm able to almost put on that interviewer hat a little bit and ask some questions. But I think for students who are working on their own and not with a college um essay coach, I think you can do a similar thing, like um in that y you want to be thinking too, because you are telling a story at every point about um like setting a scene and you can even like you can even tell us a story in one sentence if you're summarizing what happened and it can still feel specific like um and alive with lots of details, as if you're watching a montage in a film, right? Because even then there's loads going on and it's short, but you still and it still has a really um clear emotional picture or what's happening. I mean, I think for sure my memoirist uh professors always taught me if you really sit and take the time to slow down and put yourself back there, you do tend to remember details. Um a lot of us are mostly just speeding through life without really setting a time um a specific time to sit and remember. So I think if you are kind of quiet at your desk and you're trying to bring yourself back to a certain scene, um, it always helps. I mean, there's a reason so much of our memories are tied to sensory information, to smells, to touch, to I mean, I think if you really just put yourself back there in that one high stakes club meeting or whatever it was, and really think about what you could see, what can what you could hear, what you could smell. Um, those things will really help the the piece come alive. It gives it a lot of more credibility for whoever's reading it. If they're like really you don't it's actually it reminds me a bit of fiction writing too, because then my fiction writing professors would always say, like, when you're writing a novel or a short story, you just don't want to break the dream, right? Like you don't ever want the reader to wake up and be like, wait, did that really happen? Like that didn't feel right. Um, so really the more like sensory experiences that you're including in your um writing, especially in your specifics, you're lulling the reader into a little bit of a um a dream where they feel like they're in it, they're with you, right beside you, experiencing what you're experiencing, and they're not gonna be like, Oh, hey, did that really happen? Like, did it really happen the way you said? Because they're they're there with you at every point. So um I think the things when you're remembering to ask yourself um to make your writing a little more specific for sure, what your senses were picking up. Um, and I think a lot of students too, when they're generalizing, um, and it's something I did a lot when I was a young memoirist, is you just forget to include what you were feeling. And so very much um when you tap into what you're feeling, um, is gonna keep the reader engaged and make sure they're that they're with you, they're along for the ride.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

That's a great point. I I wish I could remember where to credit this. Um, but there it was a podcast that I was listening to about um lying and how people will sort of colloquially assign behaviors, right? You look to the left or you avoid eye contact, or um, but that actually when people's stories are manufactured, they lack those sensory details. That that is what actually, you know, marks the difference and not even necessarily consistency in terms of actually consistency in terms of how the story is told more often demonstrates that the story has been memorized and perhaps manufactured, whereas if the story is alive with sensory details that suggest, you know, like we were in the car going to a concert, I remember this example, and I really had to go to the bathroom. Like that's that's the kind of thing that you know will stick out, but those those details also make it feel more real to the reader because that's actually how you can like determine the truth and kind of you know, I think the context was was actually uh an investigator, a detective or something, but that was something that he was saying was like more often than consistency in storytelling, the truth comes from those little details of how you are feeling the way you remember about it. Right. Okay, so let's back up actually. Um so backing up to what I had wanted to ask you about originally, you are such an accomplished novelist and memoirist, and you write in so many different ways. How did you end up starting to work with students on their college applications?

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Yeah, well, I also, I mean, now I have five kids at home. So I think um very much like I um writers always need to find ways to pay the bills in addition. I was a single mom with a ton of kids um and was definitely like looking to teach writing at universities around here. I had a few um memoir writing classes going on the weekends. I also taught um writing at a um shelter for homeless teens in Poughkeepsie. Um so I I knew I loved in particular w working with young people, but um I did not even know of anything about the college prep industry that it was even an industry or something people did. Back in my day, I wrote my essays alone on uh gosh, on pencil and paper.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

The folders that you had to like squeeze your text into the the whatever it was. It was like a I don't know, double-sided two pages and folded in half.

SPEAKER_00 18:54

Exactly. Oh my gosh, yes, and like will it will it be delivered on time? Um those kinds of worries will it be lost in the mail?

SPEAKER_01 19:04

Did it actually get there?

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Yes, oh my goodness, but um a long time ago. But I I had a friend who was a journalist um who uh was doing this work and she uh called me up and she said, you know, I think you might really enjoy this. Um and uh I was looking for something flexible, um, and it was a better fit than anything I could have even envisioned for myself. Um just the ability to, yeah, it kind of combines a bit of everything I love, um being able to sit down and talk to people, which I I made me love reporting um and uh helping people access their memories and make sense of them, which is something I've always loved about coaching, memoir writing, um yeah, and just the teaching element as well.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

And uh what are the things that you find most uh difficult or challenging about it? Either the the the role of mentoring a teenager in writing or the college application process overall?

SPEAKER_00 20:08

Yeah, I think um oh, those are such good great questions. I mean, I think I'll probably start with the most challeng the most challenging part with students. I mean, there are different students who all my students have different challenges, right? Like I have students with really um severe learning disabilities who are very dysgraphic or dyslexic, and that adds another element of stress to the process. But I mean, I think probably the trickiest thing um is when I meet a teenager, that's probably like the kind of teenager I would have been, where it was like, no, I have a vision and a way and I have a voice and don't tell me what to do. Like, this is the story I'm going to tell. Um, and looking back on my own college um essay, my personal statement, I think it was probably pretty unsuccessful in terms of if I'm like evaluating it as a knowing what I know now. Like I think it probably set a scene really well. I don't think it really communicated a lot of wisdom. I don't think I had done a lot of self-reflection. It definitely didn't show me out in it showed me in one setting, which I always uh caution students against because I want to if you I had a student last year who wanted to set his whole personal statement in a library, like the school library. And it was very engaging. Like it was, you know, he was playing this game with other people they met every week to do it. But I'm like, I can't just see you in this um 650-word essay in one spot because I wanted to see what a dynamic person you are. And he was like this kid had taught himself to play the piano entirely by ear and could do such accomplished things. He was an incredible um scientist. I just he needed to show more sides of himself, even under the umbrella of one theme. Um but my my so my essay definitely was in one space, showed one side of myself. Um But I so I think um it's hard because those students have one part of the prompt um going really well for them, right? Which is like you want to tell an engaging story that hooks the reader and draws them in and makes them read the whole thing without skimming. But there is another side of it which I'm always telling my students, this essay is also a sneaky job interview. So, like you want to tell an engaging, awesome story um that is really fun to read um or really makes me feel something, but at the same time, you also want to be communicating uh subtly why um you're a wonderful fit for college, why you're ready, how you're ready for college, how you are not gonna be somebody who's just gonna be there for four years and your dorm room on your phone, you're gonna be talking to people and learning, and you're gonna be one of those people who they're proud to have as their alumni um years down the road. So, I mean, I think that those students are a challenge because I'm I'm trying to sell them on that as well. Um, to be like, yes, you are a great writer. Like, yes, you do have a wonderful voice. Um, you know what you want to say, which is fantastic, but we also need to make sure we're communicating this other stuff. Um and then I think the hardest challenge I think for people who maybe aren't working with an um an essay coach when they sit down to write their college essay is just like writing to word count is not something many high schoolers have to do. Usually you're even in college, you're writing to page count. Um so just trying to fit all your thoughts um in one neat package, as you know, is challenging, especially if we're people who are working perhaps without an outline, people who want to sit down and just like free write their college essay to start. It takes a long time to kind of get to the point and figure out what the story is. So by then you're out of words because 650 words goes so fast. Um so I would say, yeah, learning to learn to write to word count is a challenge, but it can be overcome definitely with making sure you sit out and plan out your draft and your narrative arc before you actually sit down and write.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Yeah, yeah. I think you know, having a good paragraph structure. And I I like to try to think of each paragraph like kind of doing something, you know, just what is what is each paragraph gonna do and to your point of not putting someone in the same place how you show you learning a lesson in one context in your life and then you apply in another context in your life, and then you can have a narrative through line without while also showing different sides of the prism of who you are, right? Instead of having it feel disjointed and disparate, you you kind of thematically connect the paragraphs.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Exactly. This is why you're my favorite person to work with, Leonore, my favorite editor, because there's just some I don't know, you really have such a talent for sitting down and looking at um a personal statement and being like, what is each paragraph doing? Like, how is it advancing the story? Um Yeah, and actually I feel like that's a thing in fiction as well. Like um, everything you're writing is either advancing the story or giving um perspective on the character, and in a way that's true of personal statements too, now that I'm thinking about it.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

Yeah, I think that that for me that comes from screenwriting and my favorite films are are um very fast, like just kind of which you know, not necessarily action, but like Amelie is one of my favorite movies. And that film just moves, but there's no wasted moment in that movie, you know. And it's a rom-com, and it's delightful and quirky and has a lot of personality, but there's not a wasted second every single moment is doing something.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

Oh, that's so true. And that's such a great example for I think like what I was trying to put my finger on earlier in our conversation, the fact that like even a sentence can be packed with so much detail and feeling. So even if you're giving a list and I'm thinking of the like the Amelie montages in the beginning, like the things people are afraid of, or like the moment the fly comes and lands on the tablecloth or whatever it is, like each one of those sentences is doing so much and revealing so much. And I feel like when we're really juicing our 650 words for everything they're worth and packing it all in, that's that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

So, in terms of strategies, in terms of writing that personal statement, like what are your favorite strategies for identifying what to what to choose topic-wise, what story to tell for the caps versus supplemental essays?

SPEAKER_00 26:35

Yeah, I mean, I think I always try when I'm helping students outline their personal statements to like I like to use the caps as um this is how I think, right? And this is how I kind of came to think this way. And here's this is how I put that into action out in the world. So it's almost like um maybe there's a little bit of personal lore in there, um, something that inspired you to see the world through this particular lens or light. And then knowing how you think or a certain belief that's um come to be important to you, I see how you're doing something with it. Maybe preferably something that like makes things better or more inclusive for other people, something that's having a positive impact. Um, so I I love to, I think all my favorite personal statements weave together um all of those. And ideally under some really unexpected metaphor or um brings together a bunch of different interdisciplinary ideas. So if you're like a scientist, you're also telling me a little bit about uh classic literature you love, or I don't know. I mean, I think also from the Syracuse University um perspective of creative writing, like one of George Saunders' things is always like you're trying to complicate each sentence, like fill it with some complexity, with some things that um don't automatically make sense together. Um and I think thematically you can do that a little bit too. Like um, the more you're presenting yourself, I don't want to pick up and know exactly who you are in the first two sentences, right? Um, because there's gonna, I'm gonna be seeing different sides of you that all make sense together and inform this um belief and way of being in the world.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Yeah, I think you're getting at something that I find often students want to tell me at the end. I think students that uh especially in junior and senior year of high school are often writing argumentative essays and they're learning the structure for that, and they try to apply that structure of like I'm gonna tell you the thesis at the end of paragraph one. Yeah. That's not what you want from the story, right? Like you want, you don't you're not doing an argumentative essay here, you're doing the story, and so you want it to unfold slowly, and sort of like what I try to tell students is you know how boring it is to watch a movie when everything about the movie was revealed in the trailer, right? Like you don't want you don't want to give people the the end before before they actually get through. So, how can you kind of set up what the theme is at the beginning, right? But still have somewhere to go.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Yeah, you want to take them on a journey. And I always feel like you want to be a different person um in paragraph five than you were in paragraph two, um, and help the reader see how you got there.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Yeah, you know, as we're talking about this, I can imagine it feeling really overwhelming. Yeah. Um, you know, because it feels like such a massive task, right? Like an students put so much weight on this like main college personal statement, and this is a really hard thing to do. So I think it's it's important to start early. Just for anybody listening who's starting to feel overwhelmed by this conversation, what a hard thing it sounds like it is to do because it is challenging. And I don't know that I've ever started an essay that was great, knowing what it was gonna be at the end. Like if it turned out really, really remarkable at the end, where I started is not where I ended.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:11

Which isn't to say that it was about a different thing, but that somehow over the course of you know, weeks and months of kind of working on it and distilling and and thinking about it, the student and I came up with something together that was elevated from where we thought we were starting.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Definitely. It like comes into finer and finer detail. I always think like, you know, the first draft is just filling the sandbox so you have stuff to play with. And then you shape it and you shape it and you shape it, and it really comes alive. Um, and you really get at the heart of um what you're trying to say sometimes in ways that really surprise you. Um yeah, I think starting early, I think having an outline um to guide you. Um so you know what the roadmap is, you know what landmarks you're trying to hit in the first draft, um, even if those change as we add it. Um and I think then as long as you're sticking to your outline, I don't usually I never want my students to worry about word count in their first draft. Like I think most of their first drafts are about a thousand words, um, and then we whittle it down from there.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

And for students who feel like overwhelmed about getting started, and maybe they're outlining without the benefit of an essay coach, um, or even students that that you work with that are just overwhelmed and don't know where to start and they don't even know what to put on the page. What it what are your recommendations for the student like that?

SPEAKER_00 31:33

Yeah, I mean, I think for sure I always um because I tend to, as I'm thinking about paragraph three and four in particular, I want to know what the student is most proud of, like what their they really feel like their biggest accomplishment is. That's really important for me to know. I think um what they spend most of their time doing. Um, I mean, and but that might not be something that ends up in our personal statement. Maybe it's something that's gonna end up being reserved for more of like an extracurricular or community essay, but it's good to know. Um, I have them think about the, you know, the books and art that is most meaningful to them, um, their favorite assignment that they did in class, things like that. Um, because that tends to direct me to um the things that they're most passionate about, um the things that are most interesting to them. And I I tend to find when you just let somebody really nerd out on something they're genuinely passionate about, it is instantaneously fascinating. Like um, you're gonna teach me something, I'm gonna see you light up, I'm gonna see you use language that's really fun. And if you're having fun, it's going to be fun for the reader to read. So um, I would definitely, as you're thinking um about what to write, um, think about what you're most proud of for sure. I mean, you can also ask yourself the biggest challenges you've overcome, but the the classroom assignments that have been um most important to you, things like that. Um, and I think, of course, you can also think of um the family tradition route also opens up some things sometimes. You can think about your culture and identity. Um yeah, those are usually good prompts to get you going.

SPEAKER_01 33:14

Um in terms of uh supplemental essays, um, how do you how do you think about those? How do you approach topic selection and writing them, coming up with what to say?

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Yeah, I mean, I think then too, like um in terms of like write, we know the most common essay you're gonna have to write, the most common supplemental is your why academic essay. Why do you want to study what you want to study and why do you want to do it here? So really, I I always for the opening paragraph of that essay, um, have a student still, even though you're writing about why you want to go to the school, I need to know a little bit about um why you're passionate about studying this thing. So I usually um have a student tell a little bit of an an open with an anecdote about um essentially whatever it is that made them realize that this is the path that they want to take. So whether it's um a course that something they learned in a course um that's really interesting, factoid, an interesting conversation they had, something they read, something they did, an internship, a research project, um, and that will kind of naturally segue into why I want to do more of this and go deeper and why this is the only place to do it, because I can take courses like X or Y that relate. And then kind of like for community essays, those tend to be a little bit more rooted. I don't know, what do you think, Leonora? And kind of like your extracurriculars, your work experiences. Um maybe it's a maybe it's a cultural community, a religious community. Um but there those usually tend to be things that um are on your resume somewhere. So I feel like your resume is gonna give you some hints um about what to write about, and you're gonna be able to showcase it more because you'll be able to give more detail.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Um yeah, I guess for community, like one of the things that I really want to see is the other people in your community. That I think that's a thing that some students kind of forget to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

Yeah, that's an important detail.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Yeah, the community is inherently a group, you know. So it's uh I think like distinguishing between a community essay and a leadership essay. A leadership essay is you, but a community essay should have interpersonal dynamics.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

Absolutely. And a lot of students are scared too. And this, I mean, this is one of those like kind of narrative tricks I think that we were talking about about how to build credibility, and it's one you see politicians do all the time. But like in your community essay, I want you to name drop a few people in your community. Like Amelia taught me the X or Y. Oh, um, Gerald and I pack this together on the weekends when we're you know at the food bank. Um, it's a like if you do that, you're building credibility. Um we know you've stuck around there long enough to know people's names.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

Um as a reader, it helps me imagine the world and the space and you interacting with those other people because exactly. If the school's asking a community essay, they actually like want to know that you care about other people. That's why they're asking.

SPEAKER_00 36:12

Exactly. So there can be some other characters in that one. Right. That we know by name.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Yeah. Um, what are your favorite supplemental essay topics?

SPEAKER_00 36:24

Oh, that's such a good one. Um, I mean, I'm really partial to like my a lot of my students, most of my students hate it, but I love the um You Chicago creative essay. Um yeah, because I they get really overwhelmed because it really is like you can one of the things is like you can literally like write about whatever you want. You can write about any version of this essay that has ever existed, like from all our various prompts. And uh, but I think once we finally hone in, um, it's that wonderful combination of um being a bit nerdy, a little bit silly, like just the you it should read like you're sat next to the most fun person at the dinner party, somebody who knows a lot, but somebody who's also just like really playful. I really love the playfulness of that essay um is one of my favorites. Um, I mean, I love the Wake Forest top 10 list, I think for a similar reason, because it's really just like it's short. So there, I mean my students tend to like that one because there's not actually a lot of word count. There's not a lot you have to produce, and you can get really creative. Um, and in a way, like when it's working at its best, it's something only you could write. Um anything that taps into your distinct personality and voice um always works.

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Yeah, I I like that the Wake Forest top 10 and the UChicago Creative actually allow you to decide what you want to showcase about yourself, right? If there's something that's missing from your application that doesn't already come to life, get it in there, you know. Um and I always know a student belongs at UChicago when they get excited about writing the Chicago Creative.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

Yes, that's so true.

SPEAKER_01 38:10

If you are excited about writing to these weird prompts, you belong at U Chicago.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

You belong there, that's so true. And I guess I I think I would say I also love the pen thank you letter because it is it's just whoever designed it, it's such a genius prompt. Like, if you're it's really hard to be phony in that essay. Like, if you're not genuinely touched by someone and know how to express gratitude, um, if you want to be the star of the show in that essay, it's that it's not gonna read well, it's not gonna go well. And I can see where they could really um root out some people who um aren't gonna be great for their community. And I think the, you know, the ones that really are um heartfelt and specific and sometimes funny, they are just they tell me so much about the writer, even though if they're addressing someone else. Uh what a wonderful thing to be writing an essay that's kind of essentially about someone else, but reveals so very much about you.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

Yeah. Um Brown Joy is also one of my favorites. The same thing. It's just like you can you can pick anything, you know, um, and it lets you show another dimension of yourself. But um what are some of your least favorite prompts or or even like font prompts that you find like consistently challenging? And how do you how what what strategies have you come up with to deal with those challenges?

SPEAKER_00 39:36

I mean, I think my students really, for the most part, don't like um the essays where you have to talk about a time you disagreed with someone. They hate that one, and I understand why, because you have to make yourself really vulnerable, right? Because potentially you're like, I don't know it all, um, is what that essay is communicating. Um, but the whole point of the essays, like, yeah, nobody knows it all, nobody has it all, right? Um, what how do you how do you manage it in moments um when yours isn't the only opinion on stage? Um and I think the more I can kind of encourage students to embrace that vulnerability, the better that essay is. There's of course a lot of ways that essay could go wrong, but there's a lot of ways it can go beautifully right, and you can't insist on being perfect or knowing everything in order to um do well at that essay. Um, you have to allow for the fact that you have blind spots, we all do, and that's a really human thing, and that's what that essay is asking you to open up about and confide.

SPEAKER_01 40:43

Um what are some of the common mistakes that you see students and parents making throughout the college application process?

SPEAKER_00 40:53

Goodness, okay. Common mistakes. I mean, I think that's that's one that's really tricky when I work um, and it usually tends to be a whole um kind of family mentality, like um just not wanting to acknowledge any weak spots, any faults, any vulnerabilities, like um, you know, even down to like, yes, she has a learning disability, but we don't want to talk about that. We don't acknowledge that. Um and just nobody's asking you to be perfect. Colleges don't want perfect applicants. Colleges want interesting humans, they want good humans who are gonna be good to one another. Um uh they want people who are real. Um, so I think really just um encouraging authenticity, authenticity with appropriateness, right? Because we had still that sneaky job interview. Um so you maybe don't want to have me your most unhinged self. Um yeah, I want I want to see um a real human. Our favorite characters and books and stories are not people who are without flaws. Um and I think uh showing that you know your blind spots, that you know your faults, um, that communicates so much maturity and so much curiosity, not just about the world, but about yourself. Um and that's somebody I think admissions wants on campus.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

Yeah, and and I think one of the really important things about that change of perspective prompt or whatever it is, is demonstrating that you're ready to face the challenges of college, right? You're gonna be thrown into a bucket with a bunch of people from different places from all over the world who have different ideas and and value sets than you do. And they wanna know that you're gonna be able to engage in that community productively and positively and that you're gonna take something with it, you're gonna grow from it, not that you're gonna go and just fight with everyone else or shut down or not be ready for it. They wanna they want students who are ready for that, those learning experiences. Yes. Um what about um like this one's more for the parents? I'm gonna go into like some parent parent focused questions, but um, what are some of the common stress repr responses that you see among teens like going through this college application process? How do you manage them? And like what advice would you give to parents managing them?

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Gosh, that's a great question. Okay, yeah. I mean, I think a common a common thing. I mean, I I I would say, and this is a tough one because I'm like a mom going through it myself now, and a writer in addition, who also helps people do this for a living. Um, and yeah, so I mean, it's very easy, like to like, you know, you're being supportive to like cross the line as a parent and then be over. Bearing. Like, and you I've seen I see it a lot in parents, but um the essay needs to authentically be like this the students, not yours, mom. Like, but maybe what you and it's it's tricky because sometimes parents do have wonderful advice, or sometimes they are able to like pull up memories that jog a kid's memory, like, oh, remember when this or that happened. That's a great example of that. But I think um it'd be it's really great to stay out of uh stay out of your kid's sandbox when they're writing the first few drafts, you know, like let them come to you with a draft that's um more of a finished, maybe not final draft, because of course they're gonna be showing it to you and probably their school counselor and you're gonna have some input. Um, but you really can't be overly involved, especially at the start. Um, because that is just, I mean, teenagers are it's very natural in their development to be individuating and pushing back against their parents. So the more you want something, um, the more you risk them pushing back and doing something that's not in their best interest, wanting to write about something that isn't appropriate or doesn't showcase their their best self, just uh to let you know that they don't want you that involved. Um so I think giving students some space um to definitely write their essays um and show you later in the process is a wonderful one. Um I think a common stress response, yeah. So I think a common stress response for students for sure is um to push back or argue with mom and dad. Um I think for sure on the flip side, you also get people who just shut down um or procrastinate. Um I think a lot of times then is uh, and it's common too a little bit later in the process, like as students have written a ton of supplements and they're they've done all their EAs and they're starting to feel a little burnt out. Um they still need to do their RGs. Um, I think it's good to check in and ask and build in some breaks, um, build in, yeah, just be more structured about the timeline and to acknowledge that um there's still a lot going on first semester, senior year, grades are still important. Um, and usually this is when students are heading clubs and really running things at school. Um so students have a lot of demands on their time um and energy um and building in some breaks. Um but that means being really organized in terms of uh how you're meeting your deadlines.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

What are your timeline recommendations and if somebody's got their first student applying to college and they don't, you know, they don't really know what to expect.

SPEAKER_00 46:41

Yeah, I mean, I love starting now. I love that I'm talking to you now because a lot of students are on spring break coming up. Um I love to, before we even get to the end of junior year, kind of have an outline going for a personal statement, have sat down and talked about what we want to write about, and to maybe even have a first draft like um by spring break. Because then really that we know the the biggest, hardest, most important essay that you've written um is well on its way to being done. And then you can really just begin to anticipate the types of supplements that are gonna come out um later in summer, but really we still have a sense of what they're gonna be. You know you're gonna have to write about why you want to major and what you want to major in and why you want to do it at that school. Um and we know you're probably gonna have to write some version of a community essay or an identity essay. Well, no, you can't even write an identity essay anymore. So probably some aspects of a community or lived experience as we call it, essay now. Um so I mean, I think it's nice to even before the end of junior year, um, really spend some time thinking about what you want to write about for your personal statement, um, and maybe even begin to just think about um, you know, what if I had to write about a community, what would be important to me? Um what right, when and how did I figure out that I want to major in this thing? Um, to just also think about how you're gonna distribute the information over the course of your whole application.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

And uh in terms of students who don't want to get started, who just really don't enjoy writing, how do you approach that challenge? Like, you know, getting words on the page is just pulling teeth and they don't want to do it and they've set themselves up for a miserable senior year if you don't intervene.

SPEAKER_00 48:31

I mean that I mean that is the thing about like starting early. I'm always my students who do, um, I'm like, you're gonna be you're you're gonna be going back to school like after Labor Day. Your friends are gonna be like, oh my gosh, what am I gonna write about for my personal statement? Yours is already gonna be done, and like half of your EAs by then are gonna be done, and you're gonna be uh just it relieves so much stress later. Um, and you're also then not rushing at the last minute and you're doing your best work. Um, but that said, I totally get it. Like it is um, you know, uh one of the most high stakes things we're asked to write in our young lives. Um, so I think really just knowing that uh the first step is just getting words on the page. Like you said, it's just filling up the the sandbox to not put too much pressure on your first draft to be perfect because no first draft is ever perfect or sounds on the page the way it does in your head. Um that comes later. So much of writing is rewriting. Um, and that's something I'm always trying to convince my students. Um yeah, okay, like it does it's not gonna come out the way you want it to come out at the start. That's absolutely fine, that's part of the process. Um but one of our colleagues always is always like, but I'm gonna show you like uh months down the line your final draft and compare it to the first draft, and you're not gonna believe how you got from here to there.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

Yeah. Um yeah, I I encountered a lot of students who worry at the first draft stage that it's not good yet. I'm like, don't worry, we got we got we got places to go. I I think you know, for me, one of the things that I I always um kind of filling out or shaping in the writing process is the anecdotes, right? Like, how do you get this anecdote to do what it needs to do in the course of telling this story? And usually the first time a teenager gets an anecdote down on the page, it doesn't have the right message to support the theme. And that's okay. Just get something down on the page, and then as you're figuring out what the how the theme is developing, then you can kind of shape it and make it a different part of that experience. But at least get get it down on the page and remember who was in the room with you and as you said, what it smelled like, what it looked like, what it sounded like.

SPEAKER_00 50:50

Definitely. I love telling my students too about how like when I sat down to write the first draft of um my first book smashed, I it was like um it was literally like a thousand computer pages. Um, so it was like three times the amount it was supposed to be, word count-wise. Um and I believe then too, the publisher was like, um, no, no, this is not in any way publishable. You're gonna have to try again. And so then I had to throw away those thousand pages and go back and then over the course of I think it was like three months, like kind of rewrite the whole thing. But I knew in my head what I I'd already had that first draft and it had served its purpose in helping me get to the next one. Um, but yeah, it's just that's just how it goes. It's the the nature of the beast.

SPEAKER_01 51:39

I have two more questions for you. The first is a more specific question, um, which is and and you may have partially answered it already, but my question is how has your experience working with college applicants in the past informed your approach to supporting your student now, now that you have a child applying?

SPEAKER_00 52:01

Yeah, I think um it's definitely helped me um outline her personal statement with her. Um, I mean, that said, I also sat down and did it with a colleague. Um, I didn't just do it with her, because if it was just the two of us, it would be a lot of um, I don't know, a lot of push and pull. Um so I think uh, but I it really informed and like in terms of uh I was like, what's your mo what was the assignment that was most you're most proud of and meaningful to you? And that actually was something that found her way into her first draft of her um uh personal statement. Also, like we looked at kind of the projects that she's done, like out in the community that have been the most meaningful to her. We were kind of almost looking at all these different pieces and then looking for a thematical way to link them all together. Um, and then also a little bit, and I had to do with her exactly what um you and I were talking about earlier. I was like, well, we also don't want to just be, as we always say, like walking someone through your resume. We want them to get a sense of who you are and how this became important to you. So really thinking a little bit about childhood experiences, challenging ones, what the mindset that grew out of that, um, that maybe informed the things she's interested in studying and the things she's interested in doing. And yeah, I mean, so it was encouraging her to be more vulnerable. She was like, Oh, mom, I don't know if I want to write about that. Um, like when she was a kid, we spent a lot of time in in family court. Um, and she was like, Oh, I don't know, it's too too dark, too real. Um, but then she and she did push back initially, and then she thought about it and she was like, No, you know, I mean, that is why um I make the art that I make. That's why I want to help the people that I want to help. Um uh, and I think she really sat down um and thought about her experiences and really thought about how she could tell it in a way that um gave her the most agency and made the most sense for her. So I think she kind of really got to that wisdom piece, like, oh, here are all of my experiences. Um, here's the thing that connects them, um, the common link. Oh yeah, and here's what I learned along the way. Um, and it wasn't it wasn't something that happened instantly. It was like maybe, you know, these were conversations that happen over the course of a month. So um that's made me um, yeah, just kind of realize that, you know, even with outlining, and that's why it's nice to start early, like coming up with your um topic is is a journey in itself. Like maybe it's something you're thinking of over a number of weeks, over a number of months.

SPEAKER_01 54:49

Yeah, and um I like that you said this because it it opens an opportunity to talk about another thing that is is a tricky balance here, which is that parents' divorce is a no-no topic in general, right? Yeah, and how your child's essay differs from an essay about the parents' divorce is about her experience and what she learned, right? It's her experience in family court and what she learned through the process of making herself heard or saying, you know, articulating what she wanted and really standing firm to that. Right. So then it becomes about her experience through this family change, not about her parents' divorce, which is exactly those are like nuanced differences that I think, you know. I had a I had a student last year that I helped who had this amazing story about her grandfather, who was an immigrant and from his past experience back home where he came from, had learned to most everything. And it was about her experience, like kind of scavenging with her grandfather and making good use of things, right? Amazing. And she expressed a worry to me of like, you know, they say not to write your essay about someone else. And and I said, no, but your essay isn't about him. It's about your relationship with him and what you learned from him. And so that makes your essay about you, and there's like a subtle difference between those things that are an important part of framing and and getting a handle on that. Right. The difference between telling a story about someone else and telling a story about yourself.

SPEAKER_00 56:18

That's absolutely true. And I wish I I have I could read that essay. Um fabulous. Um But yeah, and I think you and I have had these conversations too, because there's lots of people out in like um the world of college admissions, um, essay advisors who like we we don't like the way they encourage the trauma dump, right? Like the trauma dump essay where you're just writing about the worst thing that's ever happened to you, is not going to get you into college unless you are it's a starting point where you learned something, had a revelation. Um, you know, you had this terrible in injury after having been a sports star and you realized um that you it you tapped into your artistic side. I don't know, it just it was a starting point where you learned something, um, or maybe you got more involved in helping people through adaptive sports um while you were recovering as well, like whatever it is. Um a wisdom comes out of it. Like that's the you don't just get credit for living thing, you don't just get credit for surviving, you have to make sense of it and we have to know why it's driving you or why it ignited this other thing that's driving you.

SPEAKER_01 57:30

Yeah, and something happening to you doesn't tell me anything about who you are, but how you responded to something that happened to you does that tells me who you are as a person. Yes. Um last question. Um, which is an open-ended, non-specific question. Are there any other tips or pieces of your advice that you think are important to share with people, parents or students navigating the college admissions process?

SPEAKER_00 57:56

I think just don't, I mean, these you need to have fun with it, I think for sure. Like if you are having fun and enjoying the writing process, and I believe this is true no matter what you're writing, whether you're writing a college essay, whether you're writing a novel, um uh a poem, it's going to be fun for the reader to read. So I think if you can somehow um just shake off the fact that the desired um results that you want to have. If you focus less on the results and more on the process, you're gonna have more fun over the course of telling this story. And it's gonna be actually more successful because it'll be more fun for the person to read. So I think that's that's a big one. Um and just yeah, it is um, it's one of those times where um just telling a story, it reminds me, all of us as humans, we need stories. We're there not a day most of us goes by when we're not watching a Netflix series, listening to a podcast, reading a book. Um, stories have an incredible impact on us as humans. We're hungry for them. So the the you're writing something that the person on the other end actually really wants to read and be inspired by. So this is a willing audience. Um they want to be touched, they want to be inspired. Um, and really the power of a great story can move mountains in terms of college admissions. Um, I don't know about you, Leonor, but sometimes I had a student recently um who was a transfer student who did not have a great transcript, and I thought, oh dear, this is gonna be rough. He told a great story and he's had great results. I mean, it it goes to show. Um, and sometimes it's even acknowledging that uh look, you had some challenges, you had some things you had to learn um and overcome. Um and I think then too, that's why that extra um additional information essay is so important. Um, and again, like uh an invitation to be vulnerable. Yeah, I got a terrible grade in this class. Um, here's what was going on with me. Here's what I was trying to learn and overcome some executive functioning things. Here are the steps I took. Things are different now. I mean, to really encourage you to use that additional information essay um to show the more human side of yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:16

Wonderful. Thank you so much, Goren. This was so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:21

I always love talking to you likewise.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:24

Um uh I hope that if you're listening, you found this helpful. If you have any other questions or topics that you'd like us to discuss on shaping your narrative, please let us know. You can reach us at hello at seeingbeyondadmissions.com and we'll include that in the show notes too. Um, and we will be back with more brilliant nuggets of advice in the future. So we hope to you join us again. And thank you, Corinne. Thank you, you too.