College Essays: From Conception to Submission

Do you want to start working on your Common App essay but don’t know where to start? Are you a parent wondering how to guide your child through the process most effectively? Join us as we walk you through the ins and outs of crafting an effective essay!

In this episode, we discuss the challenging, sometimes fraught, utterly unique writing task that is the college admissions essay. At the nexus of academic, autobiographical, persuasive, and professional writing, the essay challenges students to narrate episodes in their own lives to demonstrate their suitability as candidates. Although it’s hardly the most impactful aspect of the application, it gives students an opportunity to demonstrate their character and accomplishments, as well as to explain any shortcomings in their transcripts and test scores. Writing about oneself can be deceptively complex; the reflection required and the gravity of the process can bring up unexpected executive functioning and social/emotional challenges.

Our conversation explores how to approach this process as efficiently, effectively, and painlessly as possible, with advice for students, parents, and mentors. This starts long before the first word of an essay is typed. We detail the steps necessary to identify and develop an essay topic admissions officers will find persuasive. Then, we recap the prewriting process we detailed in a previous episode, with specific tips for this process. We also urge students to seek feedback throughout the process from a variety of sources, but to own the final editorial decisions.

No matter where you are or your student is in the process, this episode will provide practical, actionable advice to guide you through it. Join us as we navigate it together with loving kindness and good humor.

#CollegeAdmissionsEssay#WritingProcess#CollegeApplicationProcess#ExecutiveFunctioning#Autobiography#GiftedStudents#StudentSupport#ParentingTeens#Prewriting#Editing#Feedback#CollegeReadiness #EducationPodcast 

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Transcript

Common App Essay Tips: Why the College Essay Matters

Ruth 0:00

You're not telling a story, you're letting the reader know where they are. You are a challenging subject to write about. So don't think about what the final product is going to be. Just get the information out there.

Kay 0:12

Welcome to Net Collective, where we navigate everything together. From classroom to college to careers and beyond.

Speaker 1 0:18

I'm Kay McBrudy, career coach and founder of Waterville Partners. I'm Vanita Patel, school psychologist in private practice.

Ruth 0:25

I'm Ruth Hayes, education professional and founder of Fulcio Prep.

Kay 0:30

Net Collective. Navigating everything together, one conversation at a time. Hi, I'm Kay, and welcome to our session on college essay writing. I just had the pleasure of going through this process twice, back-to-back years, with now a freshman and sophomore in college. And I believe we have many rising seniors in our audience that would will find this topic very timely.

Speaker 1 0:55

Yeah, and I have two coming up that will be uh rising juniors. And so I'm so curious to hear what you have to say about this topic. Ruth, I'll be taking copious notes, hanging on to your every word. So, what's the best way to start?

Ruth 1:12

I think the best way to start is to think about what a college essay actually is, a college admissions essay. Um, because it's a very unique writing task. And in some ways, it's different than any other writing we do throughout our lives, or most other writing we do throughout our lives. It's autobiographical, it's persuasive, it's competitive. Um you don't necessarily put it together the way you would an academic essay, but you don't do it as pure autobiography. And there's a lot put into it. So you're doing a lot of reflection about your life, you're thinking about your experiences, where you want to go, what you want to do, and where you want to get for that next step in your life. So it can be um time consuming, it can be emotionally fraught, but it can also be a really um useful and transformative experience across the board.

Vinita 1:57

Probably cathartic too, right? Oh, 100%. Depending on your topic. Okay. That leaves us with a lot to just unravel right there. So what do we do? Are we talking about timeline first, or are we talking about the actual process of the writing first?

Ruth 2:14

So I'm

How to Write a College Essay: 5-Step Framework Explained

Ruth 2:15

gonna break this into five tips, which are sort of chronological across that process, but a lot of them will bleed over into each other. First tip is gonna be to give yourself plenty of time. Second is that you're the expert on your own life. Third is to respect the pre-writing process, fourth is to be concise and clear, and fifth is to gather feedback early and often. Um so the reason I put give yourself plenty of time first is because I think that's undergirding everything else I'm gonna tell you right now. Um, because this does take reflection, because it is an intensive process, give yourself more time than you think you'll need. Um so if we're looking at applying, you know, fall senior year, if it's winter break, junior year, let's start thinking about it. Start, you know, knocking around ideas, thinking about topics, all those things. Um and then if you have a chance, completing it between um junior and senior year is really ideal. So you have it ready to go. You don't have to worry about it.

College Essay Topics: Brainstorming & Choosing the Right Idea

Kay 3:08

Yeah, it's interesting because um being a type A myself, as people may know, um, I actually had a notes app on my phone. Um, I didn't tell my kids this, but I kept one for each of the kiddos. And as things would happen or I would see things from my perspective for potential topics, again, partly because this is my business and I have helped a lot of kids with this process as well. Um, I would just put notes in there and just just and then when it came time for them to actually start the process, I'd ask them to do the same thing. And then after they had done their sort of brain dump of ideas, I shared my list and I said, take what you like and leave the rest. But just to sort of help them pull things out.

Ruth 3:53

Yes, I think that's a great idea. And I would, I would absolutely recommend that to anyone. Just kind of jotting down different things you might want to do, game out how you would talk about them. And at every step in this process, just kind of ask yourself those questions. Is this the best topic I can be using? Am I revealing something useful and unique about myself in it? Um and we're gonna get into that a little bit more in the next point, but you really want to be thinking about a topic that will show um your character, your character growth, your character arc, who you are, what you care about, and why you want to do what you're doing.

Vinita 4:25

So brainstorm, um like that winter break of junior year, somewhere around that timeline. Brainstorm, how many topics? Because I can, I'm thinking about some of my clients and thinking that some may come up with one topic and only want to write about that. Or I can think of a c a couple of other clients where they're gonna come up with 20 topics. So what's a good number of topics somewhere in between one and 20?

Ruth 4:52

So I would honestly would say somewhere in between one and twenty. I don't think you want more than 20. But you can also, you know, they can get combined. I think the re one of the reasons you start so early is just so you can have free form notes, put things together, and you might wind up combining two ideas. Or, you know, an idea that you come up with might lead you to thinking about something else. I'd also say ask people. Like, I think um Kay, what you did for your kids is great if you have, you know, a trusted parent or mentor, um, or even a sibling, you can say, what's something about this that um you you think I you you think would be useful for me to write about and you think would be interesting about me.

Vinita 5:25

Can you give us a couple of good topics that you think would land just so we have a little bit more?

Ruth 5:30

Yeah, well, it it really so um I'm trying to think about good topics that I've seen, and it really can be about anything. I think it's less important what you're writing about than how you're writing about it. If you you want to reveal things about yourself in your life, you want to pull the reader into your world and let them know something that maybe they didn't let know before, let them into some secret knowledge. Um, and you want to be persuasive about why you're gonna be a good student. We're gonna talk about more of the elements in that. But it as long as you're doing those things, I think it really doesn't matter. People because people will say, and we've talked about this before, people will say, Oh, you shouldn't write about sports, or you shouldn't write about this or that. You should write what you can write a compelling essay about. Um and if you can do that and you have because you two people could have the same exact experience, but you've lived it subjectively differently and maybe took lessons differently from it. Um and one person might be able to get a great essay out of it, whereas the other might not.

Speaker 6:25

Okay.

Ruth 6:25

Um and so that's why I'll say one I'll say take notes, but also let the notes sit. So come back to them, leave things, have the notes app open, have the pad of paper open on your desk, and just kind of have things there. Um and also I would say give yourself little deadlines. So just say, you know, by this date, I want to have finished all my brainstorming, or I want to have decided on a topic, I want to have decided on an outline, that kind of thing.

Kay 6:48

I was gonna say one of the things I noticed with either family uh friends or nieces or nephews, because I have a different perspective and I'm not as close to them, I'm not a parent, I actually have been able to brainstorm with almost with people that I know, but I'm not as intimate with. You know what I mean? So, and I think I can offer a different lens for them. So maybe for the listeners to think about who are some of those people in my life that it, you know, it might be a teacher, it might be um your best friend's a coach, it might be your best friend's parents who you spent a lot of time at their house, or you've been on vacation with them, or it anybody that has just a slightly different perspective on you than you may have looking in the mirror.

Vinita 7:34

So it widens your circle of possibilities of topics.

Kay 7:38

Right. Right. Or it could be a summer job that you had, maybe it's a boss or a peer or something along those lines so that you can, or a customer, but somebody else who who may shine a different lens.

Ruth 7:51

Yes, I think that's great advice. And also about having it be someone who's a little bit on the outskirts of your circle, because that's another thing I want us to keep an eye on throughout this process is that it is an emotional and intellectual process. You're looking back on your life, you're thinking about, you know, what you've achieved, what you want to do. And I would say the last piece of giving yourself plenty of time is saving time to feel your feelings. Um and making sure that if there are things you want to go over, if you want to make sure you've got all your stories straight, if you're gonna want to think through things, you're not rushing yourself with that process.

Kay 8:24

The other piece on the time that I have seen firsthand is think about when you're gonna submit these. So if the deadline on the application is October 1st, November 1st, whatever, back that up. You really would pre prefer not to be sailing in at 1159 the night before. Yes. You want to be the early bird that catches the worm. You want to get it in sooner versus later. So set a deadline 30 days before that or whatever, whatever you think is reasonable. If it's on time, it's late. Exactly, exactly. And so think about that and then allow yourself enough time for iterations. That's the one thing, and I know you'll touch on this, but the whole drafting, redrafting, editing, all of that takes so much time. And there's a lot of focus on this main essay, but then there's all those supplemental essays, depending on where you're applying, and those, you know, can take even more time. So uh you've there's just there's a lot of steps that I think get overlooked. Yes. The people just say, oh, I just have to write an essay. And it's like, mm, it it's a bigger process. And and it doesn't have to be unwieldy if you break it into the small bite-sized pieces. Exactly. And you do this by a little bit.

Personal Statement Tips: Show Your Story, Growth & Challenges

Ruth 9:39

Like everything, really. Yes. Yeah. Exactly. So, second point, um, and that leads right into it, is that you are the expert on your own life. Um, and to return to your point, Kay, about having people suggest things um that you can write about, that's a great way to kind of gather information about yourself. You can treat yourself as a research subject, right? You know things about your experience that no one else knows. So, one of the most important things about choosing a topic is to think about what makes you unique. What about your life story is compelling? And sometimes we're so close to our own lives, you know, you can't see the forest for the trees that it's hard to see what's interesting about us, right? Because we do we we do us every day. Um, so getting some feedback on that um can be really helpful. And also you can use this as a space to explain any extenuating circumstances. So if you had a semester with, you know, maybe a little bit worse grades or you had things going on in your personal life or anything like that, that can be addressed. I would just say address it with subtlety. So you never want to be saying, Well, you'll see that I got a C in math. This is and no, you want to be talking about what happened to you that year so that you can put the rest of your transcript and the rest of your application packet into more context for the person who's reading.

Vinita 10:52

So that wouldn't be considered drawing attention to something negative? Like, is it the common app essay? Is that the place to put that? So let's say a student got a C and a D. But then, you know, everything else is good, like solid grades. Where exactly would they address that? In the actual Common App essay or in one of the supplementals?

Ruth 11:12

What would be better? It could be both or either, depending on where you're going with it. So for example, if you were having, you know, uh you were dealing with an illness, and that's why you got that C and that D, you can tell that story of how you dealt with the illness. And you can maybe even bring in, you know, I was disappointed because of this or that, or I grew through. But I think the most important thing about bringing anything negative in is that you want to flip it to the positive. So you want to show how you grew through it, what you learned from it, um, how you've matured from it. Um, and without saying it too explicitly, show, don't tell, um, how this is gonna make you a better student and a better candidate for that university.

Vinita 11:50

Gotcha.

Ruth 11:51

Okay.

Vinita 11:51

Okay.

Ruth 11:52

Um and then also under that category, I would say use thick description to share your world. Um, so we really want to be thinking about who you are, how you've experienced your life, and how whatever topic you're talking about has prepared you for what's coming next. And part of how you do that is think about um sense memories of things. So instead of just saying, you know, I um got up and went swimming on the beach every day, describe what it looked like, describe what it felt like. Um, describe uh how what the smells were, what the sounds were. Um and we're gonna get into that in the next step, but really bringing people in by a number of different adjectives and descriptor words and trapping between the senses, like what you said.

Kay 12:40

What I've seen firsthand, again, because you did help us, our offspring, with some of their essays with editing. Um and it's interesting because my husband and I have been essay editors throughout high school. And when you joined the team, we now are all better editors because of that. And and the thick description, I loved how you um helped our children become better writers and you helped us become better writers as parents. Thank you. Because you would ask, what do you like about that paragraph? You know, what do you like about that sentence? And then you would say, and how would you describe that? And how many senses can you bring into that? And how and so just asking those questions of the writer, whoever's writing the essay, helps them think about things differently and articulate things in a way that they can then paint a picture for the reader. Because I always put myself in that reader's position. And I as a parent, I may only read one or two essays. That's great. As an admissions counselor, I am reading thousands of essays. And so I think about, you know, writing for busy readers.

Ruth 13:51

Yes.

Kay 13:51

And and how do you write so that you capture their attention and they really do get, they almost feel like they've got a a, you know, a h hologram of your, you know, something in front of them that they can actually envision who it is that they're reading about.

Ruth 14:06

Exactly. Yeah, your first sentence should always be something of this. You're not telling a story, you're letting the reader know where they are, right? You know, so the sun was on your face, the sand was under your feet, whatever it was, bring the reader into it. Um, and part of the way you ensure that you're making that part of it compelling is our third tip, which is to respect the pre-writing process. So, as I said, you are a challenging subject to write about. A lot of times people assume that if since they just in finger quotes have to write about themselves, it's gonna be super easy and they'll kind of sail through it. But it can also be a lot more fraught, and you're much more emotionally invested in your own life stories than about, say, the Krebs cycle or something like that. Um so one of the things you can do is check out our episode that we did on pre-writing, which digs a little bit more into everything that goes into the process from conception to having

College Essay Prewriting: Outlines, Structure & Planning

Ruth 15:00

an outline and being ready to draft. Um, but I would also recommend writing out your life stories as source material. This goes back to that note-taking and putting things together. Before you ever write, worry about how you're going to put together an essay about the topic, just write down everything that you remember and everything about it. That's gonna help you just have it as you know, neutral source material so you're not kind of mixing your tasks and thinking too much about how you're gonna put it together as you're getting the the information together. Um, but that also gives you more chances to discover other patterns and other topics you might want to um work with, maybe for those supplemental essays, right? So if you have, if you have to write 250 words about why you want to be an engineer, that might come up in some notes you're taking about the summer camp that you've been volunteering at.

Vinita 15:46

Can you do this if you're struggling between a couple of different topics?

Ruth 15:50

100%. Yes.

Vinita 15:51

So do this lockstep, like you know, I want to either write about um why I want to become an engineer, and also I want to talk about my summer at the beach and how that shaped me, or you know, something like that. But you can only pick one.

Ruth 16:04

Yeah. And I think that that process can help you pick, right? So as you write out just the the information about it and also what directions you might go with it. And what did I learn from this? How have I grown? How does this relate to my career path? That can show you topics you might not have thought of, but it can also really help you to um conceptualize how you want to talk about it. So, and I really believe in doing undirected pre-writing. So don't think about what the final product is gonna be, just get the information out there and have it ready to look for and look for those patterns and narratives that you might not see, you know, because you don't always you don't read your own life like a novel. You're not always looking for motifs and things, but that can emerge.

Kay 16:43

Well, there's also, I think a lot of high schools will have their college counselors do some essay workshops in the summer. There's other companies that will do essay workshops in the summer. And the ones that I've participated in as a coach, um clients will come with two, three topics and not know which one to pick. And so part of the workshop will be to help them sort of flush those out. And usually one of them will emerge as something that either while you're talking about it to the coach or the mentor, you just light up. You know, and it's or or when you um as an objective person hear these three stories, one of them really sounds more interesting and compelling. And so that's why, you know, back to your earlier point about getting people sort of on the periphery of your life that that can understand enough about your three stories or two stories or whatever, and and maybe offer a suggestion. But at the end of the day, whoever's writing it about themselves, it's their choice to write whatever is in their heart.

Ruth 17:45

Exactly. And we're gonna get into that when we talk about feedback. But that's why feedback is so important throughout the process and that dialectical element of it, sometimes you don't realize what you remember or what you know or what you can analyze until someone kind of pulls it out. So having um that process of going back and forth, making a short list, maybe even jotting down a couple of outlines. And I would say, you know, take notes throughout this and make different outlines. You can experiment with outlines, you can think about um the order that you want to narrate events, you can think about how you want to structure an essay, all of those things, and just kind of mess with the structure to see what's gonna be best.

Vinita 18:21

And I think that some topics lend themselves to be more vulnerable and to show your values and to be more reflective than other topics might. So I don't know. I would I would be more comfortable writing about um a topic that's gonna pull those things out of me because isn't that what colleges are looking for? They want to know who you are, right?

Ruth 18:47

They want to know who you are, they want to know your values, they want to know what your character is like, they want to know why you want to do what you're doing. Um what value would you add to their campus if you're gonna be on there?

Vinita 18:57

Yeah. How do you contribute? How are you contributing student body? Right. How can you show that? How can that be highlighted in a whatever 200, 300 word essay?

Ruth 19:08

Exactly. And that's why if you can give yourself, and that's one of the things you can look for in that pre-writing process is, you know, kind of a character arc. Um, how do where did you start? Where did you end up? Um, how did this experience change you for the better? How did you mature? All of those things are great ways to get a through line to put the essay together.

Vinita 19:26

Do you do you ever recommend, or when you're working with students, Ruth, doing like a questionnaire with with students to bring some of this out? Like name the top three values that you live by, or what are your top five interests, or what's your most memorable childhood experience, or something like that. Like, do you ever recommend that?

Ruth 19:51

Yes, I don't think you need to do it that systematically. Um, because I think the free form aspect of it is really good. You can kind of free associate to a certain extent. But yeah, just having a conversation with someone about what are significant things that have happened to you? What do you think would be good to write about? Um, and kind of talking out what's there can can really help. And then going through some of those questions, like, you know, where have I been? Um, what do I um what have my some some of my experiences been, what is compelling about this, and then just getting some different notes out.

Vinita 20:22

Okay.

College Essay Writing Tips: Clarity, Editing & Strong Openings

Ruth 20:23

Um so fourth tip is gonna be to be concise and clear. So we're just talking about outlining, make outlines plural, um, and experiment with those structures. And another thing is to not be bound by chronology. Um, so a lot of times we're used to writing in academic writing about, you know, you write a history essay and you're starting from the beginning and going to the end. Whereas in this kind of personal narrative writing, a lot of times you can drop into the middle of the action and work your way out. You can do more of a montage where you're bringing in different, you know, vignettes from different parts of your life, and you can put them together in whatever order you want.

Vinita 20:59

And um, what about following like a certain theme? How important is that? And then bringing that theme back to who you are. Like I think I shared with you um someone wrote about how they love going to escape rooms and how every other sentence was about how they use their logic or their interest and their, you know, analytical skills in these escape rooms, which would ultimately show, but the entire thing was about the theme was escape rooms, but how they weaved in who they were through that theme.

Ruth 21:35

Exactly. Yeah, it can you can have a theme. Um you can um center it around one particular experience in your life and maybe branch out and talk about other parts of your personal history and how that affects what you want to do going forward. Um, you can think about maybe several episodes, you know, and and theme it around um one location. So I've worked with a student who, you know, talked about a beach she'd gone to throughout her life. Um, you can talk about But you know, maybe learning music, or if you're involved in a faith community, going there and talking about different things that have happened at different points. And you really just want to think about what's compelling, right? Don't waste time on exposition.

Vinita 22:12

Um what does exactly that mean? So like the facts of the facts, laying out what happened.

Ruth 22:18

So, you know, when I was in eighth grade, I went to this orchestra competition and I had a good time. Instead of that, you know, I sat on the bus gazing out the window, why wondering what was going to happen next. And you want to give them a little bit of guesswork. You only want to have as many words as you need to convey your meaning and no more.

Vinita 22:35

So focus on the experience and the insight that you gained from it versus the performance and then the the to-do list. You're not writing a to-do list for your college essay.

Ruth 22:46

Exactly. And also, and to add to that, interrogate your words and sentences. Every single word has to have a good reason to be there. And because you wrote it is not a good enough reason. So whenever you do a new draft or you go through another outline, think about if this is contributing to the story you're trying to tell, right? Getting into that character arc, digging into that into that theme. And is it unique enough? Do you not have that information or that sentiment somewhere else so that you need it? Um, and sometimes there can be a little redundancy if you're doing that thick description, but just think about is there an emotion that I want this to evoke? Is there information that I want this to convey? Is there a tone that I want this to set? And if it's not doing one of those things, vote it off the island.

Kay 23:30

Well, I was gonna say anyone listening could just recap that last little piece and anytime they're writing, put that on their shoulder. And literally, this is what our family does now. It's like, what would Ruth say? And and so, but asking yourself those questions will make you a more concise, focused writer, and your readers will appreciate that.

Ruth 23:53

Yes. And that's one of the things I find most useful in my own editing is just asking myself, are these two adjectives distinct enough that I need both of them? Are these two sentences giving the same information? Can I take elements of both of them and make a better one, or can I get rid of one altogether? Right. And that's always going to help you, especially in these short spaces. Um, and we've been talking throughout the conversation about those shorter supplements, but really huge piece of advice is do not let those short supplements sneak up on you. Because I've seen a lot of students will say, Oh, I have everything done. I just have to do four or five 50-word essays, and it's like, no, there's so much work. Um, in some ways, I think it's more difficult to write 50 words than to write 500 because it's almost like a haiku. Every single one of those words becomes so important. Um, and you really have to think about if you want to use the space for something. Um, so I would say use all of those pre-writing things for those short essays. It doesn't matter how short it is, write out what you want to do, think about what you want to convey in each of your sentences, and think about how you want to use your language.

Kay 24:51

And

Supplemental Essays Guide: Short Answers & Time Management

Kay 24:52

what I've found, um, having gone through the process recently, is that some of the supplemental essays will be incredibly unique by university, and some of them will overlap. So, for example, they might ask about why this major or why this university. So your answer will be tailored to that university per se, but elements of it you're gonna are being gonna be somewhat consistent. Do you know what I mean? And so you know, doing those, looking at all of those and seeing where there's some that you can repurpose and where there's ones that are completely standalone and unique and and and tackle those completely separately. But allowing enough time, and I would say almost as much time as your 500-word essay because it really, to your point, it does matter. And there are some, you know, companies that may offer uh through like parents benefit programs or something access to college counselors that will give essay feedback. But a word to the wise, if anyone is using any of those, just know that there's a lead time involved. Yes. So if you give them the essay a week before it's due, it may take two weeks for them to get it turned around to get the feedback. So you really have to be mindful of whoever you're asking for feedback, that what is the reasonable lead time for them to get back to you?

Ruth 26:11

Yeah,

College Essay Feedback: Editing, Revisions & Final Draft Tips

Ruth 26:12

that's a great thing to do early in the process, right? As you're setting those deadlines, setting up your timeline. Um, think about because also your teachers and coaches are gonna have a lot of people asking them for feedback, asking them for letters of recommendation during this process. You want to make sure you get people's time and energy. Um, even if sometimes even if someone wants to give you their time, they don't have it if you don't give them enough lead time. And that leads us perfectly into our fifth and last tip, which is to gather feedback early and often. So every step of this process, from brainstorming, talking out different ideas, um getting your outline together, thinking about different orders and different structures to experiment with, um, ask people. Um, so as like we've talked about teachers, parents, mentors, um, peers, coaches, um anyone who knows you, um, you can check in with them. And then once you have a draft to work with, you can go through it with lots of different people. Um, and you can always uh, and again, give yourself time. The number one thing is give yourself time to digest that, to think about it, and to think about which pieces of that advice you want to use.

Kay 27:15

And I've also seen that a lot of the high schools, the English teachers in the first semester senior year, that is one of the first assignments that they tackle in most of the English classes is getting their college essay written. So if you do that over the summer, guess what? You're gonna get another set of eyeballs on something that you've already thought through. You're not having to go through that whole process that we've just, you know, laid out in a couple of weeks. Like you want to give yourself months to really digest.

Vinita 27:46

Most high schools have the Academic Resource Center or the writing center that that have a couple of people there devoted for college essay writing. So you don't have to get a fancy company to look over your stuff. You can you can go and and use local resources. Use the resources that are that are right there. So so what about um our our students who have a learning disability, ADHD, executive functioning disorder, dyslexia? And they want to write about it because it's a part of their um their academic identity, and they have many um stories about growth and perseverance and resilience, etc. How do you feel about students writing about that? And if so, where should that go?

Ruth 28:37

That's a great question. I would say if you are going to write a compelling essay anyway, and that life experience that you're pulling out or that theme from your life that you're pulling out has to do with that diagnosis, write about it. Otherwise, it can come up in some of those smaller essays, right? So supplementals, if they're asking you about, you know, your personality type, you know, they sometimes they have those off-the-wall ones, you know, if you were an ice cream, what would you be? And things like that. And you can think about bringing it out. Um, and also think about what you want to gain from sharing that experience. What about you does that reveal? Why is that an important part of your experience, your character, your personality, your history, um, and contextualize it within the rest of what you're writing about. And that can also be someone's superpower. Yeah.

Vinita 29:24

I mean, brightest of minds have a learning disability or ADHD, executive functioning disorder. So, you know, um, I think that that can also be turned into positives if it if it already hasn't been.

Ruth 29:37

100%. Yeah. And even just from a you know, disability rights perspective, I don't think it necessarily is, you know, it's not a negative about someone. It's something, it's an aspect about you.

Vinita 29:46

It's it's how you think. And I think that that's a really important piece of what should go in any essay that's about you, whether it's a college essay or an essay uh for class, it's like tell me about yourself or why are you doing this? It's I think the reader wants to walk away with how you think, what you value, what might have shaped you, what memories are important to you. Um you know, like who who are you and how are you going to contribute to our space? Yes.

Ruth 30:16

And that brings us exactly to the last tip I was gonna share was to make these final decisions yourself because you know yourself and you're the only person ultimately who's responsible for your future. And that's, you know, another one of the things that can be fraught about this process is that this is kind of one of the first steps in adulthood. You're really moving out of your childhood, you're thinking about what you're gonna do as your career, what you're gonna do in the future. So get feedback from all these people, but do what you want to do. Um, evaluate, and no matter how much you respect someone, you ultimately have to decide what you're gonna do for yourself. Right.

Kay 30:51

Do you want to give us a recap of the five points?

College Essay Recap: Final Tips for a Strong Application Essay

Ruth 30:54

That's a great idea. Yeah. All right. Five points. Give yourself plenty of time, cannot emphasize that enough. You are the expert on your own life. So make sure you're going through and thinking about what's unique about you. Respect the pre-writing process, and again, devote enough time to it. Be concise and clear, interrogate your words and sentences, make sure everything's there for a reason, and gather feedback early and often.

Vinita 31:17

Okay. Awesome. That's great. And then a couple of other things that I gathered as I was listening to you talk is show, don't tell. Yes, always. Well, you had already mentioned this. Use use some of those words that are are depth, you know, that show that show depth and show your values, how you think, who you are, maybe also who you want to be.

Ruth 31:39

Yes, who you want to be, yeah, and why and where you want to go. Also, um, divulge your secret knowledge. You know, not everyone knows what it's like to be in a play or um play the violin or be in a sports camp. Talk about what's unique about that and get into the everyday nitty-gritty that someone else might not know.

Vinita 31:57

Okay. Well, this is great. And I know we're gonna continue to have some more conversations about this, uh writing as an as an overall topic. Um and uh thanks so much for sharing all this knowledge with us.

Kay 32:11

All right, go have fun there, write some great essays. Let's do it. If today's conversation resonated with you, please share this episode with anyone who may need it, and follow us at netcollective.org or wherever you get your podcast so you won't miss what's next. We are Net Collective, navigating everything together, one conversation at a time. Thanks for listening.